Heritage Meats and Brooklyn Taco Come to Essex Street Market

On the site of the old much missed Jeffrey Meat market comes three new tenants: Brooklyn Taco and Heritage Foods.  I am beside myself with excitement.  As of this post I only know two of the three new tenants, so more to come as I find out.

This will be the first retail space for Heritage Foods, who have hitherto only sold their very high quality, heritage breed meats online.  And of course I love tacos and as a big fan of the Brooklyn Food scene I'm always glad when small Brooklyn businesses make the leap over the river and open up here on the Lower East Side.  The Essex Street Market  has become one of the most diverse and vibrant markets in the city.  Ironically the city wants to tear down the market as part of the SPURA redevelopment of the are around Delancey and Essex.  Why tear down a vibrant, historic, market place that serves all the diverse communities that  make up the Lower East Side?  Oh right because we need more luxury condos, I forgot.  

No Goat Left Behind

So I'm going to Fire Island from the 9th to the 16th (or there abouts) and I am so excited about all the things I am going to be able to cook that I am not able to cook at home (because of the kosher kitchen).

One of the things I was wanting to cook was a very fresh Goat Curry with lots of green hot peppers and Indian Spices, slow cooked and served with buttery new potatoes.   In looking for Goat meat I knew I would have to be resourceful, which didn't stop me from asking at every butcher shop I saw:  Do you have Goat meat?

The response is always one of perplexed annoyance:  Goat's meat?  What kind of weirdo eats goats meat?  We sell beef and pork and chicken!

So one thing lead to another and I ended up on the Heritage Foods USA's website and low and behold the first thing I see is a heading that reads: No Goat Left Behind.

What I most love about this video other than it's filled with great information is that much to my surprise my friend Anne Saxelby is at the heart of this video.  Having spent years with cheesemakers she realized that girl goats get kept for their milk and boys goats are well, kind of a problem.  So it is a cheese monger who is behind this drive to get consumers to eat Goat Meat, something traditionally Americans don't eat even though it is eaten in other countries the world over.  The Cheese Meat connection is key here, Anne explains it much better then I ever could, listen up: