Lately, with all the processed foods we eat, I was looking for better options. The meat in Argentina is really known for its quality.
Literal Corner Butcher's
But you never know what they're putting in the little white trays, all pre-wade and wrapped with cellophane. So I have been trying many many meat stores and butcher shops around town looking for the freshest and best meat.
I walked up when it was my turn and talked to the owner who was the only man there. It looks as though he's the only one there. From what I can tell in my experience in this country, he has probably been doing this all of his life.
I was in the market for brisket known as "Vacio" here in Argentina. He consulted several paper notes taped to the wall at the end of the meat cooler. Then he asked me how much I wanted. I said eight or ten pounds.
I had noticed while waiting in line that there was an entire cow hanging behind him as he served customers. I guess you might call that two sides of beef.
Lucky for me, that was where he headed in order to get the meat that I had ordered.
While he was cutting to remove the brisket portion of the cow, I was thinking of several videos that I had seen where people were pointing out the creative names that they are giving lab-grown meat and that sometimes they don't label it at all. Talk about your knock-offs!
Here we have one side of beef with its brisket portion intact, on the right - and the one on the left without its brisket section.
I think there's a high likelihood that these sides of beef are not lab-grown. What's more, in the morning time, you can see men coming from a refrigerated truck with one of these on a shoulder, carrying it into the butcher's shops all over town.
When I went to Mar del Plata several months ago, you could see that the entire country is peppered with cattle. Frankly, I don't see the need to grow meat in a lab.
Sixty four dollars worth of fresh beef.
Here's the hunk that he took off of the side of beef. They usually trim a lot of the excess fat from it before weighing it and selling it to you. But I wanted the fat.
The fat will be turned into tallow.
The thicker portions of meat will be Vacio - like brisket but done on the grill. They end up being very thick steaks.
And the thinner parts will be either breakfast, steak and eggs, or made into beef stew. The liquid that is in the pressure cooker becomes the stock for our beef stew.
I am running two cycles through the pressure cooker to put twenty minutes of pressure on all of the meat to make it tender. Then I separate the meat for its different purposes.
Sixty percent of it went right on the grill after coming out of the pressure cooker.
As large corporations become less trustworthy, it is time for people to look for the healthiest and most natural foods with the least processing in their production.
