Pork Shoulder Demystified: Boston Butt Versus Picnic Shoulder

, or ask our butcher for three pounds of shoulder meat, we’re often speaking in much vaguer terms than we intend—I’m certainly guilty of this. Unless you’ve taken on the daunting task of cooking an entire 20 pound pork shoulder, you’re either cooking the picnic shoulder or the pork butt.

Though they can be used in many of the same recipes, the butt and the picnic shoulder come from slightly different parts of the animal. They have different degrees of marbling, and one is tougher and more sinewy than the other. Understanding the nuances of these cuts can help you better choose which to buy, and how to cook them both.Pork butt comes from above the pig’s shoulder blade, directly behind its neck and head.

Unless you’re looking for a portion of the shoulder with skin still intact, this is our cut of choice. The pork butt can be used in nearly all of the same applications as the picnic shoulder, but its added marbling renders it more moist and resistant to overcooking. This is the most frequently used cut of meat throughout the South for, because of its nice distribution of fat. “When you see competition barbecue,” professional butcher Joe Cates tells me, “they’re nearly always using this cut.

Because of the tapered shape of the leg, it can be difficult to cut a picnic shoulder into consistently sized pieces. Because of that, we recommend opting for pork butt when uniform chunks of pork shoulder are called for in a recipe—think stews, like

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