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" Throughout the country, you can now drop a hundred (or a few thousand) bones to have a butcher show you how to cut up an animal. The classes are in some ways a counter to the waning apprentice tradition in the butchery industry, thanks in no small part to the mushrooming of packing houses. And it&amp;#039;s good for a man to know what cuts are what. But know this: Being a butcher is much more than being a meat-cutter. As Tom Chiarella&amp;#039;s own stint learning the full scale of the work with some &amp;quot;big, chockablock guys in aprons, Sharpies tucked in shirt pockets, wrists like baseball bats&amp;quot; expounds, it&amp;#039;s about a more fundamental understanding. One that he struggled with when he encountered his first customer, an elderly lady who wanted\u2014along with some lean ground beef and two flank steaks, unmarinated\u2014four center-cut, bone-in pork chops with chined bones: You can&amp;#039;t be a butcher unless you know what you&amp;#039;re selling, and I&amp;#039;ll be damned if I knew what chining the bone meant. There was a piece of paper in my pocket on which I&amp;#039;d inscribed the various cuts, their names in rows as they were in the case. Along the top, it read, Chuck-Rib-Short loin-Sirloin. Below: Round. Shank and brisket, plate and flank. What good was that doing me now? Chining the bone? It sounded like some sex thing, or a music term. I didn&amp;#039;t look like a butcher; I looked like a placeholder. A butcher moves in an informed, muscular fashion, slides the cooler doors with authority, plucks the product, an awkward arm&amp;#039;s-length away, with some aplomb. I didn&amp;#039;t know the first step of that dance. The woman looked left, then threw her head back, glancing at the rear of the store. &amp;quot;Is Shawn here?&amp;quot; she said. Look, if you can\u2014because most butchers would rather spend their time sawing and slicing than teaching a novice\u2014take the classes. Learn your way around an animal carcass. It&amp;#039;s good. But know, too, that, even in the age of online information totality, some knowledge remains the province of the true, hulking masters. And respect them. Because those true masters, sadly, are a dying breed. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/a17310/butcher-classes-15039920/?click=news>