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To look at most supermarket meat counters, you'd never know there was more to an animal than prime fillet, sirloin, chops and sausages. A uniform regiment of sterile vac-packed (meat needs to breathe!), tastelessly underhung (it needs to age for flavour!), generally bone-free (the sweetest meat is next to the bone!) and a lurid, uniform pink colour under the neon lighting. Few of these cuts lend themselves to anything other than quick grilling. The combined loss of both the art of meat cookery (braising, stewing, roasting, boiling and more) and professional butchers' skills is a cause for national culinary concern. But rather than getting into a chicken vs egg, demand vs supply conundrum, let us be thankful for those rare birds who still practice this most ancient of trades, thanks in no little part to the work of the national Guild of Q Butchers. Q, of course, stands for quality.

Detailed anatomical and forensic skills, expert husbandry knowledge and obliging service remain the hallmark of a good butcher. The independent butcher is willing and able to advise on cuts of meat and recipes, knows just where the meat comes from and how it was reared, and is able to trace its progress from field to plate. He (or, indeed, she) will also know the breed - from Norfolk Bronze turkey to Gloucester Old Spot pork and Romney Marsh lamb - and its particular characteristics, eating and cooking qualities.

In a good butcher's shop, whether or not there's still sawdust on the floor, the freshly scrubbed, massive wooden butchers' blocks and boards will be concave with the weight of decades of great, yeoman joints, patrician-rich with claret-coloured flesh and thick ribbons of golden marbling. You'll find brisk, white-coated assistants slicing, boning, filleting and chopping with the intense concentration of neurosurgeons. The butcher, in his striped apron will be a formidable presence, a worthy advertisement for his red-blooded trade, dispensing wise counsel on free-range and organic production, and cajouling and tempting us into a piece of brisket for the pot or a joint of rolled pork loin with superb crackling. There will be meat minced to order, lamb and peppers threaded onto skewers, cutlets marinated in tempting savoury spice mixtures, and a fine array of home-made sausages. Who said, where's the beef?

Clarissa Hyman