Saturday, December 15, 2018

Gone and Mostly Forgotten


Tripe
Has anyone noticed that the selections of meat and offal offerings at your local supermarket  are getting much more narrow? I have and it's beginning to bug me. Many of the meats that I have enjoyed are just not to be found. I suspect it might be that our younger generations don't know how to prepare many of these items and they thus go unsold. Here are a few of those that I sorely miss:

Fresh ham (not smoked!), sweetbreads (thymus' are better), pale calf's liver, capons (chicken or turkey), chicken hearts (in bulk), hanger steak, pork chops (with fillets included), Porterhouse steaks, beef neck meat (makes the best hamburgers), real dried beef, trit-tip steaks (other than on the West Coast), pigs' knuckles, tripe (beef or pig stomach), breast of lamb, pork crown roast, veal cheeks, real prime beef rib roast ... even lamb shanks are getting increasingly rare.

I've gone on the Internet trying to find many of these items. Slim pickings!

2 comments:

ChillFin said...

What a lovely image of tripe! Many of these items were regular items in my father's store years ago. The reality of the meat and offal carried in stores is that, simply, they buy what sells. I am afraid Natick is not a center of exotica. Here are ideas and offerings:

-- Look for Spanish grocery stores in Framingham Center. Try Casa de Carne on Waverly Street

-- Look for African grocery stores. I see one on Franklin Street, GCN Market

-- H-Mart for bulk chicken hearts (we'll go there soon!) and so much more

-- Several items you list (knuckles, tripe, cheeks, breast of lamb) would be in an African American supermarket

-- A high-end butcher like Savenor's in Cambridge for the best cuts of beef and butchrey like crown roasts and rolled rib (done correctly) as well as game meat

-- a German meat processor in Wisconsin that produces restaurant-quality smoked meats and jerky

-- and ultimately: Ask your butcher at the supermarket for what you want like lamb shanks and fresh ham

-- if you really want to go the max i know a good slaughterhouse... oops, abattoir now... that can get really special orders.

George W. Potts said...

Thanks!