Tyler Morelock

Our featured apprentice butcher in this edition of the Moo Crew News is Tyler Morelock.  Tyler called the Ladoga shop about a year ago and I had the good fortune of picking up the phone and fielding his request to come in and job shadow at our production facility. Tyler enjoyed the experience enough to schedule a second visit and has been with Moody’s almost ever since.

Tyler was born September 5, 1992 in Danville, Indiana and has lived his entire young life there.  Jackie, his mother, Wes, his father, and brother, Justin all still live in Danville or the surrounding area and Tyler enjoys having family close by. Tyler played some football at the Danville middle school but focused more on things agricultural while attending high school at Cascade. (Go Cadets!)  Tyler’s main interests at school were 4-H and F.F.A. (Future Farmers of America). It was during his agriculture class that the idea of shadowing the butchers at Moody’s came to mind.

Before and after graduation and since he began his tour of duty at Moody’s, Tyler has been one busy man.

In addition to his work at Moody’s Tyler is raising 100 goats of various breeds on two properties and works twenty hours or so a week at Bragg’s Saddle & Tack in Danville. At Bragg’s he tends the livestock, cleans and repairs saddles and provides customer service among other various jobs. Whew! You would think there was no more room in Tyler’s schedule for anything. But you would be wrong! There is an October wedding planned to his sweetheart and recent Brownsburg High School grad, Corinne Damler.  Tyler and Corinne met at the stables at Bragg’s where he works part time. Corinne is currently studying Animal Sciences at IUPUI.

Tyler is an apprentice butcher with about one year’s worth of experience under his belt. Besides his slaughtering responsibilities at the Ladoga plant, Tyler is involved in all aspects of Moody’s meat processing and also continues to help out with some of the cutting duties at the Avon shop. He has learned how to break down carcass meat into its primal components. Now come the nuances of identifying some of the not so common cuts and learning how they are pulled from the various primals. Along with this training Tyler is learning how to make various sausages and some of our cooked meats as well as the art of setting the case.  When I asked Tyler what he liked about working at Moody’s he pondered for a short moment and then said with almost a shy grin “Everything”. Tyler’s answer is a true reflection of the positive attitude he shows as he goes about his work. All of us on the Moo Crew sure enjoy having him on the team. Thanks, Tyler for all your hard work and congratulations on your engagement! Best Wishes!

To our fellow carnivores and customers, please don’t forget to say hello to Tyler when you get the chance. Remember, it’s always good to know your butcher.  Thank you for your patronage.

Ken Burger, Chief Brand Officer                                     

Adam and Lucy Moody

April, 2012

In this column I attempt to reclaim the disconnect and disparities that have occurred over the past forty years between agri and culture. The topic today is not so much the personal benefits of eating healthy but the societal changes that occur when we participate in local food systems.

Consider the following statement. Regardless of whether your diet consists of the purest home-grown food produced from virgin soils or Red Bull and Twinkies, you are eventually going to die.

Personally the questions are how and when you will check out, however the anthropological question is what are the tracks of the agriculture you supported ( participated in ) while you are here.  What “food production linage or legacy  will you leave your children and grand children.

In this land of the free I believe we will always have the freedom to raise our own food to our production model of choice.  However if you don’t have a enough time to go to the local farmer’s market, or run out to a nearby produce stand to pick a few items for the week end, then you don’t have enough time to raise the majority of your own food which , of course, is impractical for about 99.683% of the readers of this piece.

The way I see it there are four components of a food system.

1. The land
2. The people that work on and live around that land
3. The products/ processors / distributors ie: the business
4. The consumers or customers

Any food system that is to even approach sustainability must keep these in some form of a balance.

For instance if appropriate economic considerations were not given to the people and communities that produce our food, there would be a need for external inputs of government grants, government farm subsidies to keep them going, or our  rural areas and farmers would go broke and our rural towns would become ghost like in appearance.

Or if the food production model in place were to push the soil beyond its fertile capacity made obvious by  continuous and higher doses of external inputs such as fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides, herbicides, which pushes the natural plants to the point of needing genetic augmentation to survive such doses. The result would be a continuous lost or extraction of the soil’s fertility and capacity to grow plants.

If processors are so focused on labor efficiencies that they pay cheap and sometime illegal  wages and  shift bonuses based on pounds processed instead of quality.  Or even worse yet, the processing goes overseas to a third world nation with little regards to environment or fair labor practices.

What if our food became unhealthy for the consumers who were purchasing it? For instance it required sugar laden sauces and salt to have good flavor and these along with grease cooking agents would increase obesity, heart disease and diabetes? And what if the consumer no longer prepared the food themselves but frequented restaurants that might base their recipes only on flavor. Couldn’t that pose problems?

Bottom line:  To quote my good friend Wendell Berry, “….. if you eat, you farm”.

If we, the customers, don’t give weighted thought to the rural communities, the people, and the land that produces our food, then it can be said we are guilty of the extraction of the fertility of our land, soils, and the rural communities in which our very food is produced. The only other living organism that operates this way, is a virus.

Adam Moody

         Moody Meats………bringing agri and culture back together.

“It’s not hamburger, it’s ground beef!” I don’t remember who first  informed me of this fact but it was stuck in my mind from that point on. You see, ground beef is not ground ham. So simple. Right?  Well the facts are actually quite simple but there is more to this story. And what better time than the start of grilling season to get our facts straight about wonderful hamburger. That delectable, juicy, so personalized and individualized delight that so many of us carnivores love to maw down on all through the year.

Fresh Ground Beef

A quick Google search about the history of hamburger will result, like most inquiries, in quite a few hits. But one site in particular, whatscookingamerica.net was a great source which chronicled hamburger history all the way back to the height of the Egyptian empire before Genghis Khan’s mounted army tenderized scraps of lamb or mutton that had been formed into patties by placing them between  their saddles and the horses’ backs! Yum! Apparently Kahn’s soldiers stayed mounted for interminable amounts of time and had to eat on the hoof, so to speak. These tenderized patties were eaten raw.

