North Platte, Nebraska is a typical Midwestern town. There are more pickup trucks than cars, football and NASCAR are the only sports worth talking about, Country music plays on nine of the eleven radio stations, and cows are for eating not milking. It has one thing that most towns don’t, though, a village butcher. If you drive north, just shy of the city limits, down a dirt road, pass the broken down houses with yards full of rusted farm equipment, past the construction company with pyramid-size piles of sand outside, you’ll find a small tin roofed concrete building painted sky blue. On the side of the building, in white letters, is "Johnny’s Meat Packing". The inside is no more glamorous. A single antique upright cooler on the left displays an assortment of sausages, ground meats, and pates. The only other fixture in the room is a small wooden counter with the classic silver bell that says "Ring for Service". The lobby is completely vacant. It's deer season and the entire staff of Johnny’s (four total) is in the back, cutting meat brought in by hunters as fast as is humanly possible.
I’ve been going to Johnny’s since I was six or seven years old. I would drive out with my Dad on Saturday mornings and pick up some extra hamburger (20% fat please!) or sausage links. In the fall, my parents would buy half a pig or a quarter of beef. That’s what people do in the Nebraska. Everyone has the crypt-size freezer in the basement or garage stocked with meats wrapped in shiny white butcher paper.
My parents still live in that small, midwestern town and when I go back to visit, I always make a trip out to Johnny's. I knew Johnny’s was a special place when I was young, but I didn’t realize how unique it was until I left for college and traveled around the country.
The village butcher is a relic of the past, a memory for most Americans. In a country of fast food, online shopping, giant chain-supermarkets and mega-department stores, no one is willing to be inconvenienced by making a separate trip just to buy meat. The number of butcher shops in America is near extinction levels. Butcher shops thrive in other parts of the world, so why not here? Is it because Americans don’t have respect for their food and treat it like another immediate commodity in our disposable, quick-as-you-can society? Does it just take too much time to make a separate trip? Are we afraid of the personal contact that comes from talking with the butcher? Are we ignorant of what good meat really is? The answer is elusive and probably a combination of several factors.
The question we need to ask ourselves is, “Do I really care where the meat I buy comes from and how it is processed?” The answer, I hope, is ‘yes’. We buy organic produce. We read the label on the box and count the number of ingredients we don’t know. So, why don’t we care about the meat? One reason is we don’t have a choice. The meat department of the supermarket has only one selection and you choose the best you can from what’s available.
But don’t despair. You have a secret weapon. That secret weapon is the butcher. You can’t see him, but he’s there, in the back doing the same job butchers have done for hundreds of years. Butchers have not disappeared from America. They’ve been swallowed up by the supermarket leviathan along with the village baker and the fishmonger. Some of these butchers are real artisans, professionals proud of what they do.
Seek out the butcher and pull him from the cave into the light. Make him your friend. Butchers have a wealth of knowledge and enjoy talking about their profession. With a butcher as your friend, you can enjoy the best cuts of meat sliced to your specifications. You can influence the type of meats he buys and prepares, even making special orders. And most butchers are good cooks, too. They know the best way to prepare that piece of meat to make a spectacular dinner.
So the next time you’re in the meat department of the supermarket, don't idly snatch up that cellophane-wrapped, prepackaged bundle of meat. Seek out the butcher. Shake his hand and thank him for his hard work, then ask him some questions. Most people like to talk about their work. Before you know it, you'll have a friend in the meat business and access to some really prime cuts.
