Lessons in Butchery: The Hands that Shaped Me

It’s very easy for a job like butchery to get in your bones, and it’s definitely a core part of who I am today. This National Butcher’s Week, I’ve been thinking of how and why this all started happening. At the time it all felt like a happy coincidence but on reflection, it does seem that me ending up in butchery and meat was meant to be. If you can bear to follow my train of thought, I can walk through how it all seems to stitch together.

At school, my work experience was in a vets, because I felt so drawn to animals and their wellbeing since my early childhood (I was instigator-in-chief of the adoption of a stray cat, later named Tara, that hid in my dad's workshop, nibbling his lunch when he wasn't looking). My sisters are vegetarian but again, this is because our whole family take eating meat seriously – we thought long and hard about it and I ended up here and they ended up there. I knew I wanted to work with food, but so many chefs I worked with in kitchens had lost their passion, I couldn't let food 'become a job' (seeing a gifted chef hammer a chip butty for lunch and say he wants to eat enough chips to not have to bother eating dinner was eye-opening and mildly earth shattering).

I have always gotten great satisfaction out of working and creating with my hands just like my dad and grandad (both upholsterers) and on graduating from uni felt this calling more than ever, throwing myself into the trade that I’d dabbled in as a kid as a Saturday boy in our local shop, being paid in pork shoulders and scotch eggs at the time. The opportunity of learning butchery in the West End of London was thrilling, and the depth of knowledge of centuries of butchery offered endless resource for plundering. When all that comes together, it feels inevitable, but ten years ago it felt like a good bit of luck to find a role and be paid to do something I enjoyed doing so much.

Porchetta wraps up so much of my ethos on butchery - it's a roast steeped in tradition. I dare you to fall into the Italian porchetta YouTube hole that I dropped into so many years ago when seeking inspiration for my own take. They balance a carcass and feed a crowd. Sausage meat from offcuts is rolled back through the extended belly section of the pig. Some bigger ones are made with the full loin too. Some are made from whole pigs. Any number of seasonal herbs and stuffing can be used to set off the flavours, and the gentle, long roast means you can’t help but build excitement for the big feast. In Rome you can’t move for porchetta sandwiches, thinly sliced and studded with cracking, served the same way for centuries.

This joint, like me, is a product of the wisdom and patience of all the butchers I've worked with. My old boss Martin was the first person to tell me this joint even existed, as part of his horizon broadening mission for an excitable young apprentice. My method is to ‘pin bone’ the ribs like my old mentor Terry taught me, leaving trenches for the stuffing to fill. I butterfly the muscles as much as I dare, just like I did with Doug in Barnes. This means we can maximise the transcendence of the wild garlic sausagemeat - a sausage I made with my first manager, one Mr Steve. I then carefully remove the eye of the loin with a few mm of back fat for pork loin steaks or very fancy pork roasts, like JR showed me. I score the rind while the meat's still on the bone to give perfectly straight crackling strips, a tip my friend Joel gave me when we were on the block together in Ealing. I make sure no rind wraps inside the joint, like Paul, the owner of the first shop I worked in showed me, and I tie the joint with the knot I learned from Liam, the only butcher patient enough to teach a cackhanded left hander how to do everything backwards.

Rolling something like a porchetta this National Butcher’s Week is a great way to reminisce on just some of the people I'm grateful to in this industry. The therapy of letting muscle memory kick in and progressing on sight and feel alone takes you out of your head and lets you reflect, before taking to WhatsApp and seeing which of the old guard are around for a beer this weekend. You can give our humble porchetta a try via our website today or stay tuned for a very special edition made with foraged wild herbs coming this Easter (and launching very soon!). And next time you pop a boned and rolled joint in the oven, take a beat and marvel at the craftsmanship in your hands.

 Sam