LOL I just had a flash back to some of the "other" things we used to do.

Coalcracker wrote:

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WHAT ELSE CAN YOU ADD TO MY LIST?

Decent unions who were on your side

always cutting bare handed

grease pens for writing a price on a package

no stupid meetings for managers

no stupid safety bulletins to read and sign

smoking while on duty and leaving the hot cigarette on the wood block, eventually burning it all around (I'm not a smoker, but I've seen that)

How about a meat department that runs the meat department? You don't see that much anymore.

 

How about wooden coolers, with heavy doors that never closed right and ice caps for grinders that were out on the counter, un-refrigerated, so the meat wouldn't heat up while grinding. When the rules changed and all grinders had to be inside the cooler, the icebox had to have a window so the customer could see in. Also, the smell with hanging meat was different than a box meat cooler.

Burgermeister wrote:

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Coalcracker wrote:

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WHAT ELSE CAN YOU ADD TO MY LIST?

Decent unions who were on your side

always cutting bare handed

grease pens for writing a price on a package

no stupid meetings for managers

no stupid safety bulletins to read and sign

smoking while on duty and leaving the hot cigarette on the wood block, eventually burning it all around (I'm not a smoker, but I've seen that)

How about a meat department that runs the meat department? You don't see that much anymore.

 

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Don't quite understand your last sentence. How about a meat department that runs the meat department!

I do remember smoking in the cutting room but it was always on the sly.

I also remember the small hot hand held irons to seal packages.

I also remember semi-boneless hams. You don't see them anymore!

One way glass mirrors were great in the summer time!

We use to put ordinary table salt on the meat blocks and then brush them down.

We always had a crank canned-ham opener for customers that wanted their canned ham sliced, and we also used it for the deli when stuff came in number 10 cans.  

Burgermeister,

I agree. From my experience District Managers and "Meat Gods" dictate how the meat case will be set up. What items will be sold, how they will be priced and how much of it should be ordered. All this and more is decided from the comfort of their offices. The Meat Manager who knows his store, knows his customers and what they like to buy has little or no say in the day to day operations of the meat department. They even try to dictate what order we fill the case in, never mind that we are there looking at the case with our own eyes and know exactly what it needs first or doesn't need.

"can't grind pork trim"? How do they make sausage? Or is that off the table too?

Burgermeister wrote:

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It's at the stores where I work my days off that you're not allowed to grind pork or make sausage. All that stuff is pre packaged. 

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 So they throw their pork trim away?   That's just sad.   I do realize that most pork products don't need to be trimmed much anymore, but store made sausage has always been a strong selling point and got customers in the store for me.  The pre packed stuff, not so much.   I do remember at Giant  in Va. we weren't allowed to make sausage from our pork trim, but we could still grind it for ground pork.   

Being 20 years removed from the trade, I'll have to think a bit to add to your list.  However everything you list was part of my world in the 60s and 70s.  How about "tree hooks"?  When we had a sirloin steak sale we'd get  6 -10 tree hooks loaded with hips every day.  

Coalcracker wrote:

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REMEMBER WHEN;

1) Wood floors! Yep, A&P Stratford Conn. Cutting room and beef cooler.

2) Sawdust was used on the floors.

3) Wooden cutting blocks.

4) Block brush

5) Salting the block while brushing.

6) Very little high-pressure hot water was used for washing down.

7) Saws and grinders where washed by hand in deep sink

8) No hair nets but possibly a cap

9) white shirts and bow-ties

10) peach paper

11) fat and bone cans

12) Ice pack chickens in crates

13) grinding into aluminum tubs pressing and cutting ground beef into squares to be overwrapped

 

No meat related customer deaths that I know of! ---I guess we practiced "food safety".  LOL>

 

WHAT ELSE CAN YOU ADD TO MY LIST?

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When I started in the trade (1968) it was normal and acceptable to have a cigarette and cup of coffee on the block.  As time went by, that evolved to having to go in the cooler out of sight of the customers to smoke.  They you had to go out into the back room by the meat manager's desk, where we typically took our breaks and lunches to smoke. That's where it was when I left the trade in 1996 but now I understand that people now have to go outside to smoke.

