[Sca-cooks] dismantling animals

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Gorgeous Muiredach:
>>Oh? I know that some cuts are actually combinations of other cuts,
>>but this is the first I've heard that such differances might be
>>regional. How does American and European cutting of meats differ?
>
>There are quite a few differences, especially in bigger animals such as
>pork and beef (and veal).  Obviously, the bigger the animal, the more ways
>you have to cut it up!
>
>I'm brain fried just now, don't have the energy to go into difference
>between French cut and American cut.  If no one else has addressed it by
>tomorrow, I'll give y'all a bit of an overview.

I'm in pretty much the same boat, and also have one foot out the
door, but think in terms of having two identical photos, two
identical jigsaws, and two different people cutting them up with
instructions to make a jigsaw puzzle. They'll be different. Not only
are the primary and secondary cuts differently named, but they're
also divided differently. I _think_ there's a diagram in one of the
Larousse Gastronomique editions showing the same steer diagrammed per
cutting by English, French, and American butchers, which probably
explains things like why American butchers used not to acknowledge
the existence of what the French call (translated into English) as
hanger steak (to my mind no big deal, but a current chi-chi trend),
all from the same animal that obviously has the same muscles. Or the
fact that UK cuts called "neck" often include some or all of the
shoulder/chuck ("best end of neck" includes some ribs, IIRC), while
in the US neck is, well, neck, and separate from the chuck or the
ribs. Or how a baron of beef (a rarely seen specialty cut, mostly,
nowadays) is both sirloins on the spinal bone structure, looking like
an enormous salmon steak made out of beef (i.e. horseshoe-shaped),
while a baron of lamb is both sirloins and both legs in one roast.

I think it may be, or may once have been, that American beef cattle
are somewhat larger than their European counterparts, and the diets
of many Europeans (especially in places like France and Italy) are
somewhat less meat-oriented than those of many Americans. European
beef may also be, or once have been, more expensive than American
beef. This may have led to a tradition of smaller, more specific cuts.

>>Gorgeous, you taught a class that had one method of cutting a
>>chicken I wasn't aware of.
>
>Which way was that?  Crapaudine?  If so, it is a fairly classic French way
>to do chicken, but usualy smaller ones, especially for grilling.  How do
>you usualy cut chicken?

I think the average American butcher usually asks if you want eight
pieces (two wings, two breast halves, two thighs and two legs) (the
back is usually kept separate), or ten pieces (the same thing, but
with the breast halves halved once again), or something else. But
this suggests that the eight-piece or ten-piece idea is pretty common.

Crapaudine is a French term for a toad, it refers to the bird just
sort of plotzing there, all flattened out. Some presentations
actually involve eyes made of truffle slices and such. In English (I
believe it is originally Welsh, or so sez Theodora Fitzgibbon), this
would be a spatchcocked bird, split at the back, and opened up like a
book (the ribs have cartilaginous hinges along the sides, allowing
the critter to breathe), and flattened with a smack of the hand. As
Muiredach says, good for grilling, and most common with smaller birds.

Adamantius

--
"No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes
deserves to be called a scholar."
	-DONALD FOSTER