But unless you’re buying from a grocery store that’s very close to a body of water, Rusty Bowers, owner and master butcher of Pine Street Market in Decatur, Georgia, warns that it’s worth questioning the “freshness” of grocery store seafood.
“My general rule of thumb is that if you cannot do a quick 20-minute drive from the beach to that store, then buy your seafood from the freezer case” instead of the meat counter, Bowers said. He told us that, if visiting a dedicated fishmonger isn’t an option, frozen seafood is a better purchase because “most frozen seafood (as stated on the label) is processed and flash frozen on the boat to preserve its freshness shortly after being harvested from the sea.”
“We have all walked past that land-locked grocery store fresh seafood case that smells like low tide on a hot day,” Bowers added. “Please be careful.”
Aged Beef
Aged beef is beloved among meat eaters for its tender texture and robust flavor. Artisanal butchers have used aging processes for centuries, and as conversations about beef aging move into the mainstream, we now see grocery stores trying to get in on the game.
But according to Rich Silverman, head butcher of The Lambing Shed Farm Shop & Kitchen in Cheshire, England, supermarkets don’t have the time, equipment or setup to age their meats in a beneficial manner. “Local butchers have the time and space to dry-age the meat by hanging it on the bone as a full carcass. This is a far superior way of aging meat and gives a much more superior taste to the product. There is a lot less moisture in it, so it cooks better. This is a tried and tested method, done by butchers all over the world for centuries,” Silverman explained.
Grocery stores, however, tend to age their beef using “wet aging.” Silverman describes this process as involving “meat [that’s] pre-cut in packaging and then aged in that packaging.”
“So when you see a label saying ‘21-day-aged’ in the supermarket, it’s not done on the carcass, so it’s not dry,” he said. “It’s done so the moisture can’t escape, so when you are cooking it, the moisture will steam the meat from the inside, making it chewy.”
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