I thoroughly believe that buying local is a great idea, so long as the price/quality combination is better than I’d get elsewhere. Which of course means that I don’t give two cow-patties about where my food comes from. Certainly I am not alone in this matter, but I at least do not try to delude others about my motives. It is from this perspective that I’m always suspicious of people who stake a claim to their progressivity by buying local, especially when it just so happens that they’re getting a bargain.
It is that point-of-view that hit me when I was reading a WaPo article about urbanites who are now going out of their way to buy sides-o-meat.
A friend invited [David Storm, a legal analyst in Charlottesville,] to share a steer bought from a farmer just 45 minutes away. The cost: $1 a pound, plus a 36-cents-per-pound processing fee, or $735.76 for a 541-pound carcass, which translated to 275 pounds of dry-aged beef. “We did it for a lot of reasons,” says Storm, 39. “One was cost. Two, it is grass-fed and fresh, so it will hopefully taste better. And three, we’re supporting a local farmer, something we’re very avid about.
“Plus it seemed fun. People would say, ‘Anything new?’ And I could say, ‘Yeah, I just bought a side of beef.’ “
Nevermind.
Now that I read this again, I think that David realizes that he made a bad decision but is trying to convince himself that it wasn’t. Seriously, how could you convince yourself ahead of time that freshness is important when you’re considering purchasing 275 pounds of beef that you’re just going to put in the freezer for up to a year?
The Double D Says:
When I was a kid my parents bought a side of beef every year from a friend. They didn’t pat themselves on the back too much about it as I recall.
I think the next phase will be articles in the New York Times and WaPo about the revival of the “lost art” of canning. Suburban progressives will be photographed standing proudly in front of ranks of Mason jars filled with beans, tomatoes, pickles. Again, just something we did back in the day because we wanted to be able to eat in the winter, too.
Or they’ll start writing about people who have begun to use their yards to grow their own food in gardens.
Oh wait, they already have.
[Thanks for the link, Bear]