Valley Homes and Style - NOT Your Supermarket Meat Section

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NOT Your Supermarket Meat Section

By their own proclamation, Kyle Loyd and Roger Smith are Two Fat Butchers.

Really, they're just big guys. More important than their corpulence is the beef, pork and chicken they cut, grind and sell at Two Fat Butchers, their shop in Front Royal, Va.

Sausage is a specialty. A cold case at the rear of the store displays sweet and hot Italian, andouille and link sausages, chorizo and kielbasa, and several varieties of wurst. The Two Fat Butchers' special sausage is a recipe "handed down from family," Loyd said.

"It came through my father," he said. "It's beef, pork and bacon mixed together, with special seasoning."

Loyd said customers seek individualized service from his store. "Here, we're all owners, so we have to take extreme pride and care in what we do," he said.

As large, industrialized meatpacking plants continue to scare consumers with recalls and outbreaks of contaminated meat, local butcher shops flourish. People who care about food, like to know where it comes from.

As large, industrialized meatpacking plants continue to scareconsumers with recalls and outbreaks of contaminated meat, local butcher shops flourish. People who care about food, like to know where it comes from.

And in the world of charcuterie, buyers want meats from animals never given steroids or antibiotic feed, and from chickens allowed free range. They want the products sold fresh, not frozen, and they don't want meats pumped up with salted water.

Sodium extends shelf life, Loyd explained. And pumping liquid into meat makes it look plump and weigh heavy.

"The trend in the business for grocery chains is prepackaging," Loyd said. "When you prepackage something, it typically has 11 to 15 percent solution [pumped in]. So when you get ten pounds net, you get nine pounds of meat."

Just as careful consumers prefer their tomatoes to be local and vine ripened, their cheese to be artisanal and their bread to be preservative-free, buyers are choosing beef based on how it was raised and where it was prepared for sale. Mad Cow Disease has been linked to cattle fed animal protein made from beef slaughterhouse waste, and while a 1997 federal law bans such feed, it allows it for pigs, chickens and other animals and doesn't account for every step in production process.

So, some buyers are simply opting not to buy industrially processed meats. Regionally, buyers have other options, including:
* At Crabill's Meats in Tom's Brook, Va., specialties are made on-site and include scrapple and liver pudding, beef stick and jerky, and sausage and bacon. Buyers can also find things not sold in supermarkets: pig's feet and jowls, pork liver, ox tail and beef tongue. Established in 1962, Crabill's is a custom butchery that processes only a few head of cattle at a time, then cuts meats to customers' specifications.

* Near Berryville, Va., Janet Childs is "The Lamb Lady," raising and selling meat under the Virginia Lamb label. Information on retail locations is at www.virginialamb.com.

* Danny Rohrer sells at the Shepherdstown Farmers Market. Weekly specials are announced via e-mail to subscribers at Dakarohfarm@aol.com.

* Horst Meats in Maugansville, Md., is described by Mennonite proprietor Ronald Horst as "a small, old fashioned mom-and-pop shop." Beef comes from cattle raised on a family farm and butchered onsite. Animals are fed hormone-free grain, hay and silage, and pork is also available.

At D&D Meats in Inwood, W.Va., proprietor Arnold Daly knows exactly how his beef is raised. That's because he raises it, at his thousand-acre Highcrest Farm in Kearneysville.

Daly raises 200 to 300 head of crossbreed Angus and Hereford cattle, which grow quickly and produce a lower-fat product than comes from purebred beef cattle. "Pure Angus tends to be fatty," he said. "And Herefords are even worse."

To maximize tenderness, Daly dry ages his beef from 10 to 14 days. Dry aging allows natural enzymes to break down tough tissues, and increases flavor by concentrating tissues through natural shrinkage. All Daly's meats are custom cut in the store. He also makes five kinds of pork sausage.

The meats have better flavor and are fresher than grocery-store meats, said customer Wayne Young. And in addition to the beef and pork, Daly gets free-range chickens from Amish farmers who do not use antibiotic- or steroid-enhanced feed.

Customer Crystal Larson said she believes in patronizing local farmers. Shopping at D&D Meats reminds her of family traditions, she said. "My granddad was a farmer and he butchered twice a year."

And customer Jeanne Charon believes factory-farmed animals can't make for good eating. "An animal, treated like that, won't put out good food," she said.