Saturday Meat Field Trip

Well...I had not intended to spend the entire day Saturday buying, cooking and eating meat but that is what happened. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

Once he got up this morning, or more correctly, this afternoon, Tony announced that he wanted to make a pilgrimage to Schuman’s Meats on the South side of Columbus. He craved thick sliced bacon, loin chops and sausage. Upon hearing this, Annie jumped up and announced, that while she would not be able to go with us (babysitting duties), we needed to procure lots of garlic bologna and the link sausages "where the skin goes pop when you bite into them".

Sigh. So much for scrubbing the kitchen down and pouring over recipes for the cookie confab.

While I was using a whip on the hubby trying to get him away the computer and into the car, our friend Adam called. "You are going to a butcher shop? Do they have pork? I was hoping you would come over for the Ohio State game and cook more pork chops. If I drive you down, will you come over and make dinner?"

Sigh. “Of course.”

A few minutes later, George called. We tell him we are heading to Schumann's with Adam. "Can I come? Do they have ox tails? I want to make some ox tail soup this week."

Ok..now this has gone from a trip to the butcher's into a quest for meat.

A short while later, 1000 pounds of hungry human is crammed into Adam's car and speeding at 75 mph down 71 South in search of animal flesh...

Schuman’s is an old fashioned butcher shop. They have meat. Lots of meat. It's not a side line they got into because they were grocers. They custom cut meat from whole sides if that is what you want. You can get weird cuts you will never see at Wal-mart, where they don't even have butchers on staff. True, it is a little pricier, but not unreasonably so.

As we pulled into the parking lot, some of the staff (see picture!) was grilling fresh brats out in the parking lot FOR FREE! yeah!!! Free Food!! It's gotta be good! And it was. The brats popped when we bit into them, and hot juice trickled down our chins. Adam was in heaven. Free pork.

Inside, we went hog wild...chops, sausage, brats, bologna, ox tails, ground beef, ring liver pudding...wait..you say you have never heard of ring liver pudding? It is a finely textured sausage of pork meat and liver usually with some rice thrown into the mix. I haven’t had it in years. It was one of my father’s favorite things to eat with some good rye bread and mustard.

So what was the final haul?

• Several pounds of “superlative” garlic bologna
• 6 pounds of ox tails
• 10 pounds of fresh ground chuck
• 3 pounds of roll breakfast sausage
• 3 pounds of thick sliced bacon
• 6 pork loin chops
• 10 butterfly chops
• 5 pounds of natural casing breakfast links
• 1 pound of ring liver pudding

This will fill up the freezer again for a while. I am making meatloaf on Sunday, and most likely ox tail stew for later in the week...

But wait! My Saturday adventures are not over!! Wait for the next exciting installment of... Meat Melodrama!