You will note, please, that Chris Marquez is covered in tattoos and piercings, yet wears a tie when he's in public. He's a butcher by trade and training, and works for Bill the Butcher, a chain of six shops in the Seattle area. Last night, in Wallingford, he made short work of a 200-lb. hog from Tails & Trotters, a farm outside Portland, Ore.
With saw, scimitar and boning knife, Marquez first removes the head, then the jowls (guanciale, highly prized by Italian chefs), the coppa, or neck collar, then the trotters, then the hocks. Shoulder, rack, loin. (The butt isn't the pig's butt but its shoulder, in butcher-speak.) Ending with the hams, at the back end of the animal, skin on, skin off, smoked, boneless.
If you're content buying your Easter ham at Safeway or Freddie's, if it doesn't matter to you where they get their meat or how the frozen carcasses were rammed through a bandsaw, then you'll be put off by the prices at a custom butcher shop. But if you care about what you put on your plate and into your mouth, well, that's a whole different story. The difference per serving is probably less than the cost of a beer.
At the Northwest Foodservice Show this week, Seattle-based Corfini Gourmet and Portland-based Nicky USA were also touting the virtues of meat without chemicals. This just might be the moment for a heightened awareness that chickens, goats, lambs, pigs and beef can be raised humanely.
As for Bill the Butcher, the fledgling company seems to have weathered its latest storms. Its ceo, J'Amy Owens, just announced plans to open 10 stores in Oregon.
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