Want to have a real party? Invite a butcher. Credit: David Budworth
The term "butcher party" was coined in San Francisco, where David Budworth, who also goes by Dave the Butcher, has been throwing events for the past year that bring people together to watch him do his job. Literally.
Set up on a table in the front of a room, Budworth pulls out his knives and starts breaking down a side of beef or a pre-slaughtered goat while the partygoers shoot him questions on the process.
With each question -- from "What kind of knives do you use?" to "How does one get to be a butcher?" -- Budworth says he's reintroducing people to the concept of visiting their local butcher to buy fresh cut meat rather than stopping into the superstore for a slab of days old meat in plastic wrap.
"People are so removed from butchery," Budworth explains. "In Europe it's like being a mailman; it's no big deal. But here people don't know their butcher."
Helping to revive the art form is the national drive to know exactly where our food comes from. In the wake of box office successes for movies such as "Food, Inc.," book sales for "The Omnivore's Dilemma," federal initiatives pushing "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food," and even more grassroots efforts like the Eat Local Challenge, the numbers of people buying fresh meat or even coming together to purchase an entire side of beef -- which is then split among the families -- has grown significantly.
Those families -- the ones with the entire cow in the freezer -- are primed for throwing a butcher party, according to Budworth. With an animal that now has to be broken down by a professional butcher, they've been known to call him into their homes to put on a demonstration for friends and family on how the process works.
Serving a meal that relates to the animal on the table -- or even cooking up the fresh meat Budworth has just cut out -- the hosts are able to offer their guests the complete tale of their food's path from pasture to plate.
"I think it's really important that people get back tin touch with their food," Budworth says. "When they go to the store, people only buy middle meat, but our parents, our grandparents used everything. They ate the spleen, the liver."
That's a reality for the families who have stepped back from the grocery store meat case for their sustenance. Lisa Chesney of Roscoe, N.Y. uses almost the entire cow now that her family has switched to raising their own to ensure their food is hormone and antibiotic-free.
"My family is not adverse to eating hamburger or pot roast (for the tough cuts) -- which I also cut into strips and make jerky in between the days we have good beef cuts, chicken, pork, fish, venison, or pasta," Chesney explains. An animal lover and wildlife rehabilitator, Chesney says she's more comfortable eating an animal raised by her family than one that's suffered in a commercial setting.
And you can't beat the taste, says Patricia Harrington, a Detroit resident who has been buying local grass fed beef for the past 10 years, going in with friends on a side of beef. "The beef is delicious," Harrington says. "No or little fat. Our son visited us during his stint of living in Argentina. Of course, we pulled out the best steaks from our freezer. His comment was 'this is is the best beef I've ever tasted.'" Coming out of cattle country, Harrington says it was one of the highest compliments she could have mustered for local meat.
That taste of good food has ensured Budworth's butcher parties have a following. Whether he's planning a public event and throwing up invites on Facebook and Twitter or working an in-home party, he says the education doesn't take away from the pure enjoyment of getting together with friends for talk and tasting.
"It's this sense of community that's created," he says. With the economy forcing people to tighten their belts, more people are opting to throw a dinner party rather than take a whole bunch of friends out for food and drinks at an expensive restaurant. And they're going whole hog at home -- literally.
