An elderly customer taught me something about beef aging that I still think about

I was trimming a ribeye at the counter in my shop in Portland when this old guy walks up. He watched me for a minute, then said "you're cutting off too much of the fat cap, son." He told me his father was a butcher in the 50s and they always left a thick layer on because it kept the meat from drying out during a 30 day dry age. I told him modern customers want less fat, and he just shook his head. Has anyone else had an old timer give you advice that goes against what your customers ask for?

3 comments

3 Comments

jordancoleman2mo ago

Yeah because nothing says "I know what I'm doing" like taking advice from a guy who probably still calls it a "horseless carriage." Next time just tell him your customers are paying for lean meat not a geology lesson on fat deposits.

valsullivan16d ago

Geology lesson on fat deposits" is a great line but you're missing the point. Old school butchers learned from decades of handling whole animals, not from a blog written last Tuesday. If that guy has been slicing skirt steak since before fajitas were trendy, maybe he knows something about keeping the meat tender that modern recipes skipped.

lily3602mo ago

My buddy in Chicago had an old guy at his shop insist he was cutting skirt steak wrong for fajitas. Told him the long way is the only way, even though every modern recipe says cross-grain.