Recipes: Middle Eastern Street Burgers
Small, local producers grow the best meat. The reasons for buying your meat locally are many and all of them are good. Foremost among these reasons must, of course, be good flavor and good quality. Small growers concentrate their attention on fewer animals than in the industrial farms that supply the supermarkets, and the results show clearly on the table.
For years now, Americans have been turning away from the huge portions of meat we used to eat, toward smaller cuts of top quality which are used to flavor and enhance dishes rather than dominate them. At the same time, we are buying more of our meat from farmer's markets, a natural marriage of two ideals.
Locally raised meats tend to be healthier. Because the growers are not some anonymous corporation in some other state, they are directly accountable to their customers. Because the freshness of the meat is not compromised by shipping or age, its quality is of the very highest. And because the animals are not raised in overcrowded conditions in factory farms, they don't have to be dosed with antibiotics just to survive their own confinement.
For these reasons, it is not surprising that the Belfast Farmer's Market has a solid and growing reputation for good meats.
Take, for instance, Meadowsweet Farm in Swanville. Sumner and Paula Roberts raise sheep and poultry, but their major preoccupation is beef. Their growing practices combine the best of modern and old fashioned methods. The animals are ranged on pasture for most of their lives, and are therefore naturally lean and naturally free of the dangerous strains of e-coli that have everyone so worried in the meat industry and in the public.
In Summer, Sumner keeps his cattle moving around his fields, enclosing them only with a lightweight movable fencing. This prevents unhealthy overgrazing in one area, resulting in the torn up and eroded turf you see at some farms. In June or July he cuts his winter hay and stores it. He feeds the animals expensive grain only when they are very young.
One of my favorite innovations at Meadowsweet Farm is the livestock barn. It's an enormous plastic hoophouse resembling a very large greenhouse. Sumner says that the structure provides light and protection all winter long, and that it is actually healthier for the animals than a dark, damp barn. It is well ventilated and dry in winter, as well as sunny and clean.
The proof of the excellence of this kind of thoughtful animal husbandry is in the beef. Sumner's cuts of meats are tender and tasty. He will happily tell you that his meat is "guilt-free", meaning that it is free of harmful drugs and raised in a method that is conscious of the well being of the animals, the environment, and the customer.
Aqua-Terra Farm in Jackson, owned by Ed and Molly Hamel, provides the market with pork and rabbit. They raise Yorkshire-Duruk crosses, good natured white pigs with red spots and long snouts. The pigs are fed a rich diet of grain, garden wastes, and milk. When marketed, they weigh about 200 pounds or a little more.
Like Sumner, Ed uses a number of simple, appropriate practices to make sure his animals stay healthy. When very young, the piglets are quarantined to prevent the spread of diseases. Throughout their lives, the pigs are rotated through different fenced pastures. Good food, exercise, and fresh air contribute to the robust health of these animals.
Cooley Farm, operated by Jo and Carl Cooley, is located in Jackson and grows lamb. The Cooleys raise brown and white Dorset-Suffolk crosses. The animals are ranged on pasture in the Summertime, and are fed hand-mixed corn that contains no antibiotics or hormones.