old butcher shops
jeanette posted on the 20/10/2021 11:31:30 PM
I'm wondering when the butcher shops in Dennistoun stopped hanging whole or half animal carcasses on the customer side of the shop---- with the sawdust underneath. I know they were still doing it in the late 1960's. Did it go beyond that?
- 4 Replies :
#1 - john replied on the 22/10/2021 12:54:38 PM
Hi jeanette,
the practise of not delivering complete sides of beef would end when we lost the dead meat market in Glasgow ,late 70's I think and it was part of the so called hygiene improvements.
There was a movement to get away from carrying beef with flatbed lorries , I think Brown's and Glasgow Hiring Co, they were manned with a driver and a {humpher} or porter and the beef was carried in between the two men with one at the rump and one at the shoulder, then lifted with block and tackle, this enabled the beef to be hung for a week to ten days and matured in the shop with minimum cut faces exposed.
However all the brain surgeons objected to the meat lying on the lorry and insisted it be hung from the roof in refrigerated vans , now it is difficult to get a van tall enough to hang a side of beef therefore it necessitates all beef is quartered prior to delivery, this then exposes wet cut surfaces and starts the rot process , these are also then hung in chills , or worse still boned and so called matured in vacuum packs, meat packed in any form of plastic cannot breathe the vacuum process expels blood and fluids causing it to lie in sour blood, not the best in my opinion .
However I am an out of date dinosaur that the powers that be got rid of years ago , I bet you never expected that rant as an answer and I know it is an opinion not wanted these days , but valid just the same in my opinion.
Hope this more than answers your queries
Kind Regards John Ramage
#2 - jeanette replied on the 25/10/2021 11:31:07 PM
Thanks for your reply John. It was very informative. I can see I've hit a nerve so I'm guessing you were involved in the meat trade. I don't like those vacuum-packed meats either. No doubt I'm a bit of a dinosaur myself. I also think it's hardly any wonder that some kids don't connect what they eat with animals if they don't ever see one hanging up.
#3 - john ramage replied on the 31/10/2021 9:30:48 PM
Hi Jeanette,
sorry about the rant but we were far better off in so many ways when retailers were smaller Glasgow had three thriving fresh produce markets supplying them and folks bought fresh produce daily.
These days we hear all the talk about shelf life , convenience and marvellous offers , my question is who's convenience ? from where I sit it certainly is not the customer .
We are now facing produce from everywhere except our own producers , wrapped in materials the world is sinking under the supply chain is run by folks with accountants logic, we need to get back to everything done closer to the point of consumption , but I am not that mad really it is a pipe dream , we had it right and allowed the curse of man Greed to take over and i fear like everything else wrong today it is a many headed problem with no easy solutions .
Sorry again for the rant but as you can guess I am fairly passionate about the food supply we used to have and were conned into allowing to be taken from us, just think of Duke Street as was butchers , fishmongers, fruit shops and independent grocers etc, where are they now?.
Stay Safe John
#4 - Raymond Main replied on the 18/12/2022 11:29:54 AM
Hi. When I was younger my Mum used to take me to Munro's the Butchers on Duke Street. I remember Betty who used to work in there. Did anybody know her?
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