Girl on the Block: A True Story of Coming of Age Behind the Counter

This debut memoir of a woman launching her career as a butcher offers a solid behind-the-curtain look at the meat industry. Twenty-six-year-old Wragg learned to butcher when she was hired as a teen at a farm shop in Derbyshire, England. Despite assuming that this was not a job for a woman, she “felt important, and trusted” when holding a knife on her first day, and quickly became desperate to learn more. In a business where women “are still the surprise, still the minority,” Wragg dealt with sexual harassment and a culture of male butchers reluctant to share their knowledge with her. She confronts realities of butchering (“Standing in front of an actual beef carcass... can be overwhelming, sometimes terrifying”), details the kill floor of slaughterhouses (“Butchers worked in a line of one hundred, breaking down carcasses and passing the meat on to a packing team”), and describes the meat industry in general (“It’s always changing, and in most cases, isn’t very profitable”). In sidebars, Wragg includes recipes, guides to knives and dry aging, and glossaries of cuts of beef and types of cattle. Foodies will appreciate Wragg’s honest take on the evolving world of butchery. [em](Aug.) [/em]