British BBQ Society Forums

Hi there

a newbie question, is there a good reference table/book/chart that I can refer to for the UK equivelant of US cuts of meat, I really am confusing myself trying to understand Butts and Briskets etc etc and don't know what to ask for at the butchers. If anyone would be willing to list them here I really would appreciate it.

Here's hoping, many thanks

Ped

How are you doing Ped?

There is a post somewhere that Steve has put on which explains some of the Pork cuts, it has an image from one of his books which is ideal to show your butcher.

Effectively there are only a couple of terms your butcher may not understand the rest is common language for most of the butchers I have come across.

Cuts may depend on the size/amount of meat you actually want.

i.e. Beef brisket when bought for competition should be fairly straight forward, you would want a whole brisket with the point and the flat (Essentially two muscles)

the pork can be referred to in different ways, generally it's called a Butt which is in actual fact the shoulder of the pig. There are two main parts of the shoulder cut, the picnic and the butt, and depending on what you ask for would usually depend on which side of the shoulder you get.



http://whatscookingwithdoc.wordpress.co ... lling-102/

ribs will vary you can have belly ribs, spares and baby backs, depending on where the ribs are cut will depend on the type of ribs you have. i.e if the rib is cut from the top near the spine it would be a baby back, lower down would be spares etc

I would PM Steve for the name of his book, it's quite interesting.

Many thanks AWG

Dunno if it is any help, but when I showed my butcher a picture of where a Boston Butt came from, he said "You want a bone-in blade shoulder"

Adie mentioned my book, meaning the book I own rather than a book I wrote

I bought it from Amazon's US site and it arrived in about a week, it's a great read and when I showed it to my butcher he cut me a perfect Boston butt immediately.

The book is called Basic Butchering of Livestock & Game by John J. Mettler

ISBN: 978-0-88266-391-3

It's a great reference book and one I'd recommend to anyone.

Many thanks Steve

Unfortunately right now I wouldn't know if a butcher had given me the right cut even if I showed him a picture

This may be a bit cheeky, but any chance you could scan in the pages that would be relevant to members?

Have a shufty at this post:

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=675

Sorry Rog, misdirected. It is the same book though.

Ahhh, I did suspect that!