This has to have been asked a thousand times but ...

[daniels]

How in the world did a pork shoulder start getting called a pork butt?

A Boston butt is a barrel/cask (called a butt back then) filled with cheaper cuts of pork including the shoulder.  How did they go from

Boston butt (a cask full of meat) + pork shoulder = pork butt?

Curious about how this began and also wondering why this keeps propagating?  (Can you tell that it's slow for me at work right now? 

)

 

[daveomak]

Well, your butt question has been solved....   The USDA or Pork producers of America have banded together to name pork cuts, similar to beef so folks would know, maybe, where the cut came from... 

So, pork butt is no longer, or soon will be no longer, a description used by meat cutters.....  maybe.....

 

[chef jimmyj]

Long term convention. Similar to the term Prime Rib, even though you rarely see prime grade outside of high end restaurants...JJ