MACS wrote:Before all the dadgum bbq shows telling people how to cook brisket, it WAS cheap.
I know. From 98-03 I worked as a butchers bitch at a meat processing shop that supplied a ton of local restaurants and a few grocery stores along with a retail counter. When I started we were buying quartered cattle from the slaughterhouse. I ran the meat grinder and did the cleanup after the day's cutting was done along with picking up and hooking the quarters as they came in from our suppliers. I was strong as fvck back then. Weighed about 160 lbs and tossed 200-250lb slabs of cow on my shoulder from the truck and onto a hook in the coolers.
The whole chest/brisket area was always binned along with shank/heel meat from the breakdown side and scuttled over to me on the grind side to grind into various grades of ground beef. We had a few regulars that would order briskets/plates and it was $2/lb retail and $1/lb wholesale. I always assumed they were just buying meat to grind.
Beef ribs too, they were an undesired cut that would just get tossed or cut into dog bones sold at scrap price for a buck a pound. But to me a buck a pound seemed like a lot for junk meat. I could get 4 pressed burger patties for a buck.
Wish I knew then what I know now.