Monday I had to go to Atlanta, Had my son in law with me, I pass a meat shop, MEAT MAN Meat Market, I turned around and we went in, I walked up to the meat counter, a service counter. I looked at the two meat cutters working behind the counter cutting. One was cutting T-Bones, a inch and a half, the other scrapping. after a few mins the younger of the two ( about 45 ) ask me if he could help me.
I told him I wanted to talk with the old A&P meat cutter there ( about 64 ) the older guy stepped up and ask me what did I need and how did I know he was a old A&P meat cutter since he didn't know me.
I told him by the way he was scrapping the steaks, While I had watched them I had notice the way he was scrapping the steaks, he held the steak flat by the t-bone with thumb and point finger, after one side he flip it and held it the same as he scrap it. That was the way A&P taught us to do it so your fingers never touched the meat. I told him I would bet he had spent about 20 years with A&P, he laugh and said 23.
We talked for awhile and found we both worked for the same Meat Gods in the 70's but that he worked at two store I never had worked in. Of 32 stores in the Atlanta Division there were four I had never worked in and he had been in two of them lol
Anyway I never would have thought he had worked for A&P if it wasn't for old work habits being hard to break as you go on to other stores in your life. IF I was still working I would still be holding and scrapping like that
Wow, I've never heard anything like that... Is there a reason you're not supposed to touch the meat? I remember being trained to cut short loins and to run my steel down the spinal canal to clear it out. These days its already cleaned...
In those days you cut back and forth, red meat, pork and chicken. you didn't have time to clean your blocks off every time you cut before you went to the other. you may cut 3 beef loins and go right to a case of 1/4 pork loins, then cut a case of chicken parts. you could only scrap your blocks off with a dough cutter, you didn't wear gloves, you didn't wash your hands in between, so it was to help hold down the spread of bacteria.
Around 1969 A&P started making us cut chicken on a separate saw & table
The spinal cord was the first thing to smell and turn color
