There is something about the smell of sawdust that always reminds me of the butcher shop in my old neighborhood during the early 1950’s.
It was just one of several stops on mom’s weekly shopping agenda. I stood off to the side, kicking the sawdust with my feet into little piles and then spreading them out again to occupy my time while mom placed her order.
Mom would point to the cut of raw meat in the refrigerated case and ask the butcher to slice a piece to a particular thickness for the dinner steak we would be eating. He would take the meat over to a band saw, cutting it to order and then walk over to the pounding table.
The huge square wooden block, around two feet across, was located in the center of the floor where Johnny (everyone knew the names of the shop owners and they knew their regular customers) the butcher would take the steak or chops you ordered and proceed to pound them out on both sides with a large wooden mallet, thus tenderizing the meat.
This was standard procedure back then before meats were pre-soaked in tenderizing agents. It was a time you could watch the proprietor ply his trade, slicing, trimming, grinding, pounding to order, all within plain view of the customer. If you wanted chicken or fish, you had to go down a few stores to the live poultry and fish market because Johnny only sold meat.
Johnny would have some prepared ground beef in the case, but like most customers, mom wanted to pick out her slice of round steak or sirloin. Johnny the butcher then took the steak, trimmed off the excess fat and shove it through the grinder located behind the counter but still in plain view. All this was included in the price per pound. The meat was then wrapped in white paper and tied with a string. The butcher would write in pencil what was inside the package if you had more than one.
Back in those days, a kid could be fascinated watching the butcher’s cleaver whack down and separate pork into butterfly chops, or wipe his hands on the blood soaked apron stained from a day’s work. Nowadays everything comes prepackaged and you can buy everything in one mega-stop store. You probably could pick out a steak and give it to the guy behind the meat counter to grind up for you, but it will be taken into the back room and you wont see what is going on which is part of the fun.
Even when our family moved ten miles away, until he retired, mom would order her weekly cuts of meat from Johnny and he would deliver. That’s how much people trusted their local shop owners and the kind of loyalty shop owners and customers had toward each other.
Gone, for the most part, are the local family owned butcher shops, bakeries, grocer and dairy stores. But more importantly, gone is the loyalty that once existed. Oh, and the smell of sawdust!