As to decent unions, everything is relevant I suppose.  When I started we had some good contracts. Triple time on Sunday, double time and 1/2 for Saturday night, time and 1/2 for evenings or overnight work or more than 8 hours in a day.  Holidays were double time for time worked plus 8 hours holiday pay whether one worked or not.  There was a limit on the ratio of apprentices to Journeymen plus a requirement that the meat department had to be manned every hour the store was open. However every contract from that point on got worse as the union made concessions (aka "givebacks").  I DO NOT blame the unions or the employers for this. The economy is always changing and employers must make the changes they deem necessary to compete, and the unions must also adjust  in order to keep their membership working.  That said, EVERY president of my local, 5 or 6 I believe during my 28 year career, plus several other officers, finished their career in federal prison for various corruption charges. I myself once overheard a VP of my local telling my meat supervisor that someone called in to complain of some workers working off the clock and she would let him listen to the recording in case he could identify who it was.  

Burgermeister wrote:

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Coalcracker wrote:

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WHAT ELSE CAN YOU ADD TO MY LIST?

Decent unions who were on your side

always cutting bare handed

grease pens for writing a price on a package

no stupid meetings for managers

no stupid safety bulletins to read and sign

smoking while on duty and leaving the hot cigarette on the wood block, eventually burning it all around (I'm not a smoker, but I've seen that)

How about a meat department that runs the meat department? You don't see that much anymore.

 

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We were allowed to grind and sell ground pork but not make sausage.  Pathmark had its own sausage plant and I was told it was the highest volume sausage plant in the country back then. It was the best sausage I have ever tasted and I certainly miss it to this day.

fdarn wrote:

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Burgermeister wrote:

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It's at the stores where I work my days off that you're not allowed to grind pork or make sausage. All that stuff is pre packaged. 

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 So they throw their pork trim away?   That's just sad.   I do realize that most pork products don't need to be trimmed much anymore, but store made sausage has always been a strong selling point and got customers in the store for me.  The pre packed stuff, not so much.   I do remember at Giant  in Va. we weren't allowed to make sausage from our pork trim, but we could still grind it for ground pork.   

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i remember whhen we used to bag whole fryer in the machine that blew air into it. and we used to sell wings for 10 cents lb and still couldn't sell them. hell the cost on them is about 1.74 lb now!

DAN wrote:

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i remember whhen we used to bag whole fryer in the machine that blew air into it. and we used to sell wings for 10 cents lb and still couldn't sell them. hell the cost on them is about 1.74 lb now!

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 I also used one of those machines, but we used ours for leq quarters. We stapled the bags closed. Didn't care for the stapling tool.

Coalcracker wrote:

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Hi Burgermeister, how about beef liver? We always sliced beef liver by hand as well as calves liver. We would always put peach paper on the block. We had the stainless steel liver pan that had an opening in it where you slip the plastic bag over the little shoot and the liver would slide in easy. Then we would seal the bag using a hot hand held iron and then staple a paper label over the seal. You had to be careful because if you stapled to low you would make a pin-hole and the darn package would leak on you. We then displayed the bags upright between two dividers in the meat case. We would sell the heck out of beef liver at .29 to .39 cents per pound.

Calves liver was "high class" liver @ .99 cents per lb. LOL> Always cut by hand and displayed in a #2 Styrofoam tray. Once in awhile we would get a beef liver that was on the lighter side almost a rust color. We would often slip that in for calves liver.

The lobe of the beef liver was always a problem as well as the flat end. We use to butter fly the flat end as well as the lobe. However, we found a customer that would by the lobes. Beef liver and calves liver were an everyday part of the operations. You had to have it in your case, big gross profit item. Back in the day beef liver was a healthy beef item loaded with iron that was a must have for every family. Now a days its cholesterol poison. LOL>

Personally I like beef or calves liver if prepared properly.

 

 

 

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 Liver is awful offal. If I was starving, I'd gratefully eat some, but it's something I try to avoid. Chicken gizzards and hearts diped in flour and fried in bacon grease are delicious, but liver is double ungood. 

In my current job, we get frozen whole skinned beef livers. We thaw it out and hand cut it. I like to put a plastic (or whatever that white material is) cutting board on top of our wooden block and cut it there. I don't want that crap on the block. If we don't have any thawed on hand, we'll cut it on the band saw. We don't care what that may do the things you cut on the saw after the liver. We do rinse the table part of the saw, but we don't totally clean it. We get whole fresh calf liver 2-3 times per week. Skin on. We hand cut it, usually not removing the skin. We do cut out the veins. They are very small. The calves were maybe 1 week old. Yes, I've been ordered to and did cut one portion of beef liver, the better part (supposedly) and labeled it "baby beef liver". I don't think that's honest, but OTOH, if the ribs from an adult pig can be called "baby back ribs", then maybe you can say it's just a name.