René Rittaud patiently finishes removing the fat from the pieces of meat in the pot of sauerkraut. Since the store opened at 7:30 a.m., the imposing casserole has been simmering in the spacious laboratory of the Fourneaux butcher’s shop (Savoie). His 78 years and health concerns have not persuaded him to put down his apron. It has been more than fifty-five years since he moved the butcher shop that his parents, Joanny and Paulette, founded in 1945 in Haute-Savoie to this village near Modane.
He in turn passed it on, in 2004, to his son Lionel and his daughter-in-law Mathilde, while continuing to help them. In 2012, Alexis, the couple’s eldest son who, at 10 years old, “already came to help prepare sausages”, joined the company. Over four generations, the eighty years of history of this line of butchers tell the story of the evolution of the profession, small businesses and consumption habits.
When Joanny, who has since died, opened his own butcher’s shop in 1945, France was in the midst of economic reconstruction. “Back then, they could open a store and just make a living from it”relates Lionel. “There were fewer constraints on charges, regulations and borrowing than now,” believes the man who learned the trade at a very young age from his father and grandfather.
When René and his wife Josiane moved to Fourneaux at the end of the 1960s, they lived above the shop, closed the curtain on their business at 5 a.m., and remained open at lunchtime and on Sunday mornings. With Joanny, they use their Monday day off to collect the animals from local breeders and take care of their slaughter. “If we didn’t stop for a drink, the guys wouldn’t be not happy! »remembers René.
Lionel, 52 years old, has kept the habit of meeting breeders. He just returned this September 28, 2023 from a bike ride in the Maurienne valley on a route chosen according to the herds to see. The butcher likes to go and observe how the animals are doing on site and take the pulse of the breeder.
However, his daily life as a butcher is very different from that of his ancestors. His small business has grown, in twenty years, from three to nine employees, now has the meat carcasses which are cut on site delivered directly, and remains closed two days a week, Sunday and Monday. “My father and my grandfather only thought and lived for work, remembers Lionel. Us too, but family life and professional life are two distinct places. »
You have 70% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.