Protein Revolution

Meat CSAs

With vegetable CSAs you get freshly harvested produce from a farm. Meat CSAs do the same thing with meat.

Farms tend to slaughter their animals seasonally, then freeze and store the meat until it goes into your box. Meat CSAs are a good option for city dwellers with limited freezer space; subscribers can order as little as five pounds of meat a month, depending on the supplier. But as with vegetable CSAs, you get what the farm has. “I try to vary the cuts,” says Kate Stillman of Massachusetts-based Stillman’s, which services Boston. “They may get pork three months in a row, but one month it’ll be bacon, the next country-style ribs.” You usually do not get offal unless you’ve asked for it.

To find out if there are any meat CSAs in your area, talk to local producers (partial lists of producers of grass-fed, organic, and humanely raised meat can be found at Eatwild.com). If a producer you like doesn’t have a CSA, suggest starting one.

Buying a Whole Animal

You may feel seduced by the old-timey-sounding prospect of buying an entire side of a steer (or pig, or lamb) and splitting it up with your friends. Check out the story of one CHOW writer who did it last year. Though this model is the most effort-intensive on the part of the consumer, it requires virtually nothing extra on the part of the rancher, so in that sense, it is the easiest to pull off. It’s also the most economical. Unlike joining a club or subscribing to a CSA, this may be a one-off deal.

First, shop around, because you’re going to be eating a lot of the animal you buy. You can cull at least a partial list of local producers from Eatwild.com. Ranchers will usually be happy to give you a sample before you commit. Ask for one at the farmers’ market, if the farm has a stand there, or drive out so you can see the operation and feel good about how the animals are raised. You can compare prices, too. Most ranchers have set rates for bulk meat sales. However, the price per pound given to you may be for the “hanging weight,” meaning the weight of the animal before it’s been butchered. If that’s the case, you won’t be able to compare it directly to the price per pound you pay for supermarket meat.

Once you’ve settled on whom you want to buy from, decide how much meat you want. Though it varies according to the size of the animal, a side of beef will yield roughly 200 pounds of meat. Do you have enough friends to split up 30 steaks and 60 pounds of hamburger? Or too many, so that somebody’s going to end up with all hamburger and no steaks?

Know how you want the animal to be butchered. Though the producer will probably have a relationship with a butcher, and will send the animal there after you’ve paid for it and it’s been slaughtered, you should let the butcher (or the rancher, who will pass it on to the butcher) know which cuts you want. “There’s some stuff foodies are into, like short ribs or hanger steaks, that these old-fashioned American butchers don’t necessarily cut unless you tell them to,” says CHOW contributor Daniel Duane, who has bought several whole animals with friends. You can also specify whether you want things the butcher might toss, like soup bones, or offal, or fatback (see our sidebar on rendering lard). Once the meat is cut, packaged, and frozen, you may have to pick the animal up from the butcher or the ranch, but in many cases the ranch will deliver it to you.

Find somewhere to store it. Jo Robinson, grass-fed beef advocate and creator of Eatwild.com, says a cheap box freezer from Sears will do. “You don’t need a top-of-the-line KitchenAid,” she says. In some parts of the country where there are a lot of hunters, you can also find meat-locker space for rent.

Neighborhood Buying Clubs

Buying clubs are groups of people who live close to one another, and who together decide upon a producer, order whatever cuts they want, and have it all delivered at once to the club host’s house.

To form a club, you must find a producer willing to deliver and a local (probably you, if you’re starting it) willing to provide the delivery spot. Work out how much the producer will charge per pound per person for delivery, and ask if he requires that a minimum order be put together first and what products he has to offer. Unless the producer is ready to shoulder the responsibility, or has a website that takes orders, you’ll need to create order forms and have your members fill them out, then get those to the producer. You’ll have to establish how often the rancher will deliver the meat, and let people know where and when to pick it up. Keith Swanson of the Seattle-area Thundering Hooves farm says that when he delivers to one of his ranch’s clubs, “they have a barbecue going—they’re making an event out of it.”

Thundering Hooves buying club members wait to get their meat at host Robin Magonegil’s house.

Robin Magonegil

The most important thing is to make sure members are on time for pickup, so the host doesn’t have to front the rancher money or store all the meat. Robin Magonegil hosts the Thundering Hooves buying club in West Seattle (nicknamed the Meateaters Buying Club). When they started she was nervous that people would be tardy to an 8 a.m. Saturday drop-off at her house. Then the Thundering Hooves truck drove up, Swanson got out with his clipboard, the 25 members showed up with checks and cash, and everything was parceled out smoothly. Now the club has grown to 65 members. “Sometimes my partner makes muffins, and members who are our friends come in and eat them, but the majority of people just wait outside, go up and get their meat when it arrives, and leave.”

A healthy club will buy often and consistently, and will build a good relationship with the producer. Magonegil’s family orders at least $100 of meat a month, and that’s standard in her club. Eatwild.com’s Jo Robinson recommends putting an order form in every box, so people will remember to place their next order. An email list reminding people to order and pick up is also a good idea.

The neighborhood buying club model has potential beyond meat. Lawren Pulse, another Thundering Hooves Seattle host, has used her meat club as a launching pad for other orders. The club has selected suppliers for dairy, grains, and vegetables; its members order through the producers’ websites; and the food is delivered to Pulse’s house for pickup, just like the meat. Pulse points out that besides giving members the power to choose whom they buy from, the club fosters a sense of community and is environmentally sound: less driving from place to place to get your groceries.

Joining a Preexisting Club or CSA

If you live in one of the cities listed below, you can contact these producers to join an established meat CSA or be hooked up with a buying club. But know that some clubs accept new members via invitation only. In that case, you can start your own.

Rendering Your Own Lard

Part of the fun of getting a whole animal, or getting involved directly with a producer so you can ask for what you want, is cooking parts you’ve never cooked before. Case in point: fatback. It’s literally the fat from the pig’s back mixed up with bits of meat, and if you stick it in the oven for a while, you can melt it down and separate out the fat, or lard, from the meat, which will have cooked into cracklings. Use the lard for scrambled eggs, pie crusts, or french fries, as we did. The results are delicious. Here’s how: