FROM THE ARCHIVES:Food rationing, scarcities and high prices continued two years after the end of the Second World War and this piece revealed some of the tricks butchers used to keep their profits up on meat. –
JOE JOYCE
City housekeepers had a rude shock this weekend when they went shopping for their Sunday joints and found that meat, which was already far too dear, had risen by 40 per cent on those prices agreed upon in February last when the Dublin Victuallers’ Association met the minister for industry and commerce to discuss the matter.
The prices, which at that time the DVA did not consider adequate, but which they accepted, were . . . meant to apply to first-grade meat, trimmed, ready for sale, except in the case of cutlets.
Regrettably enough, most butchers make a practice of having different grades of meat on sale at the same time, and of charging extra for cutting a piece to the desired weight. In fact, they will scarcely make any attempt to cut to any given weight.
They say: “There’s a pound and three-quarters in it,” when one has, perhaps, wanted only a pound. This gives plenty of opportunity for juggling with the price. Few make any attempt to keep within the price agreed upon by their association.
Housewives find that the manoeuvre of “taking the piece” at what appears to be a reasonable price simply means that they must buy an unwieldy, untrimmed joint which has a portion of an inferior and much cheaper joint cut in with it. The best example of this is the leg of mutton, as it is now sold.
This joint continues to be popular, since it is excellent boiled, and the difficulty of having an oven fit for roasting does not arise. As it is cut to-ay, the joint includes part of the haunch bone, half the vertebrae, where these run into the tail piece, plus a large flap of lap, or belly piece.
Up to quite recently, the leg joint was never cut in this way. It was cut off close below the haunch joint and a small strip of lap was cut with it.
An economical joint resulted, for the lap and shank made good broth and the middle piece could be roasted.
Thus, “taking the piece” to-day means having about 2½ lb of inferior meat and bone to about 7½ lb of joint. Paying for this at the rate of 2s. 2d. a lb, plus the new 40 per cent increase, makes the price of edible meat fantastic.
Cutlets are popular, too; again, because they are easily cooked. These are not trimmed to-day, though the price charged should include this. Thus, for every pound of cutlets, one gets about 5 oz. of bone and waste . . .
Another mean trick, to which even reputable butchers resort, is the practice of taking out the brains and tongues from sheeps’ heads.
Once, these used to be sold with the head, and were a good bargain for poor people, who could have soup and a meat dish for as low a price as 9d. to 1s.
Now the brains are sold separately as a delicacy, and the tongues corned and sold for 2s. a lb.