Pat LaFrieda Meats
Pat LaFrieda Meats began its operation in 1922 opening up a butcher in Brooklyn. He taught his boys the trade. The original Pat LaFrieda, the grandfather, saw the opportunity to provide restaurants with meat and opened up his trade in the meat packing area of NYC. His son became his partner and then his son taught the trade to his son, Pat LaFrieda Jr. Pat LaFrieda Jr has been carving up meat since he was 10 years old. Today this company is the premier purveyor of meats for the top restaurants in NYC and the country.
Josh and his friend Max have been working on a project for their last semester of high school writing a food blog. They cook every day and they are really good. They also try and do one event a week. I asked Pat if I could bring them over for an afternoon to learn how to carve a steer. What an amazing experience. I actually think that Pat enjoyed himself as much as we all did.
There are two huge refrigerators with aging steaks.
The boys worked on this steer. I do not think that any of us realized how huge it would be.
Here is Pat working the machine. He was a master with a knife.
It was an epic experience. We will be talking about it for years to come. It was just awesome
Comments (Archived):
I like this.I also realize that disruption in the meat end of the food chain is a massive change agent.Buying a briskett for Passover that was not only organic but small farm raised was either insanely expensive or sold out a month in advance. Whole Foods gets one!! per day per store.Constantly amazed in the food biz about how broken the chain still is. And the good work that little artisans are doing to bridge the gaps.
look to the Government for antiquated laws that they should consider changing.
This is a huge point. Been looking at this hard. For example, an organic chicken farmer from Indiana cannot sell direct in Illinois-and has to butcher through a USDA certified processing plant. The regs are crazy. The regs are driving up the cost of organic food vs factory farmed food. Drives me crazy. Your comment touched a sore point with me. Food lobby is the strongest lobby in Washington DC with friends on both sides of the aisle. When the Reps took over Congress and someone asked me what would change in the Ag Committee I said not much. Reshuffling of the deck chairs!
It bums me out too.
It seems as though almost everyone today is sourcing their meat from Lafrieda. Are all the meats sourced from the same place/of the same quality (with the exception of any differentiation between cuts and aging)?That side of cow is huge!
I think they source from several places but not positive. They do a great job.
You may find this episode of “The Profit” on CNBC starring Marcus Lemonis [1] interesting. It is featuring A. Stein Meats who were positioned as the top beef suppliers in NYC (on the show at least).http://www.nydailynews.com/…http://www.cnbc.com/id/1014…http://www.cnbc.com/id/1007…There are a few other episodes featuring NY companies and many that are real interesting and entertaining to watch.[1] I’ve helped him with 1 domain purchase and 1 sale. In one case after pitching him based on a show episode that I had just watched.
Very cool. I’ve always wanted to take a “butchering class”, where one could do a complete carve up if possible, and learn all the part names in the process. For all the meat I eat, I only know a few cuts.
You’re a great and fun mom! BTW, it looks like M lost a lot of weight! Wow! Good for him!
80 lbs.
Fabulous!!!!
Love the boy’s blog. Their dishes look fabulous.