Brit Butchers Wearing White Trilby Hats- Why?

[Nawth Chucka]

This young man wrapping a gorgeous joint is wearing a hat we here in the States would think a bit fancy for cutting up animals all the day long. I haven't seen a butcher wear a hat that isn't a ballcap here in forever; even before it was just a peaked deli hat.
What gives, Britischer Butchers? I saw it all over Coronation Street and on the Gordon Ramsay shows where he's in the UK; they seem to be disposable hats or at least not built to last more than a week but the shape's that of a 'nice hat' over here.

[Asympotically fat]

Originally Posted by Nawth Chucka

This young man wrapping a gorgeous joint is wearing a hat we here in the States would think a bit fancy for cutting up animals all the day long. I haven't seen a butcher wear a hat that isn't a ballcap here in forever; even before it was just a peaked deli hat.
What gives, Britischer Butchers? I saw it all over Coronation Street and on the Gordon Ramsay shows where he's in the UK; they seem to be disposable hats or at least not built to last more than a week but the shape's that of a 'nice hat' over here.

These hygiene trilby hats not disposable and they're meant to last for longer than a week. They're usually made of a synthetic fabric mesh. They're fairly standard headgear for UK butchers and those in simalir lines of work who need hygiene hats.

I suppose these traditional-style hygine hats are preferred for public-facing workers in the food industry as it suggests the wearer has a trade and some sort of expertise (whetehr or not they do).

Though traditionally in the UK buthcer's wore straw boaters as opposed to trilbies, though I doubt they do any more due to food hygiene regulations.

[aruvqan]

I dont care if my butcher wears a hat or not, I just want that lovely roast he is tying ...

[Cub Mistress]

Are the hats washable? Does "hygiene hat" means it's supposed to keep hair out of the food?

[Parenchyma]

Originally Posted by Nawth Chucka

This young man wrapping a gorgeous joint is wearing a hat we here in the States would think a bit fancy

I thought that picture was going to show show something like this.

[Asympotically fat]

Originally Posted by Cub Mistress

Are the hats washable? Does "hygiene hat" means it's supposed to keep hair out of the food?

Yes they're washable and yes Ithey're suppose to keep hair out of food. Though I'm basing this on a part-time job I had about a decade ago in a superrmarket (though it wasn't me who actually wore the hats)

[BobArrgh]

I would have said he was wearing a pork-pie hat.





*Snerk*

[Fake Tales of San Francisco]

Originally Posted by Nawth Chucka

I haven't seen a butcher wear a hat that isn't a ballcap here in forever; even before it was just a peaked deli hat.

Butchers in the US wear baseball caps? From this side of the pond that's equally as strange! Aren't those the things young people wear?

[BigT]

I don't see how the hat keeps hair out of food. Does it have something that holds the hair up and in the hat? If not, I'd expect hair to fall as easily as when you put it up in other ways.

I mean, I could maybe see wearing a hairnet under that, but then I wouldn't consider the hat to be the important part--it'd just be cosmetic.

[Nawth Chucka]

Originally Posted by aruvqan

I dont care if my butcher wears a hat or not, I just want that lovely roast he is tying ...

It's a stunner, isn't it? You could feed a household for a few days on that, or a few very happy, overstuffed guests all weekend long. This month I learned about tri-tip roasts, are you familiar?

Originally Posted by Parenchyma

I thought that picture was going to show show something like this.

Wrapping, baby, not rolling. Though a rolled one could lead to wanting to eat a wrapped one.

Originally Posted by BobArrgh

I would have said he was wearing a pork-pie hat.





*Snerk*

Bob, you earned your Arrrgh w/ tht one, well done to you sir!

Originally Posted by Fake Tales of San Francisco

Butchers in the US wear baseball caps? From this side of the pond that's equally as strange! Aren't those the things young people wear?

Here in the States (and the bits of Canada I've seen) people of all ages wear ballcaps. Many supermarkets here have all their employees wear a ballcap w/ their logo on it, and since most people buy their meat at a supermarket rather than a dedicated butcher the meat case workers are in ballcaps.

Originally Posted by BigT

I don't see how the hat keeps hair out of food. Does it have something that holds the hair up and in the hat? If not, I'd expect hair to fall as easily as when you put it up in other ways.

I mean, I could maybe see wearing a hairnet under that, but then I wouldn't consider the hat to be the important part--it'd just be cosmetic.

My thought too, you'd have to have rather short hair or have it all in a hairnet under the hat for it to keep hair from falling into the meat.
But if the goal is to indicate the person wearing the hat has learned something more about the product they're responsible for (as a tradesman) and is to be relied on in that arena of knowledge I certainly see the purpose of the hat.

