Where's the Beef?

Magnify

­The last few months have marked major changes between our family and my husband’s. After nearly two decades as near-vegetarians, we decided eating a little clean beef now and then probably wouldn’t kill us. My in-laws raise beef cattle a day’s drive away from us, and when Chris mentioned to his dad we might like to buy a share of the next animal they butchered, he could hardly believe it.

“You want to buy some meat?” Chris’s father shouted into the phone.

“Maybe just a quarter,” Chris said. “We’ll share it with the kids.” Of our three grown children, two had families to feed. None of them objected to eating beef, especially if they didn’t have to pay for it.

“This is great!” My father-in-law was so excited I could hear his voice across the room.

“Dad, it’s just a little beef we’re talking about,” Chris said.

“Your mother will be so happy!” Dad shouted.

In the following weeks, we realized he hadn’t exaggerated. Mom was happy. Dad was ecstatic. It was as if we’d been lost, and then found. Phone calls between us quickly dispensed with the unimportant details of life and got down to what mattered: The Meat. Every mention of the word sounded as if it were flashing in neon lights. We learned the price: $2.19 per pound, cut and wrapped. Dad listed the assortment we’d be receiving: ground beef, rump roast, tenderloin, steaks, stew meat and a few packages of ribs for barbecue. Mom discoursed on traditional meals and family recipes. She worried that the kids wouldn’t know how to prepare The Meat.

“You didn’t teach them to cook beef when they were growing up,” she accused.

I admitted it was true. “But don’t you think they’ll just fix it the same way they’ve been doing with whatever meat they bought at the store?”

“Well how’s that going to taste?” she asked. I didn’t know if she meant the store meat, or the good meat, prepared with inferior recipes. “Maybe you can send them some of your recipes.”

“I doubt I’ll have the time for that, dear, but I hate to think of them ruining The Meat.”