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I grew up watching sides of beef marched through the back door of our family’s butcher-grocery shop on Shelter Island. As big-box stores like Costco and BJs have made meat as plentiful in cold cases as there are grains of sand on the beach, it makes one wonder: Where does it all come from? Is this kind of mass-produced proliferation of animal agriculture problematic?
I’ve bought meat from both big box spots and smaller supermarkets, but lately I find myself thinking more carefully about where my meat comes from, how it’s raised, what that process does to the land, the people working in those plants, and my own complicit behavior in creating that endless demand to fill refrigerated cases in Costco and supermarkets. It seems so far afield from the mom-and-pop ways of my dad’s shop.
But there are indeed better options here on the North Fork; really good ones, in fact. Small, enterprising, hardworking people who’ve decided to farm cattle (and sheep and goats) for meat and who are doing it in a way that’s healthy for the animal, regenerative to the land and creates the kind of circular economy that makes sense in smaller communities.
Amy Zavatto is the Editor-in-Chief for southforker, northforker and Long Island Wine Press. She's a wine, spirits, and food journalist whose work appears in Wine Enthusiast, InsideHook.com, MarthaStewart.com, the New York Post, Liquor.com, SevenFifty Daily, Imbibe, Men’s Journal and many others. She's the author of The Big Book of Bourbon Cocktails, Prosecco Made Me Do It: 60 Seriously Sparkling Cocktails, Forager’s Cocktails: Botanical Mixology with Fresh, Natural Ingredients, and The Architecture of the Cocktail. She is a respected judge for the American Craft Spirits Association’s annual small-production spirits competition, and has moderated numerous panels on the topics of wine, spirits, cocktails, and regional foodways. She is the former Deputy Editor for the regional celebratory publications, Edible Manhattan and Edible Brooklyn, as well as the former Executive Director of the Long Island Merlot Alliance. She is a member of the New York chapter of the international organization of women leaders in food, wine, and spirits, Les Dames d’Escoffier. The proud daughter of a butcher, Amy is originally from Shelter Island, N.Y., where she developed a deep respect for the East End’s natural beauty and the importance of preserving and celebrating it and its people.
