Beef Beef

Marzipan shackles aside, I will leave the Count alone for now.  The Cod is more troubled by other DI/DOings. Nigella takes a holiday in Cambodia and goes off the rails,  insisting  what sounds like a ladies' lunch special at a chop house, is in fact an adaptation of a Cambodian beef salad. The mango split I blame on the hashish. But of greater concern, to my mind, is the article on the vogue for grass-fed meats at the Union Square Greenmarket. The article embodies the fundamental problems with efforts to reform agriculture in the US,  but chooses to ignore them. Pork chops at $11/lb are not a revolution, but perhaps a cause for one. Maybe not quite to the barricades material, but there is a difference between a grotesquely wealthy subset of Manhattanites choosing to pay a premium for tastier and healthier meat, and addressing systemic concerns about where meat comes from. It is not clear to me how healthy, sustainable meat that almost nobody can afford is different from pashiminas, iPods, or any other luxury item.

Comments

[Saratoga Slim]

A bit disappointed that "holiday in Cambodia" led to a Times foodie review, as opposed to a Dead Kennedys MP3. Jello Biafra should kick your ass for such American League linking.

[max]

He's right, you need the mp3. Anyway, now look what you made me do. internets=productivity.

[la depressionada]

GROTESQUE? at least it's going on out of doors (see e.g. dana vachon's article in the ny times re: private clubs), but i digress. there's really a much better argument against the meat in union square. anyone that pays $11 bucks a pound for meat that's been transported from god knows where in a styrofoam cooler packed with ice is insane. ground beef? sheer lunacy.

maybe when the grotesque start dropping like flies,* and this meat thing will be hailed as: see they got what they deserved.

not to mention the greenmarket has always had a kind of rackety feel (well since, at least, they found the amish shoving breakstone's into "hand churned" containers.) i am suspect re: the articles that have danny meyer or tom collichio dashing over to grab the freshest ingredients. if you have your own restaurant and don't have a connection that funnels you the first fiddleheads, nothing can help you. i mean how much jam and how many "homebaked" pies does one need?

*when i contract salmonella, i want a deep pocket like whole foods to reach into -- not some guy with a truck.

[Fesser]

Wise words, all. Slim, keep an eye out for a DK's related post, which you will see is overdue.

Max waxes sagely as heck over at Badthings, esp. with the point about the hidden real costs of supermarket meat. True enough, but the disturbing aspect of the article I was trying to point out was its participation in promoting sustainable and healthier foods as a trend for the wealthy, because regardless of hidden costs, if "organic" and "sustainable" remain linked with "fancy" in the public consciousness, we will have ongoing environmental degradation, more obese and diabetic poor people, and annoying thin, rich fucks.

LaD, having toiled alongside Cinetrix and the Pickler at the Greenmarket, I am unprepared to spring unreservedly to its defense, though I sure do miss some of those fancy things here in the Upstate. I commend Joe Queenan's "Admit it, it Sucks" Greenmarket piece from one of the latter unlamented issues of Spy.