Meat by the Box
I’ve been meaning to write about this article, BACK TO THE RANCH: Consumers are going to the source for pastured beef, pork, poultry and eggs in the SF Chronicle food section since it came out (which to my horror, was a month ago). Anyhow, looks like more and more families in the Bay Area are buying meat directly from ranchers — I’ve written before about knowing your meat, and my astonishment that most Americans are totally freaked out by this idea. When Patrick and I lived in the Bay Area we talked about finding someone to buy a side or a quarter of beef from, and Patrick’s friend Kiwi Paul the Stonemason turned out to be a great source of real eggs, but we never quite got our act together to buy meat. It is a little tricky. You have to know a rancher, or know someone who knows a rancher. Perhaps now with the internet, and organizations like our own local Corporation for the Northern Rockies who can help you make the connection, it’s a little easier, but I doubt that if Patrick and I hadn’t had a grandmother with a farm, a grandmother who always bought a share of a steer (or who in recent years has traded beef for pasturage — yes, those black angus out there lolling under the old elm trees are going to be next winter’s dinner) that it even would have occurred to us to look for meat by the animal.
And no one’s making it any easier. When we were kids, my grandmother kept her meat in the meat locker at the little store in town.