[Fake Tales of San Francisco]

Don't baseball caps suffer from the same problem with keeping hair off food though? I mean, if you don't have short hair, it's going to stick out like it or not. The man in the picture in the OP seems to have short hair that is concealed entirely by the hat.

The difference in efficacy of either style seems negligible.

[Nawth Chucka]

Originally Posted by Fake Tales of San Francisco

Don't baseball caps suffer from the same problem with keeping hair off food though? I mean, if you don't have short hair, it's going to stick out like it or not. The man in the picture in the OP seems to have short hair that is concealed entirely by the hat.

The difference in efficacy of either style seems negligible.

Sorry, I should have been more explicit; hands-on food workers in the supermarket wear a hairnet as far as I've seen - meat, deli, bakery. They wear them under the ballcap if they wear a ballcap IME.

[gotpasswords]

Originally Posted by Fake Tales of San Francisco

Butchers in the US wear baseball caps? From this side of the pond that's equally as strange! Aren't those the things young people wear?

Most of the meat cutters I've seen around here are wearing hairnets under a bump cap. (eg: a lightweight hard hat)

I don't know the point of the bump cap, unless it's like the exterminators who wear the same sort of caps to subconsciously make you think "Hey, this bug spray business is dangerous, so I better leave it to the pros."

[carnivorousplant]

Originally Posted by gotpasswords

Most of the meat cutters I've seen around here are wearing hairnets under a bump cap. (eg: a lightweight hard hat)

I don't know the point of the bump cap, unless it's like the exterminators who wear the same sort of caps to subconsciously make you think "Hey, this bug spray business is dangerous, so I better leave it to the pros."

Crawling under furniture and in crawl spaces (That's why they call them that!) running network cable, I've often wished I had something between my head and hard things.
Maybe butchers wear them to ward off meat hanging in the freezer.

[dracoi]

Originally Posted by Nawth Chucka

This month I learned about tri-tip roasts, are you familiar?

If you're new to tri-tip, here's what you do: First, find one that still has the fat off on, and hasn't been trimmed to death. (You can cut the fat off after you cook it, if you insist). Put on a dry rub (paprika, garlic powder, onion power, salt, black pepper is all it really needs). Fire up the grill (charcoal, please). Sear both sides to get that relatively dark, crispy outside - about 10 minutes per side with the lid down, depending on how high the heat is. Move the meat off the main heat, put the grill's lid back on, and cook until 140 degrees F internal temperature. Take as long to get to 140 as possible; 30 minutes is good, but if you control the heat right, you can make it take 45 minutes. Pull the meat off the grill and let it rest 10 minutes under loosely tented tin foil or a dishcloth. 140 degrees is pretty rare, but the resting will carry you to between 145 and 150 for a more medium rare doneness. Because of the odd shape of the meat, you'll always have a range of doneness in your slices anyway, which makes these great for entertaining. Once the internal temperature stops going up, carve into slices.

As far hats... wear whatever feels right.

[carnivorousplant]

Originally Posted by dracoi

Fire up the grill (charcoal, please).

You a guy or a girl?
Do I want to buy you a beer or roses?

[rotntoe]

Originally Posted by carnivorousplant

Crawling under furniture and in crawl spaces (That's why they call them that!) running network cable, I've often wished I had something between my head and hard things.
Maybe butchers wear them to ward off meat hanging in the freezer.

HI, I asked an older fellow who worked in the meat department. He said it was from the times he worked at a meat processing plant that had shut down.
When the plant would get sides of hanging meat, they were on large heavy steel hooks. You would grab the large side of meat in a bear hug, push up and take it off the hook. In the process the hook sometimes came off the track, and may hit you in the head.
The hooks were removable to be cleaned. that is what he told me.

[carnivorousplant]

Thanks, rotntoe!

[Leo Bloom]

I have never seen a butcher, at retail or distributor, wear a baseball cap in NYC.

[dangermom]

Originally Posted by dracoi

Fire up the grill (charcoal, please).

Sacrilege! Red oak, thank you very much. (You also need pinquito beans, garlic bread, and salad.) Some reasonable instructions.

[brad_d]

This motley array of baseball-cap-wearing butchers does not strike this American as the least bit strange. I've no knowledge of the shop in question, but that's a pretty common look, in my experience.

[Nawth Chucka]

Originally Posted by brad_d

This motley array of baseball-cap-wearing butchers does not strike this American as the least bit strange. I've no knowledge of the shop in question, but that's a pretty common look, in my experience.

I have to say the title of that site is f-ing brilliant. And yes, that's exactly the look of most butchers/meat case workers I see in my typical daily life of never going to a butcher shop. Surely they have case meat sections in the UK? Theoretically a store could eliminate any sort of butchery and sell ONLY what's in the case which could have come to the store pre-packaged, needing only a price sticker.

