I’ve been calling around various grocery stores this week, trying to get a hold of pork fat trimmings so that I can make my own lard for some recipes. One of the stores I called today said that they couldn’t give me the trimmings because they don’t have a code for it. I forget exactly what I said, but it was something to the effect of, “so you’re just going to throw it away instead?” “Yes.”
I understand that it does require some effort to separate from the rest of the waste, so I don’t mind paying a bit, but its upsetting that they have no way to pass scraps along to someone who will use them instead of just tossing them in the waste.
Edit for anyone invested: I called around to a few other stores after making this post. One or two mentioned that they don’t necessarily throw all of those bits away, but often use them for other products, such as sausages. I also found a store that will be putting aside their trimmings for me tomorrow, and they should have more than I need. It’s almost an hour away on the bus, but right next to another store that should have any other hard to find ingredients that I’ll need for the tamales.
Also interesting was that different locations of the same chains had different answers for me regarding even their ability to provide the scraps to me, so the suggestions that a manager might be able to make it happen are probably very accurate.
Meanwhile in America, in 1996 McDonalds had a regional burger that was quarter pounder meat. Meaning each patty is 1/4th a pound of meat before cooking. They put 8 of these patties and 7 middle buns, and 10 slices of cheese. They called it the “Big Mac Daddy”. My mom called it “The Big Mac McHeart Attack”
Just to be clear, even in 1996, the Big Mac, while it was bigger than it is today, it was NEVER quarter pounder meat by default. It was always the same meat the standard cheeseburger would have, with 2 patties, and 1 middle bun. This thing was huge. The local news measured it. It was 7 inches tall. I was 13 at the time, but kinda dumb. I said “Imagine putting 7 inches of meat inside you…” and my sister, who’s 11 years older than me, would not stop laughing. I didn’t know why…now I know why, and I’m cringing all these years later. It’s just as bad as when I was 7, and wouldn’t eat my brocoli. When my mom asked why, I said I didn’t like the texture burning on my tongue. She said “Brocoli isn’t spicy.” And I said “No, not spicy. It’s more like a carpet burn on your tongue”. And my mom was confused. I said “It’s like when slide really really fast over the carpet, and your belly burns because you did it too fast…well licking brocoli is like licking carpet. You get carpet burn”
And my sister would not stop laughing. Again, I didn’t know why then, but now I’m cringing so hard. I’m sure my mom nor my sister would remember those things, but I remember it was maybe a week before thanksgiving 1993, and I also remember it was Saturday morning, because X-Men was playing on tv in the background, but it was on commercial. So this must have been between 11:00-11:30 on a Saturday in November.
Back on topic, my mom refused to let me buy the Big Mac Daddy. She said “YOU’RE NOT EATING THAT MUCH FAST FOOD AT ONCE! IT’S NOT HEALTHY!!!” And, while she wasn’t wrong per se, she WAS still taking us to McDonalds…and when is that EVER healthy? So, she was right, but also…was she really the one to stand on that point?