Boutique Meat

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More from Wall Street on the meat the elite are perceived to eat...

 

 

Boutique-Meat Trend Sparks A Following Beyond Foodies

September 6, 2002

 

By POOJA BHATIA

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

 

Barbara Franzoia can always count on her friend Madeleine Corson for fancy

birthday gifts: designer jewelry, trinkets from Tiffany's, a Burberry scarf.

So what'd she get for her 40th birthday last month?

 

A cooler full of raw meat. " Definitely a surprise, " says Ms. Franzoia, a San

Francisco marketing consultant, whose present included skirt steak, ground

chuck and a filet -- all from animals raised on a pasture near Petaluma,

Calif.

 

Have a cow. No, really. At supermarkets and small farms across the country,

herds of buyers are snapping up boutique meats: cows raised on grass, lambs

allowed to frolic, even pork with a pedigree. Though Americans are eating

less red meat these days -- about 4% less per person in the last two years

-- sales of " natural " meat have jumped 30% or more this year, producers say,

due to everything from health worries to a raft of upsetting reports about

the safety of commercial meat.

 

But the trend is wreaking havoc on some Sunday night pot roasts and

late-summer barbecues. It's not just that prices are as much as double;

cooking the meat can mean unlearning everything you think you know about

food. Grill a T-bone for 25 minutes? Forget it: The " new " beef turns to shoe

leather. Roasting a " heritage " turkey at the usual 350 degrees will make it

dryer than Colorado timber. (Some farmers recommend cooking it overnight at

low temperatures that the USDA warns could be salmonella-producing.) Then

there's storage: The smallest order at many ranches is a quarter of a steer

(100 pounds), which has some buyers holding the equivalent of Tupperware

parties to divvy up their cows.

 

Still, for some people, it's all worth it. This year, Ruth Fothergill and

her husband went in on a pair of farm-raised hogs for their supply of hams,

hocks and bacon. Even that wasn't close enough to nature for the couple --

in April, they got together at a farmhouse in rural Illinois and slaughtered

the animals themselves. Then they made their own sausage. " It's a little bit

crazy, but it gets you more in touch with your meat, " the Chicago physician

says.

 

Of course, upscale restaurants have been trumpeting their chops' provenance

for years, making Niman Ranch pork and James Ranch lamb name brands among

well-to-do foodies who have it shipped. But only recently has all this

boutique food gone mainstream, showing up in the local supermarket and

suburban kitchens. And while you'd think the shaky economy would make people

think twice before shelling out as much as $25 a pound for tenderloin,

stores like the Whole Foods chain say sales have jumped in the past two

years. " People have started wanting peace of mind from their piece of meat, "

says Kate Lowery, a spokeswoman for the market.

 

To be sure, most people still buy meat from big commercial producers. And,

says Gary Weber, executive director of regulatory affairs for the National

Cattlemen's Beef Association, not only is beef from big producers

USDA-inspected, but any hormones and antibiotics have been approved by the

FDA.

 

Still, boasting about your grass-fed, antibiotic-free and no-hormone beef is

sure to set you apart from the certified Angus-buying masses at the local

Shop 'n' Save. But there's one major drawback: Some people think the new

meat doesn't taste very good. This summer, Barbara Woodward's local grocery

dumped all its commercial steaks for Piedmontese beef from an independent

ranching conglomerate. The cows' pedigrees date back to 1886, but Mrs.

Woodward wasn't impressed. Not only did the filet cost an additional $2 a

pound, but " it was difficult to get my knife through it, " the Lakeville,

Conn., teacher says, and it tasted " gamy. " Market owner Bob LaBonne, Sr.,

says that may have been a fluke, or the leaner meat may have been

overcooked. His solution: a two-page brochure of cooking tips he hands out

with each steak.

 

The taste is different, says Peter Hoffman, a chef-activist who switched to

strictly grass-fed meat at his Manhattan restaurant, Savoy, this year. " If

you grew up on Gallo and someone gave you a real Bordeaux, you'd have to

develop your palate to appreciate it. " Maybe so, but not all chefs are

stocking the walk-ins with it. " I don't think I could [serve it] and keep my

job, " says Nick Gatti, executive chef at New Jersey's Alpine Country Club,

who finds the beef too dry. " It's not as succulent as a steakhouse steak, "

he says.

 

Some people, of course, like the " more authentic " taste of boutique meats.

Indeed, that's the big draw of the heritage turkeys the nonprofit

organization Slow Food is distributing nationally for the first time this

Thanksgiving. The breeds it sells -- Bourbon Reds, Jersey Buffs and

Narragansetts -- aren't raised on commercial turkey farms and are produced

only by small farmers. The group says they're more succulent than regular

turkeys, with more dark meat. Some birds are even raised on historically

accurate " 1936 " feed.

 

Too bad they don't come at 1936 prices. Slow Food has so far sold 4,500

birds at $65 a pop (shipping adds another $70) -- including one to Marcia

Knapp, who says she was worried about " the way poultry is raised, " as well

as curious about the taste. What she wasn't curious about: the bill. " I put

it back in the envelope and said, 'Don't look at it, you're doing a good

thing,' " the Carmel, Ind., homemaker says.

 

Is it worth it? Maybe, but not for the squeamish. Last Thanksgiving, Brenda

Malloy's sister bought an " old-fashioned " turkey from a local farm and

bragged all month about how great it was going to taste. But when Ms. Malloy

arrived on Thanksgiving to help cook, she wasn't quite prepared for the

bird. Unlike your average Butterball, it showed up with the neck still

attached, which sent Ms. Malloy running out of the room, clutching her

stomach. " I like the idea of small farms, " she says. " Reality's more

complicated. "

 

 

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