There is a very traditional piece of French furniture that has found its way from a butchers store to many fashionable kitchens - it is the 'billot de boucher', (pronounced bee-o de booshay) or the butchers table.
They are prized and expensive pieces to find, generally built from large blocks of oak or hornbeam, and if they are genuine - and genuinely old - their table or counter top will be worn down and rounded away through years of use as a chopping block.
The photo below has done the rounds on pinterest, so I don't even know where it originated, but it is a reproduction butcher's table, hence the practical and flat counter top.
What is lovely in this copy is that they have gone to the trouble of reproducing the hand carved decorative edge along the body base.
Here in france there are still a couple of places where they make real billots de boucher, like this one made from solid hornbeam in the centre of France.
When we first moved to this village, our butcher used a billot just like this one below, with the steel bar attached to the back splash, a safe and handy way to store knives. Sadly the health and safety rules were stepped up, and it was no longer considered desirable to have meat cut on a chunk of wood ...... hmmm.
I'd be hard pushed to find one of these on a country fair, but I should think I could source one or two at the right dealers. Then I'd just need to find a space for it at home.
all pictures sourced on Google images and pinterest and at Les Billots de Sologne
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