What Your Meat and Potatoes are Telling You

OPENING SCENE: You have stopped at the grocery store. You are just going to run in and pick up a couple of items and be out. The produce section is right there, so you briskly head for the bin of red onions. You spot someone standing there pawing through the onions. You want to be polite, so you dash over to the next isle thinking you will loop back on your way out. When you round the corner on the rebound to produce, you see the same person, still there, apparently pondering something to do with onions?? There is only one thing between where you stand now, and the other side of the check-out isle, and it is the person who still has not chosen an onion. You politely apologize as you tip toe over and slip your hand into the bin to grab the coveted red onion. And as you walk away, you think to yourself “good grief, how much thought does it take to buy an onion!”. Have you already guessed that the shopper at the onion bin is me?

When I am in the produce or meat department, I scrutinize each item before I put it in my carriage. INGREDIENTS MAKE THE MEAL. In other words, your meal is only as good as the ingredients you make it with. Meals take time and money, but you can waste both if your ingredients fail you because you weren’t paying attention when you bought them. My sister stopped shopping with me because she couldn’t stand waiting around while I, (and this is what she called it) “fondled” the food. Her reenactment was hysterical as she enjoyed telling others about the ordeal I make out of buying a steak. So when Ricky suggested we put up a discussion about buying fresh produce and meat, I was onboard immediately. This gives me a great venue to vindicate myself. There actually ARE things to consider about that onion, and any other fresh ingredient you are buying. THERE ARE ONIONS IN THAT BIN THAT HAVE TAKEN A DIVE OUT OF THE BIN AND BOUNCED ON THE FLOOR! Someone saw it on the floor and put it back in the bin. So why do you care? Because, where the onion met the floor, there is a mushy mess underneath the skin. How do you know that the bruise is there if you can’t readily see it through the skin? You fondle it!

All kidding aside, you pay the same price for the onion with the mushy mess, as you do the nice firm red onion that is just the right size. You pay the same price for a steak that was cut 2 days ago, as you pay for the one that was just cut and is being wheeled out on the cart. And while I would never advocate that you become as OCD as I am about this, there is a practical middle ground. Just take a look before you buy. That’s a simple statement, but not what I see happening in the fresh food areas of the store. As I am poking around the vegetable bins examining today’s offerings, I notice that most people, of all ages, are just grabbing a fresh food item from the heap, and putting it in the carriage. Freshness counts. You probably accept that as a logical conclusion. Why be the chump who buys the older produce in the heap? Look for the freshest you can get, it last longer and tastes better.

So, if you are willing to take a few extra seconds, what should you be looking for? How do you know when a vegetable is fresh? It looks healthy. It is firm. Look for bright color. Envision the difference between a fresh, crisp, neon green, stalk of celery, and a limp, rubbery, muddled whitish-green one, with leaves that are turning brown. Do you think they taste the same? They don’t.

Sweet peppers, whether green, red, orange or yellow should have firm shiny skin. The pepper that is heaviest, in even proportion to another, is the freshest. As fruits and vegetables get older, the moisture inside dissipates. And with the moisture, goes water weight. Hence, the heaviest (in equal proportion) is the freshest. When you cut into a fresh pepper, you will find a thick layer of meat and you will see the moisture as soon as you cut into it. If the skin of a pepper has patches of wrinkled skin, don’t buy it. The wrinkles are telling you that the meat of the pepper has dried out so much, that it no longer fits in its skin.

And all that applies to a sweet pepper, applies to all vegetables. Don’t buy vegetables with wrinkled skin. Have you seen a potato when it has sprouted roots? When you squeeze it, it feels rubbery. The skin is all wrinkled up. It is not a rotten potato, just an old one. (Not everything that is wrinkled is rotting! 👵) At any rate, you certainly shouldn’t be buying a potato that has already wrinkled or sprouted.

