Why don't we use proper butchers anymore?

I was despatched on a mission tonight - come back with chicken sausages for dinner, or don't come back at all.

Maybe the bit about not coming back at all is something of an overstatement. But I took my mission seriously, and I trawled all possible chicken sausage selling establishments in the local area.

I decided not to visit the supermarket, as they appear to be suffering from a shortage of chicken bits stuffed into guts at the moment. You wouldn't think that the world would be short of either chickens or suitable bits of guts to put them in, but our local supermarket has found a way to corner the market in non-chicken sausages.

That left me with a choice of three butchers, all within about a 300m walk on the same stretch of road in Five Wog. I started at one end of the street, simply because the butcher was next to the dry cleaner, and the monkey had managed to get yoghurt all over a suit recently.

That butcher was not enticing. Apart from offering miserable service, the actual shop looked like a set from a horror movie. There was a curving rail running around the shop, clearly meant for moving carcases along, and it was rusted to buggery. Hygene and presentation did not seem to be high on their menu. I decided to chance them anyway, knowing the sausage famine that is stalking our land.

Phew. Lucked out. They didn't have any.

I know that the butcher at the far end does all sorts of interesting spicy Italian sausages, but I have no idea whether they are any good at the plain chicken variety. I still don't know because I visited the in-between butcher and he blew me away.

To start with, he had an interesting looking range of sausages - all at the gourmet end of the market. None of them looked like they contained finely minced polony and breadcrumbs (polony being a particularly awful WA version of luncheon meat). They looked chunky and hand made. I like that.

After I bought a dozen, I noticed that the second butcher was doing some kind of rolled up lamb parcel with garlic and rosemary. I asked a few questions, and discovered that he had half a dozen boned shoulders spread out in front of him, and he was stuffing them, rolling them and tying them off. I have tried this many times at home - with my own stuffing - and usually made a complete hash of it. I told him that, and he simply responded with, "Why not bring a container of your stuffing around and I'll do it for you?"

I could have kissed him. Try doing that at your local supermarket.

I usually don't buy a lot of meat at our local supermarket, but I think the meager amount I do buy is about to drop to zero.

Your local butcher - your local hero.