[WotNot]

Originally Posted by Nawth Chucka

My thought too, you'd have to have rather short hair or have it all in a hairnet under the hat for it to keep hair from falling into the meat.
But if the goal is to indicate the person wearing the hat has learned something more about the product they're responsible for (as a tradesman) and is to be relied on in that arena of knowledge I certainly see the purpose of the hat.

I think the reason for the hat varies depending on the situation: sometimes they're in a situation where hygiene isn't actually essential (where they're dealing with pre-packed meats, for instance) but they want something that says "Hi! I'm a butcher! Ask me about meat!", and other times that just happens to be the hat that management have chosen for them to wear. There are different standard styles of hygiene hat available apart from the trilbys – trucker/baseball caps, boaters, and a wide range of cotton peaked hats.

And they will wear a hairnet, if needed, and I think the guy in that photo is wearing the hat mainly so that he looks less of a berk.

[dracoi]

Originally Posted by carnivorousplant

You a guy or a girl?
Do I want to buy you a beer or roses?

I'm a guy, so make it a nice, dark porter.

Originally Posted by dangermom

Sacrilege! Red oak, thank you very much. (You also need pinquito beans, garlic bread, and salad.) Some reasonable instructions.

Having grown up with Santa Maria style BBQ, I certainly can't argue with that. (My mother used to sew the canvas bags for Susie-Q's pinquito beans). I'm in the Seattle area now, so charcoal it is. And I've discovered that Seattle is a part of the country where knowledge about grilling/BBQ is... well, I'll be nice and say "not so sophisticated." I've learned to dumb things down.

[dangermom]

Originally Posted by dracoi

Having grown up with Santa Maria style BBQ, I certainly can't argue with that. (My mother used to sew the canvas bags for Susie-Q's pinquito beans). I'm in the Seattle area now, so charcoal it is. And I've discovered that Seattle is a part of the country where knowledge about grilling/BBQ is... well, I'll be nice and say "not so sophisticated." I've learned to dumb things down.

Are you from SM or thereabouts? I went to Righetti myself.

[Nawth Chucka]

Originally Posted by dracoi

I'm a guy, so make it a nice, dark porter.



Having grown up with Santa Maria style BBQ, I certainly can't argue with that. (My mother used to sew the canvas bags for Susie-Q's pinquito beans). I'm in the Seattle area now, so charcoal it is. And I've discovered that Seattle is a part of the country where knowledge about grilling/BBQ is... well, I'll be nice and say "not so sophisticated." I've learned to dumb things down.

Fire GOOD!

[Mister Rik]

Originally Posted by Fake Tales of San Francisco

Don't baseball caps suffer from the same problem with keeping hair off food though? I mean, if you don't have short hair, it's going to stick out like it or not. The man in the picture in the OP seems to have short hair that is concealed entirely by the hat.

The difference in efficacy of either style seems negligible.

<chef hat on>

If hair gets from your head to the food, 99.99999% of the time it's because the hair fell out at the root, not because it broke off in the middle. Wearing an appropriate hat* will effectively cover most of the area from which your hair sprouts, and therefore hold in place any hairs that may fall out of their follicles.

ETA: Also, long hair, even if a hat is worn, is generally going to also pulled back into a tail, not sticking out on all sides. I used to have long hair, and I took the extra precaution of using styling gel to plaster it all down, since not all of it was long enough to reach the rubber band. The lady cook I work with does the same thing - gel in addition to either a ponytail or bun.


*Or other headgear - I actually wear a bandana, though since my head is shaved hair isn't an issue**; the bandana is mainly there to stop sweat from rolling off my scalp. My current employer doesn't require any specific head covering (except I wear the stupid mushroom-shaped chef hat when I carve meat on a buffet line, but that's mainly for appearances) since we're usually out of sight of the public and we simply need to comply with health regulations, meaning hair is restrained in some way that keeps it out of the food. The health department doesn't care what the headgear looks like.

**When I had hernia surgery last year, one of the nurses prepping me put a surgical cap on my head with a grin and the words, "just a formality!"

[dracoi]

Originally Posted by dangermom

Are you from SM or thereabouts? I went to Righetti myself.

I was in Santa Maria until 2nd grade, when we moved to SLO. I was there until after I graduated from Cal Poly.

[Acsenray]

Originally Posted by Fake Tales of San Francisco

Butchers in the US wear baseball caps? From this side of the pond that's equally as strange! Aren't those the things young people wear?

Everyone wears baseball caps. It has nothing to do with young people. These days, if you have a job that requires you to wear a uniform-- package delivery, food service, janitorial/maintenance, skilled services, law enforcement, emergency medical services, security, military -- there's a very good chance that the uniform comes with a baseball cap.