But those who believe that Los Angeles is too modern and sleek for its own dang good should step over the threshold at least once. Not as convenient, perhaps, but a chance to consider for a moment what we eat.ĭespite its good-natured inclusion of soy chorizos and patties, Harmony Farms is no place for vegans. While some shoppers will simply head for Gelson’s or Trader Joe’s, others will find themselves shopping like their grandparents did, at smaller stores - fruit markets, bakeries, butcher shops. Nothing comes naturally in flash-frozen or cellophaned parts, nothing at all.Įven a short-lived supermarket strike will disrupt many patterns. Tinkered-with beef is a reminder, of what the meat business is all about. The breath-slowing chill is a reminder, like the blood-splashed aprons are a reminder, like the dark red flesh of non “Don’t worry,” Cabrales says, interrupting his explanation of the flash freezing process with a laugh. There is something primally disconcerting about the image of an unoccupied meat hook and a strange man in a white coat it is difficult to soothe yourself with thoughts of the nearby florist, the perpetual buzz of Foothill Boulevard. “Depends on how good the hunters are that year.”Ĭabrales is a friendly, reassuring figure yet when a meat locker door slams shut, it is difficult not to remember every horror-film victim, every icicled mobster you have ever seen. Every year, the meat cutters go through about 80 deer, maybe 60 wild boar. These belong to local hunters Harmony Farms also dresses local wild game. Four wild boar hang from their hoofs amid the stacks of brown boxes, skinned, each with signs reading: “Not for sale.” Not that there aren’t whole animals in the lockers at Harmony Farms. It’s all steak and tri-tips so it doesn’t make sense for us to bring the animals in whole as much anymore.” “People got no use for short ribs anymore,” Cabrales says, “no use for pot roast, not much use for brisket. People still eat a lot of red meat, Cabrales says, but it’s all the same sort of red meat. County Fair - Cabrales and his staff cut a lot of meat for the 4-H’ers and others during the fair season - and they are far outweighed by the boxes of repetitive and specific cuts stacked in boxes marked Harris Ranch. They are the last steers auctioned off at this year’s L.A. “Everything is different now,” he says a bit sadly, surveying the limited hanging contents of one locker - two sides of beef and a string of shanks. A few customers still store their meat at Harmony Farms, but the demand for a meat locker of one’s own has diminished significantly in the Los Angeles area and no one feels it more keenly than Cabrales, who has been working with meat for most of his adult life. “When we started, you could rent a locker room for a side of beef,” Cabrales says. Buffalo and venison come in many shapes and forms and there is the aforementioned rattlesnake, ready to be simmered into a stew. Also for sale are kangaroo patties and elk medallions, ostrich meat, wild boar sausage and hunks of Cajun alligator, whole rabbits and duck and black tiger shrimp. Here you can buy hormone-free beef, free-range turkey, lamb and chicken. Harmony Farms is a meat store, a specialty meat store. And during the last week, as pickets kept strike-supporting customers out of the nearby Ralphs and Vons, it was a smell that many people were experiencing once again. Real meat, bloody meat, the kind we used to buy in butcher shops from men in crimson-splashed aprons before the chains took over and put so much cellophane and Styrofoam all over everything it’s hard to tell what it is, exactly. So it’s quite a shock to step across the threshold and smell meat. From the street, at 40 mph, Harmony Farms could be a granola-īinned health food store or an organic fruit stand. Nothing that would hint at, say, the skinned carcass of a wild boar or a flash-frozen coil of rattlesnake. Within its immediate vicinity are an escrow company, a florist, a Goodwill donations center, a carwash and a bar called, whimsically enough, Up Th’ Hill. Harmony Farms is a small nondescript storefront on the endless commercial stretch that is Foothill Boulevard in La Crescenta.
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