CLEAN EATING CLUB

Frank Hohman- The last of the great journeyman butchers
by Jessica Kane

At the Grand Union in Warrensburg, behind a set of plastic curtains in a refrigerated room, veteran butcher Frank Hohman, a towering man with a peaceful smile and blood on his apron, stands with a sharp knife before a primal cut of top round. With enormous steady hands, he artfully and effortlessly cuts off the excess fat and slices the slab into perfect juicy steaks. Beside him, stands his apprentice, a young man learning the art of meat cutting. He will study with Frank six months before he’s officially earned the title of meat cutter.
“Apprenticeships aren’t what they used to be,” said Frank.
When Frank first learned to cut meat back in 1965 in Long Island, he served as an apprentice for three years, and then served a fourth year to become a journeyman, which is a breed of butcher that’s almost completely extinct.
“It means you’re supposed to know what you’re doing,” added Frank.
The world of meat cutting has changed dramatically since 1971, when Frank and his wife moved Upstate and he started as a butcher with Grand Union. Back then, when a butcher got a delivery, what they received was practically the whole animal. Sometimes, with the skins and the fur on.
“You had to be like a surgeon,” Frank explained. “You had to know where to stick the knife to make the right cut. If you put the knife in the wrong spot you could loose 20 steaks.”
And that’s before they had rails, so a butcher had to carry these animals on their shoulder and hang them on a hook, a sharp hook, that if you missed, you could easily hang your hand on instead.
It was a dangerous profession to be sure, and injury wasn’t uncommon.
Frank still has the three puncture holes in one of his legs as a reminder of this.
Back then, there also wasn’t much concern about bacteria, and those carcasses that hung on hooks were not refrigerated - they’d hang out in room temperature until they were cut. And the meat grinder was only washed once a week.
Nobody thought of illness back then. In fact, the only strange thing Frank remembers finding in any of the meat he worked with was the time he found a gold nugget in some chop meat. The nugget had been mutilated from being in the cutter, but it turned out to be a gold ring that somebody lost somewhere, and when no one claimed it, he kept it, and it’s still in his jewelry box today.
These days, the meat industry is unrecognizable from how it used to be. All the meat delivered to the Grand Union today is packaged in what are called primal cuts, which are sections of the carcass that have already been separated. The word butcher isn’t even used anymore, except when referring to people who slaughter animals. People who cut meat are simply called “meat cutters.” Meat cutters then take these slabs, remove all the stamps, trim the excess, slice it, package it, and give it to someone to put in the cases.
All the meat is of course refrigerated properly and the meat grinder as well everything else is thoroughly cleaned and sanitized every night.
“With all the bacteria and everything now, you can’t take chances,” Frank said.
One thing that hasn’t changed is Frank’s old school work ethic.
“I get very particular on certain things,” he told me.
Every item in his cases gets Frank’s undivided attention.
The fat is trimmed off so people aren’t paying more than they need to, the wrappers are always neat, and the meat is always placed right side up on the trays.
Frank has now been living and working in the Adirondacks for over 36 years. He and his wife raised their four kids here, who are now all grown up - three teachers and an electrician.
“It’s a different atmosphere than down in the city,” he said. “Not so hustle and bustle, hurry up and get it done. You have to get your job done but you don’t have that city type of pressure.”
When he’s not cutting meat, there are lots of things Frank enjoys doing. One of these is eating meat, and Frank’s favorite is a porterhouse steak, rare, “about so thick,” he said, holding his fingers at about 2 inches.
“And I have good cholesterol,” he added.
Frank also likes to spend time in his yard gardening, or on his boat fishing for perch or bass. He also enjoys hunting and has his own little meat shop at home where he processes deer.
What he enjoys most, though, is staying healthy. “I think health is the biggest thing. I’ve had a couple of little bouts and lemme tell you, you gotta be healthy, nothing matters unless you’re feeling good.”

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