A frequent topic (and generator of much hand-wringing and inferiority complex-having) over at the Tribune's food message board is about the lack of a butcher shop in Columbia. After all, New Franklin has one, why not Columbia? Hell, sleepy old Camdenton has one (plus two excellent fish shops to boot). What's going on here?
The answer is more complicated than I'm willing to take on first thing Monday morning, but suffice it to say this article in the new Esquire magazine did not make me yearn less for a dedicated, stand-alone butcher here in Columbia:
You can ask butchers anything and they will deconstruct your need. Ask for a porterhouse and trust that they will pick through the T-bones to get you a good one. Or ask what a porterhouse is and they will take out a T-bone to explain that if the short-loin portion is a good bit thicker than an inch, it's a porterhouse. Or ask if a porterhouse is what you want in the first place. They'll ask how you're cooking it, what you're serving with it, how much room you have on your cooking surface. They'll find the answer. And whether it's the apron or the smudges of blood or the enormous weight of the counter or the sheer mass of the product, you believe a butcher. He knows.
A man should have a butcher.
Hear, freaking hear.
