When I was a young kid growing up, the world was just in the middle of the process of evolving or transitioning from a place where you would happily go from one shop to another to deal with undisputed experts in their chosen field of endeavor.
That means back when I was a little kid, my parents would take me to a local farmers market or roadside food stand in order to get the highest quality, best tasting, freshly harvested fruits and vegetables.
Then, if we had somehow forgotten to order an item with the local milkman who delivered directly to our door daily, we would then drive to the local dairy to get the freshest milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, and cream available on the market.
There was a bread truck that came down the street everyday, just like the ice cream man, with a bell or song playing over a speaker and if we missed the truck, we’d stop at bakery on the way home to get our bread, cookies, cakes, pies, donuts, etc.
But the coolest, most awesome shop for a little kid like me, who truly loved steak, pork chops, lobster, ribs and, yep,… you guessed it,… fresh, premium bacon, sausage and ham, was of course, the butcher shop.
Here was an absolute expert, who knew everything there was to know about the meat he served, from every conceivable specific cut and type of meat, to the marbling, aging, preparing and all of various grades of quality our hard earned money could buy!
But eventually the large “one stop” grocery stores moved into town and slowly began to put the squeeze on the local, caring, knowledgeable, helpful, independent connoisseurs and aficionados.
Then the Supermarkets came onto the scene and sent the grocery store owners reeling and pretty much finished off most of the independent experts. Those that survived the supermarket “blitzkrieg” eventually came to known as “Specialty Shops,” that sadly had to continually raise their prices just in order to barely survive and keep their doors open for those few remaining customers who still cared anything about quality.
By the time the “Massive Mega-Marts” invaded, chasing away many of the supermarkets, crushing the grocery stores, and killing off most of the surviving remnants of the good ole’ “Specialty Shops,” quality was no longer even a mere and minor secondary after-thought and everything suddenly came down to price, price, price.
In order to survive, the grocery stores and supermarkets had to drastically cut costs by bringing in lower quality foods, particularly meats and hire minimum wage earning clerks to stand behind the glassed cases and grab whatever lumps and clumps of flesh the hurried and frantic customer pointed at.
That made me start asking some questions and I was very disturbed to discover the “NON ANSWERS” and “Un-Educated Guesses” I was receiving from the keepers of the supermarket meat departments. These people simply didn’t seem to know much about the various cuts or grades and they most definitely knew nothing at all about important things like fat content, marbling, purging, tumbling and aging, etc.
That’s when I finally realized that if I was going to be able to get top quality meat for my family at a reasonable price, I was going to have to do it through a monthly meat club. So I set out researching and comparing the all of the various online and off-line meat clubs that I could order from and began asking them all of the same questions that I couldn’t get answered over at the meat department at the supermarket.
That’s when I suddenly heard and fully realized the nature of my true “Special Calling” for the first time and knew exactly what it was that I had to do if I and the people that I truly cared about were ever going to enjoy the splendor of premium quality meat!
Out of that epiphany, came the formation of “Bacon Freak” and “Coastal Vineyards Wine & Gourmet Food Clubs” and I haven’t looked back since. So as the flavor and quality of meats available at the grocery stores and supermarkets continue to decrease, I’m totally committed to do whatever I can to make sure that those I care about, my family and valued members, clients and customers get only the very finest and flavorful prime cuts available on the market.
That’s why I simply cannot and will not serve my family, friends and associates meat from the supermarket any more! How bout you?
Signing Off and Pigging Out,
Rocco “Boss Hog” Loosbrock
www.baconfreak.com
