I’m not a vegetarian but along with many people eat nowhere near as much meat as I used to. I have happy memories of when I did go to butchers shops to buy, and in some ways I was unusual. It was almost always the woman in th a family who went to see the butcher.

By their very nature butchers were always big blokes wearing the regulation striped aprons of their trade. Very unlikely to find a man wearing an apron back in those days, other than butchers, and they tended to be big butch blokes too with a bit of a swagger. Streets with 2 or 3 butchers shops were common in towns, but not now. Supermarkets seem to have taken the blood out of butchery. Packaging the meat into polystyrene packs with little paper towels under the meat to soak up the blood. The reality of dead animals hanging from a ceiling no longer seems to be acceptable. When is the last time you’ve seen a delivery from an abattoir to a butcher on the high street. Perhaps they do it at night.

There are brave souls out there who still trade ‘like the good old days’, but not very many.

One of the rites of the old butcher was to ask the lady : “What can I get you today Madam?” This said with a twinkle in the eye and a friendly smile. Sometimes dithering housewife might ask what he would suggest and he’d be quick to point at the sausages knowing the huge mark up he’d be getting from the unknown ingredients therein. Or he might suggest a juicy bit of steak. The more confident housewife would of course insist on the usual. Minced beef might have been cheap but she knew that the contents might have some bits of the cow she’d rather not know about, so might insist that he take a piece of steak there and then and mince it in front of her.

It was quite a different world in some ways, but nowadays people eat burgers where they know little about the origin, so perhaps some things haven’t changed.

Once the butcher was done with cutting and mincing he’d hand over the carefully wrapped in several layers of paper package, and press the meat into the hand of the buyer. With a little remark and a raised eyebrow like ‘That should keep hubby happy’. I call this the Butchers Press, it’s thankfully rare these days, as are the butchers who did it, but I recall witnessing it quite often and thinking it completely ‘Yuck!’

There are still a couple of butchers on one street in my local town, a rarity indeed. One seems to be struggling a little with reduced display in the window, the other opposite ( they are on either side of the road ) has the look of a thriving business. It’s perhaps helped by its lovely old fashioned look and someone in the back room who’s mentioned marketing. This Christmas however they have gone back to the “Butchers Press” approach. Their Christmas window display features all four of the strapping fellows who serve in this shop, all holding a piece of meat, and wearing the butchers apron, but only the butches apron. They give the impression of being naked! It’s the meat equivalent of one of those popular calendars that featured ladies from the WI posing naked with their knitting. Plastered all over the front of the shop window with the real meat behind them. I was walking past yesterday contemplating a pork chop when one look at that encouraged me to walk on. It’s the modern equivalent of the Butchers Press and just as ‘Yuck!’

It’s enough to make the most ardent meat eater turn to nut roast.