A couple weeks ago, The Chicago Reader’s front page article  The Charcuterie Underground, by Mike Sula,  featured the burgeoning trend of less than legal home businesses centered around cured meat. The article mentioned that one of the companies, E & P Meats, shared a vendor with such high scale restaurants as Frontera Grill, and North Pond. No where was it stated or even implied that these restaurants ordered from the home sausage makers. Nevertheless, yesterday Frontera Grill was raided by the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDA) and forced to throw out an 80 lb box of meat that lacked a sign of  IDA, or USDA inspection (but was inspected by the Wisconsin Agriculture Department). It is possible North Pond will face an inspection as well.

What saddens me is that this raid also caused the owners of E &P Meats to announce they will voluntarily cease operation.  I would rather purchase meat from guys who will willingly tell anyone who buys their sausage what goes in it, and use a farmer who raises and slaughters his pigs naturally, than take a chance on commercially produced meat raised in a Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that has God knows what in it (MSG anyone?).

I may get a little rant-y from here on out.

I understand they operated outside the law, but really with all the costs and hurdles the USDA imposes on getting approved it can be nearly impossible for a small business to cut through the red tape.  The bottom line is the inspections are meant to save people from food borne illnesses, as without a system to track food sources it would be impossible to determine the origin of an outbreak thanks to our industrial agriculture system. BUT IF YOU KNOW THE FARMER, YOU KNOW THE SOURCE.  Any department that doesn’t understand the value in safety of a local food economy  not to mention the economic value of a local food economy is beyond me.

I hope one day the door to E & P meats opens again, and that I can figure out a way to get on their email ordering list.