Would’ja look at this!
no styro tray, no cello wrap, and a whole lot of beef!
Yes, it’s $13.19/kg, no it’s not ground sirloin, and no it’s not organic. so … some serious weak points there, but the focus of this post is waste free greatness and I count this as a win!
Beans lentils grains and nuts for protein allow us to get by without a whole lot of meat. We use soybeans but not much tofu because it comes in small quantities, wrapped in plastic, and is not always that fresh. In three months we have consumed one ham (soft plastic wrap – worth it), 6 sausages (tray, cello, etc – definitely not worth it), and 1/4 turkey (tinfoil tray christmas leftover, totally worth it). I maintain that I’d probably be fine on a vegetarian diet, with some iron supplements perhaps. The man on the other hand, maintains that he needs meat.
This leads to a conundrum when we go to the grocery store and gaze sometimes longingly at the meat section. I can tell he kind of wants to pick something up, we both despair at the packaging. Up here, the grocery meat is either standard factory style meat, or it’s delicious fresh off the land meat that you hunt and butcher yourself. Really, with the beautiful home canned salmon that we have in the pantry, and the opportunity to buy flash-frozen char and turbot from just a couple hundred km up the island, we should and could easily just avoid red meat and poultry all together. In fact, the more I sit here and write, the more I am confirming that feeling.
HOWEVER, for those Iqaluit residents (Iqaluimmiut? Iqaluites?) who regularly purchase meat, can’t or won’t give it up, and hate having to throw away those styro trays, cello wrap and meat-maxi-pads, this post is for you.
The butchers at North Mart have a nice little window over the meat display that you can knock politely on, and request a cut of meat in your own clean container that you have brought from home. I was nervous about doing this, thinking they would question me, look at me strangely, or flat out refuse. None of the above occurred. It took a little bit of time, but the butcher in fact took a few chunks of meat he was trimming and ground them fresh right then and there! How wonderful! This has made me want to go back and bravely request some specific cut of meat instead of asking for what I could see he was already working on.
And as for the spoils? Wednesday’s spaghetti-with-meat-sauce was delicious, the weekend Lasagne-making should keep us in lunches for a month, and the chili will taste great after skiing if we ever get our snow back and our butts outside!
Next on the list of challenges is to finally look into this food mail thing. Perhaps the organic humane beef in butcher paper will not be so impossible after all.
Iqaluit residents (Iqaluimmiut? Iqaluites?)
“Iqalummiut”, as far as I know. Or for more conservative dialects, “Iqalungmiut”.
Awesome about the North Mart butchers!