Foodizen: Meditations on Meat
Foodizen: Meditations on Meat
Michael Schulson's fabled new Alpen Rose puts steak back on the carte du jour. Tin we observe a fashion to make peace with meat?
Aug. 07, 2019
Like many others, I've tried in contempo years to consume less meat and atomic number 82 a more vegetable-driven life. I'm non a vegetarian, definitely not a vegan, only there are plenty of days that I do not eat animals. I sympathize that reducing my meat consumption is better for the environment equally well as my own wellness.
And then it was with some sort of regressive, mischievous glee that I entered Alpen Rose, the wonderfully old-school steakhouse recently opened past Michael Schulson in Center City (the latest in his growing restaurant empire that includes Double Knot, Sampan, Guiseppe & Sons, and Harp & Crown).
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Earlier you enter Alpen Rose, you must start be checked out by a hostess through a speakeasy-way door. This nod to Prohibition feels apt: In our aware times, eating a big steak for dinner might be, for some, frowned upon in the same way booze was scorned in the early 20th century. Stepping from the bright heat of a summer evening, into the absurd, nighttime dining room with huge crystal chandeliers and bookshelves, a startling contrast to the bustle of 13th Street, feels similar entering a clubhouse from another era. Then does the menu, with dishes like Beef Wellington, shrimp cocktail, a 32-ounce porterhouse dry-aged for more than than 60 days, and a 45-ounce tomahawk steak, for $125, that'due south carved tableside.
"At the end of the 24-hour interval, there'southward still a lot of carnivores in the world," Thomason says.
We ordered meat upon meat, starting with appetizers of roast beefiness sprinkled with horseradish and cornichon and beefiness tongue topped with sauerkraut, Russian dressing, and rye croutons (channeling a reuben sandwich), followed by a dry-aged half a duck and a 24-ounce bone-in ribeye. We besides had a caesar salad, which was tasty and classic, merely ordered almost to convince ourselves we weren't just having a meat orgy. We finished with a dessert of banana crème pie. The bill was enormous, and nosotros waddled dorsum outside, our eyes adjusting to the summer evening sunlight, in a shock. Let me not put too fine a point on this: Information technology was effing amazing.
And, to be clear, I'1000 not a fan of steakhouses in full general, which I oft notice to exist bloated palaces of expense account excess. But Alpen Rose'due south twist is incredibly successful because Schulson seems to know when to exist modern (great cocktails, coincidental vibe, understated service) and when to hearken back to an before age. "The steakhouse concept as it is—over-sized, over-priced, glitzy, stuffy—is dated," he told me. "There's a fine line between both what's erstwhile-schoolhouse that works and what's former-schoolhouse that is in the by for a reason."
More than anything specific or tangible, what's most noteworthy about eating expensive steak in 2022 is the tension between our cannibal, become-big-or-go-dwelling appetite and the gimmicky sensation of where our food comes from, and how it affects the world around united states.
Alpen Rose sources its beefiness, all of it grass-fed, from Pat LaFrieda in New Jersey, perhaps America's near famous butcher, supplying restaurants from Shake Shack to 11 Madison Park. Schulson says they'd chosen LaFrieda afterwards tasting meat from "over 20 different farms and purveyors." They dry-age information technology themselves and cook it on a forest-burning grill. "There'd be no reason to exercise this if we weren't going to practice it as best we could," Schulson says. All very skilful decisions.
Still there'south a growing cohort of meat-eaters who demand even more accountability. And Philadelphia is abode to one of the country'south leaders in sustainable, upstanding butchery, Heather Marold Thomason of Key Supply Meats, with shops in Brewerytown and Due east Passyunk. Thomason left a successful career in graphic design to pursue butchery, commencement with a stint as caput butcher at Kensington Quarters. She started Primal Supply in 2022 and entered into a partnership with Marc Vetri last year. Her meat is now on menus ranging from Vetri's namesake eatery to more coincidental places such every bit Monk's and Tired Hands Brew Café.
"The steakhouse concept every bit it is—over-sized, over-priced, glitzy, stuffy—is dated," Schulson told me. "There'southward a fine line between both what'southward old-school that works and what'south erstwhile-school that is in the past for a reason."
Primal Supply now supports more than a dozen local farmers, as well equally a family-endemic butchery in Lancaster County, and recognizes that humanely raised and slaughtered animals gustation improve and are healthier for everyone. "Happy salubrious animals create better meat," Thomason says. Even something as modest as driving animals to the butchery is considered. "Stress affects the quality of the meat. The most stressful thing that happens to animals is moving them in trucks," Thomason said. For that reason, the slaughterhouse used past Key Supply allows the animals to relax in their barns and pastures for a couple of days before slaughter. In all, the slaughterhouse that partners with Primal Supply but processes about 75 animals per week, as opposed to a mechanized industrial abattoir that may impale thousands per hour. Side by side to Cardinal Supply, even LaFrieda is massive.
Besides wellness and animal welfare, Key Supply's vision of sustainability also includes the farmers who raise the animals. Ultimately, Thomason runs a small local supply concatenation, where at that place are no middlemen. It takes two years to enhance a beefiness steer. Information technology takes eight months to a twelvemonth to heighten a hog. Meanwhile, farmers have feed to buy, mortgages to pay, families to raise. "If they raise an animate being, they count on us. I tin't tell you what that means to a farmer," she says. "For us to back up every step along the way, that'due south the real cost of the meat."
Meaning, that's why meat from practiced butchers is pricey. Thomason insists that, over years of buying inexpensive meat, American consumers take grown accustomed to an bogus, unrealistic sense of how much meat truly costs. "Our parents bought into this civilization of convenience and bulk shopping," she says. "Information technology isn't healthy." Fundamental Supply's prices are higher than conventional grocery stores, but more often than not competitive with Whole Foods or other minor butcher shops. "Our customers are choosing to pay more than," she says. "They're paying more than for less."
In that mode, Thomason sounds surprisingly similar to ardent non-meat-eaters. "I accept a lot in mutual with vegans and vegetarians, it just manifests in a different way," she says. "Information technology's actually the same trend. People are moving away from accepting industrial food systems." Still, when I asked if the trend toward more meat-gratuitous diets ever concerns her, Thomason chuckled. "At the cease of the day, in that location's still a lot of carnivores in the world," she says.
Which maybe explains both the persistence of the steakhouse, and the need for the steakhouse to evolve. "I believe guests embrace the nostalgic or classic foods," Schulson says, "but they desire it made for now, not as information technology was in 1975." That'due south why someone who's now eating a more establish-based diet can still enjoy Alpen Rose. After all: Everything in moderation, including moderation. Even Schulson admits that steak isn't for everyone, everyday. "I've been eating a lot of cauliflower steak this summertime," he says.
Header photograph courtesy Schulson Collective 
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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/foodizen-meditations-on-meat/
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