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Deep within Instagram, past the latte hearts and ice-cream-cone-against-brick-wall shots, lies a subculture of what can only be described as “meat artists.” Here, you’ll find hunks of lard carved into Beauty and the Beast-esque roses; Frankensteined chickens that have been split open, stuffed with sausage and eggs, and carefully stitched back up; Flintstonian beef shanks; and lamb burger patties wrapped in veils of lacy caul fat. They’re not just for show—they’re what’s for dinner.
A deboned chicken stuffed with sausage and hard-boiled eggs. Photo: Jered Standing
At the country’s artisanal butcher shops, selling unfamiliar cuts of meat like lamb saddle and picnic (the lesser-known pork shoulder) can be tough business when customers are more likely to gravitate toward filet mignon and NY Strip. So to stand out from the crowd, pros like Jered Standing, the former head butcher at Belcampo Meat Co.’s Los Angeles store, have started Instagramming the visually stunning and weird signature cuts they sell in their shops.
Jered Standing, pro butcher and meat artist extraordinaire. Photo: Joe Schmelzer
Standing, 36, regularly posts fantastic works of meat art to his 11,000 Instagram followers that look straight out of an episode of Hannibal (RIP). Sure, you could buy lamb lollipops at Belcampo. But the real move here is to pick up a noisette, a whole lamb saddle that’s been meticulously deboned, rolled up, and tied into a neat cylinder as if it were a pillowy Swiss roll (see a video of that here). If you walk into Belcampo with a roast chicken in mind for dinner, you might end up leaving with one that’s been cut open, stuffed with housemade sausage and a row of hard-boiled eggs, and stitched back together with the precision of a neurosurgeon. Whether or not you can get over the idea of a raw chicken that’s been stuffed with cooked eggs, it’ll still be delicious.
“I’m just a big geek about meat stuff,” he says. “When I’m not doing it myself, I’m watching YouTube videos or I’m on Instagram to see what other people are doing.”
Chicken stuffed with duck confit…then wrapped in bacon. Photo: Instagram/@jeredstanding
Take the cushion (pictured above), a little pillow of deboned chicken that’s been stuffed with duck confit, brioche, onion, and sage, then trimmed with a strip of bacon around the edge “because that’s just gonna make everything better.” Standing says cushions are actually very common in England and in parts of Canada, particularly around the holidays, when families get together and play hacky sack with them. (Okay, fine, actually they roast the cushions just like you would any chicken.)
“It’s so weird to anyone here [in America] to see something like this,” he says. “It takes a lot of explaining and talking to people to be able to sell it. But I like being able to have those conversations.”
Deboned and rolled lamb saddle, a.k.a. a noisette. Photo: Instagram/@jeredstanding
Standing’s background as an artist has influenced his particular style of butchery—the hyper-neat cuts are tied with clean (not bloody) string, and have a very aesthetically pleasing and symmetrical look to them. More importantly, they’re also going to taste awesome—Standing says he’s “not a fan of doing something that’s all fashion over function.”
A rose is a rose is a rose is a oh wait it’s a piece of lard. Photo: Instagram/@jeredstanding
His one exception to that are the weird and beautifully carved fat flowers he sometimes puts in the display case when the weather is cool enough so the flowers won’t melt at the shop’s outpost in an outdoor market.
“That’s purely just me being fancy,” he says.
Standing blogs about crazy meat cuts, meat cooking techniques, and recipes at Mallet and Cleaver.
Related: The Cheaper, Tastier Cuts of Meat Your Butcher Really Wants You to Order
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