Mosner Meat & Butchery Class

For our fifth wedding anniversary, my awesome wife surprised the shit out of me with a butchery class and tour at the Mosner family meat processing plant in Hunt’s Point in the Bronx.

Butchery Class 087

The business has been around for nearly six decades, starting with meat deliveries from the back of a station wagon until the brand slowly built up to become a well known, high-end meat distributor for some of the area’s finest steakhouses and meat purveyors.

Butchery Class 001

Three grandchildren of the original Mosner start-up (Seth, Jessica, and Ben) run the incredibly informative tour and butchery class on Saturdays. The first thing you’ll do is suit up in a butcher’s coat and some gloves. Just a word of advice – bundle up if you do this. Inside it is just about freezing.

Butchery Class 055Butchery Class 010

It starts out with introductions and some information from Jessica about the company, what they do, the history, etc. Then comes an awesome, testosterone building meat chant in call-and-response format. MEAT MEAT MEAT! This is a shot of Ben pulling us in for the huddle just before the chanting began.

Butchery Class 012

Once inside, the learning begins. Seth and Ben informed us about the lamb and veal they deal in, including how it is treated at the farm (they enjoy a stress free and healthy life, which makes for better flavors), how it is slaughtered (with the utmost standards of humaneness), and how it is processed (skilled artists and craftsmen butchers).

Ben & Seth & Veal
Ben & Seth & Veal
Ben & Seth & Veal
Ben & Seth & Veal
Ben & Seth & Veal
Ben & Seth & Veal
Me & Veal
Me & Veal
Lamb
Lamb
Veal
Veal
Veal
Veal

Check out some of the other beautiful decor here:

Hooks & Pulleys
Hooks & Pulleys
Lamb Mobile
Lamb Mobile
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Yum
Yum
Hooks
Hooks
Lamb all wrapped up in plastic
Lamb all wrapped up in plastic
A peek underneath the skirt of some hanging lamb
A peek underneath the skirt of some hanging lamb

Next up, Jessica runs through some of the important (and often times confusing to those not in the know) labels that the meat industry applies to various products.

Jessica educates the class
Jessica educates the class

“Antibiotic Free” vs “No Antibiotics,” for example (“No Antibiotics” means NO ANTIBIOTICS have ever been in the animal. “Antibiotic Free” means that there were no traces of antibiotics in the animal at the time of slaughter, but that doesn’t mean the animal never had any antibiotics in its lifetime). Here’s a nice little print-out that they gave the class: not everything we learned is on here, but this is a great start.

butchery terms

After this, we watched Chris, AKA “Da Butcher,” perform a lightning fast demo of his amazing butchery skills as he broke down the roast and rib ends of a pig in what had to be under 3 minutes WITH pauses in place to show us and explain what he was doing.

Da Butcher's Tools
Da Butcher’s Tools
"Da Butcher" in action
“Da Butcher” in action
Da Butcher's Artwork
Da Butcher’s Artwork

Then we had an opportunity to buy some high end meat at super wholesale prices. I’m talking PRIME beef for $9.99/lb. They even had an entire trailer full of game meats, with lots of harder to find stuff like elk, duck, venison, kangaroo, gator, snake, ostrich, pheasant, squab and others. Are you FUCKING serious?!?? I was in heaven! We decided to get some rarities like duck sausage and confit duck legs, but I could have easily blown the mortgage on this delicious shit.

high-end meats for sale
high-end meats for sale
duck leg confit
duck leg confit
sausage variety
sausage variety

Now for the hands-on stuff. I had to put my camera down, so there are no “action” photos, but we all got to do what “Da Butcher” did in his demo: namely, slice up the roast and rib of the pig.

Piggy
Piggy
Piggy
Piggy
The Classroom
The Classroom
The Classroom
The Classroom
The Classroom
The Classroom

We were instructed on everything from the best way to hold the knife, to how to properly get the meat off the bone without nicking or slicing up the good bits. Afterwards, we took all our cuts over to the vaccum sealer and put them into boxes that were pre-labeled with our names on them. That’s right – you get to bring home all that delicious piggy meat that you just butchered!!!

my share of the butchery
my share of the butchery
one of our boxes
one of our boxes

I watched as the staff expertly portioned and wrapped the prime stuff that other classmates had purchased.

Ben saws some porterhouses down to size
Ben saws some porterhouses down to size
Ben & "Da Butcher"
Ben & “Da Butcher”
Some prime T-bones
Some prime T-bones
"Da Butcher" trims some of the fat off before it heads to the sealer
“Da Butcher” trims some of the fat off before it heads to the sealer
Porterhouses coming off the vacuum sealer
Porterhouses coming off the vacuum sealer

Then Ben took me around to show me some of the offal that they sell as well. I’m talking everything – liver, heart, bones, sweetbreads – you name it, they sling it.

Veal Heart
Veal Heart
Liver
Liver

As you may have guessed, I’ve reviewed some of their steakhouse customers, and I have to tell you: there is a stark and obvious correlation. The places that use Mosner to source their meat all have excellent ratings on my leaderboard.

What an amazing gift! If you guys get a chance, you should definitely go as well. Not only do you learn a lot about the meat proteins you are eating, but you will come away with a great appreciation for the hard work and effort that goes into bringing these products to your dinner table. My wife knows that I secretly wish I were a butcher, so this was a real treat for me. Look – I even got a participation award.

Butchery Certificate

Once we got home, I was itching to try some of what we just worked on, so I took the stew meat scraps and threw them into the slow cooker with apple moonshine, apple sauce, apple flavored water, and a bunch of mulling type spices like cinnamon and cloves.

Me, magic-wanding in a mix of kosher salt and crushed red pepper
Me, magic-wanding in a mix of kosher salt and crushed red pepper
20140405_182207
stew meat swimming in the slow cooker

I set it on low and slow. Four hours later the result was amazing. My wife and I threw it onto a sandwich with some pickled cabbage and a spicy mayo. Check out the recipe HERE.