Tuesday 29 January 2008

cuts of meat for dogs to eat

I called in at the local butcher's yesterday, looking for some meat for Penny. When I asked him exactly what a brisket bone is, he folded his arms, leaned back against the wall and said, "Well, where's your brisket?"
I stared at him. No idea. It did occur to me that the word sounds like 'breast' - but no way was I going there...
"People these days just don't know their cuts of meat," he said."Come on, think about it. Where would your brisket be?"
The other butcher grinned at me from behind him, but I thought she seemed sympathetic, so perhaps I'm not the only one to get the 'treatment' from her boss.
It was all beginning to seem a bit hard. I only asked about the brisket because I'd been told it's a soft bone. I'm obviously still stressing about the fact that Penny broke a tooth on a bone (we think) and had to have it extracted. (The tooth, not the bone.)
Of course he had a chart on the wall, didn't he? Determined to educate the uninformed member of the public, he showed me the brisket bone, laughing at my naive suggestion that it might perhaps be a rib. I don't feel quite so dumb not knowing, because he told me a brisket isn't a bone at all. It's cartilage and connects the two sides of the chest. That would account for wiser dog-owners having told me it's safe to eat.

But when I looked on the Net, the mystery deepened, because The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as "The chest of an animal. 2. The ribs and meat taken from the chest of an animal." That might explain why, the last time I asked for a brisket bone, I got a whole heap of rib bones. The Concise Oxford Dictionary says it's the "breast of a beast".
At MeatTrade.com there's a list with photos of a range of cuts of meat and there's a boneless brisket, so I guess that's where the brisket bones for dogs come from.

4 comments:

Amber-Mae said...

I had no idea about it either until you mentioned it later in the post...I think I've eaten that part before but my mommy just calls it breast, ribs or chest bone. Never mentioned brisket bone...I wonder why that butcher found it soooo funny? Doesn't he have one too?

Love lick,
Solid Gold Dancer

parlance said...

Amber-Mae, I'm still rather confused. When your mum gives you this, is it a bunch of rib bones stuck together, in meat, or just one bone?

Amber-Mae said...

Actually, I still ave no idea what it is. Hahaha, have to do some research on it!

Love licks,
Solid Gold Dancer

parlance said...

I asked another butcher today and he agreed that a brisket is cartilage, not bone. He said it's not right for butchers to sell rib bones as brisket and said rib bones are not safe for dogs, in his opinion. That was interesting. He is one of the few butchers I know that is quite happy to sell me good human-grade meat for Penny without hinting that it is wrong to waste 'good' meat on a dog. He has a dog himself.