Rhodes Scholar's Offal Truth

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday June 24, 2008

Helen Greenwood

A Greek butcher with an eye to the future is expanding his range of organic meats.

GEORGE PAPANICOLAOU is a modern Greek butcher - his heart in his Hellenic traditions and his eyes on the future.You can see it in his packets of sheftalies - the classic Greek pork and onion sausages, seasoned with oregano and wrapped in a spidery web of caul fat and in the modern moussaka that his wife, Panyiota (who looks like a gentler version of Greek actress Irene Pappas), makes with Gundooee organic wagyu beef.

And, speaking of organic, he reckons that is the way ahead. At the moment his wagyu beef, chooks and eggs are organic but he is planning a line of supply in organic pork, beef and lamb from Grant Hilliard at meat provedore Feather and Bone.

It wasn't that long ago, only about three years, that Papanicolaou was an older-style Greek butcher. He was in partnership with his brother, who was intent on continuing the legacy of their father - they come from a long line of butchers on the island of Rhodes. Papanicolaou remembers being told how his grandfather travelled by boat to other islands to pick up sheep, cattle and goats and ferry them back to Rhodes. He has cousins in Sydney who are butchers and another in the US.

His brother became a butcher at a young age but Papanicolaou wanted to strike out on his own. He became a mechanic but discovered his gregarious personality didn't suit spending hours under a car.

So, after eight years, when his father asked him to help out in the Dulwich Hill shop he had bought in 1984, Papanicolaou took a day off work. One day a week became two days, then four days.

"I discovered what I like: customers," he says. "I used to be under the car talking to the nuts and bolts. It was really boring."

However, the tall, genial butcher soon realised the business of selling meat could be boring, too. When he started work at the shop in 1987, it was "very traditional, old-fashioned ... there were three types of sausages, some chicken portions, not a lot of variety". His brother wrestled with the idea of change but it wasn't until he retired in 2005 that Papanicolaou could stretch his wings.

He increased the range of sausages to 16 - introducing lamb with lemon and rosemary, pork with ginger and shallots. He made chicken involtini and marinated butterflied quail. He put in duck pieces, suckling pork roasts, homemade meat loaf (wrapped in caul), chicken sausage rolls, tyropites (stuffed pastries), meat pies and lasagne.

There is goat from the Murray Valley and, at Easter, he stocks lamb offal for the older customers. "I love the old people," he says. "Once they go, life will be so boring."

But he has his eyes on his young clientele, especially the mothers. "That's why I'm going for organic certification. I'm not going to make a big profit [from organic products] but it will help the community and they will support me."

Dulwich Hill Gourmet Meats

483 Marrickville Road, Dulwich Hill, 9560 7745

Mon-Fri 6.30am-6.30pm, Sat 6am-4pm

Best buys

Organic Gundooee wagyu moussaka $15.99/700g

Sheftalies (pictured) $16.99/kg

Ginger and shallot pork sausages $16.99/kg

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home