Look to see if the fruit or vegetable has bruises, you will see it as a flat spot, sometimes the skin has torn open and the flesh is mushy underneath the skin. The vegetable is decaying in that area. A bunch of carrots should have bright green stems and leaves. Green beans should snap, not bend. Don’t buy vegetables that feel mushy.

Look at the stem if there is one. Does it look fresh? The stem is the umbilical cord. The fresher the stem, the fresher the produce. If you are buying packaged lettuce or other leafy greens, look for bright colors and crisp leaves.

If you are buying greens in a clear plastic container, turn the package over and see what things look like on the bottom. If the leaves are fresh, they will hold their shape even though they are on the bottom. If the leaves are not fresh, the leaves on the bottom will be flat and mushy. And here is another tip about buying greens in packaged containers or bags; the older packages are put right up front. The fresher ones are further back. Look at the expiration dates and buy the one that has the date farthest from today. There can be many days between the freshest and the oldest. Check it out for yourself. One parting thought about fresh vegetables; WASH THEM. Need convincing? Read our discussion; Wash Before You Eat.

So let’s push our cart around the corner to the meat department. Buy fresh. How do you know it is fresh? Read the label. The store is required to tell you when the meat was cut. If the meat you are buying is on sale, and it is flying from the shelves, most likely everything in the case has been cut on the day you are buying it. But that’s not true of all the meats in the case. There is a number of days that stores have to sell meat after it is cut. Don’t buy the meat that is almost expired. We know you are probably on the run, and quite possibly hate grocery shopping, but you don’t have to slow down too much to check the label on the meat you are buying. Look for a “today” cut date. The fresher it is, the longer it is going to last when you get it home.

I am going to ask you a question. Does your grocery store have a butcher section with very expensive “premium meats” in a refrigerated glass case, like an actual butcher shop has? I have looked at the prices in that case. Let’s just say I won’t be buying my pork chops there today, or any time soon. If you haven’t paid any attention before now, take a look in that case. Notice how the meat is displayed. It is not wrapped in plastic wrap! In fact, it is not wrapped at all. After looking into the butchers case, I learned these three things; 1) Meat should not be suffocated in plastic wrap, 2) The meat I am buying in the regular meat case, is not the best they have, and 3) I can’t afford the meat in that case 💲.

Butchers wrap meat in wax covered, heavy, paper, not plastic wrap. On the other hand, the meat I am buying from the meat case is in a styrofoam tray, wrapped, air tight, with plastic wrap. It is a greenhouse in there. Meat is not supposed to be kept in a moisture drenched environment. There is a reason why the expensive meat is not in plastic. If you are going to be using it in the next 2 to 4 days, it’s best to rewrap at home. You can use meat wrapping paper, parchment paper, or much cheaper is wax paper.

Now that you have rescued the meat and it is breathing again in your refrigerator, don’t plan on leaving it there for long. If you are not going to use it in the next couple of days, freeze it while it is still fresh. Your dinner will taste much better when you use defrosted fresh meat, than it will with meat that has been sitting around for a few days. Fresh is always best, but meat frozen correctly, while fresh, is a close second.

Do not freeze meat in the styrofoam tray with the plastic wrap. You might as well throw it in the trash, because that is where it is going to end up after you cook it. All the moisture that has leached out in the tray, and the moisture in the air around the meat is going to freeze, growing icicles on the meat. I bet you have seen that. And the ice is biting the meat. The meat is literally being burned with ice, hence the term freezer burn or frost bite. Under the layers of hairy ice, your freezer burned steak is brown. It tastes and chews like cardboard.

For successful freezing, use freezer designated wrap and get as much air as possible out. In other words, vacuum pack. I do not have one of the machines that vacuum pack. I use freezer bags. You can push the air around the meat, out of the bag, or use a straw to suck the air out. It works!

There is an interesting, maybe subliminal, mindset when you take the time to appreciate the food that you put in the cart. When I am making dinner with one of my well chosen food items, I find making dinner seems less of a chore. For me cooking for my family is a way to show how much I care about them.