Later Moscow was invaded by Ghengis’ grandson, Khubilai. (1215-1295) The Russians picked up this dietary delight calling it Steak Tartare. (The Russian name for Mongols was Tartars.) During the 1600s Russian ports were visited by sailors from Hamburg, Germany. And you guessed it, they also adopted this food.

Let’s move into the future another two hundred years. German ports were among the largest and busiest in Europe in the late eighteenth century.

“Sailors, who had visited the ports of Hamburg, Germany and New York, brought this food and (the) term Hamburg Steak into popular usage. To attract German sailors, eating stands along the New York City harbor offered steak cooked in the Hamburg style.”

“In 1802 The Oxford English Dictionary defined Hamburg steak as salt beef. It had little resemblance to the hamburger we know today. It was a hard slab of salted minced beef. Often slightly smoked, mixed with onions and breadcrumbs. The emphasis was more on durability than taste.”

“Immigrants to the United States from German-speaking countries brought with them some of their favorite foods. One of them was Hamburg Steak. The Germans simply flavored shredded low-grade beef with regional spices and both cooked and raw it became a standard meal among the poorer classes. In the seaport town of Hamburg, it acquired the name Hamburg steak.”     (whatscookingamerica.net/History/HamburgerHistory.htm)

The invention of meat choppers in the 1800s and the rise of restaurants looking for unique, signature items for their menus contributed to what we know today as hamburger or, in patty form, the hamburger. One of the earliest references on a menu that can be verified is from the Clipper Restaurant (1871-1884) in San Fernando serving a Hamburg Beefsteak for 10 cents. There is also a cookbook from 1758 that listed a recipe for Hamburg Sausage made with chopped beef, suet, spices with a recommendation from the author to serve it with toast. Hmm. Sounds familiar.

Considerable debate about the origin of the first beef patty on a bun, hamburger sandwich in America continues as evidenced by a mountain of information available on the subject. That might be a good follow up article for the future. But here is my point.

After learning about the connection between the ancient Mongols and the streets vendors of New York I realized, it’s OK to call it hamburger! Sure, our current version is quite a bit different from the Tartars’, but it is also still very similar and the connection to our current-day version is clear. Finally I am set free from that little twinge going through my neck each time a customer asks for hamburger or I absentmindedly use the term!

We know its ground beef. But go ahead. Ask for hamburger.  Say it loud and proud. Hamburger, Hamburger Hamburger! You won’t have to saddle your horse to eat it!

How would you like that wrapped?

Ken Burger, Chief Brand Officer

Fiesta Corn Salad

DRESSING

½ CUP CIDER VINEGAR

¼ CUP HONEY

2 TEASPOONS MINCED GARLIC

½ TEASPOON SALT

¼ TEASPOON FRESHLY GROUND PEPPER

2 CUPS VEGETABLE OIL

10 CUPS WHOLE CORN KERNELS COOKED

4 MEDIUM SIZED CARROTS, HALVED LENGTHWISE, SLICED IN ¼-INCH THICK HALF ROUNDS

2 CUPS THINLY SLICED CELERY

1 LARGE RED ONION, CHOPPED FINE (1 CUP)

2 JARS (4 OUNCES EACH), CHOPPED PIMIENTOS, DRAINED

FOR GARNISH: 2 SLICES CRISPLY COOKED BACON, CRUMBLED.

DIRECTIONS

Wisk dressing ingredients except oil in a large bowl. Gradually whisk in oil until blended. Add remaining ingredients except crumbled bacon. Toss to mix. Cover salad and refrigerate. Just before serving, sprinkle with bacon. Makes about 12 cups.

Per ½ cup: 230 cal, 2 g pro, 22 g car, 17 g fat, 0 mg chol, 303 mg sod

Courtney Murphy

Courtney Murphy is a butcher’s apprentice at Moody’s Avon shop and is our featured cutter for this edition of the Moo Crew News, Meet Your Butcher series.

Courtney  was born April 2, 1985 in Danville, Indiana. His parents, Doug and Chris, are also native Warriors and still work locally in the distribution and printing businesses.  Courtney has one sibling, an older sister named Heather.

Although born in Danville, Courtney grew up and attended school in Plainfield and while there enjoyed participation in sports, particularly baseball.  After high school Courtney worked a variety of jobs including some time at Steak n Shake and McDonald’s, car detailing, home remodeling, and mowing. He also worked at Kroger for three years just prior to landing the butcher’s apprentice position at Moody’s Avon shop in the spring of 2011.

Courtney loves spending time with his only son, three-year-old Khyle. They enjoy fishing, camping and sometimes shooting some hoops. Courtney also makes time to hang out with Jessica, his girlfriend of two years and plays a little flag football with his church league.

When asked what he likes about his work at Moody’s Courtney answers, “…the employees and customers are really nice to work with…This area (Avon) is nice and I only live five minutes from the shop.” He also adds, “This is a good trade to learn. There is something different to learn every day and the Moody’s are great people to work for.”

Like so many of our staff, Courtney became acquainted with the Moody family business through a friend of a faithful Moody Meats customer. We sure are glad he did. Courtney has been a quick learner and a faithful employee since the beginning of his tenure and is well on his way to becoming an artisan meat cutter. He would like to learn more about the slaughtering, skinning and breakdown process of whole carcass meat to build his knowledge of the butchering profession.

You regular Avon Moody’s customers have probably  had a chance to meet Courtney. If not please take the time to say hello. I’m sure you’ll be greeted with a warm smile and a firm handshake.

Thanks, Courtney, for all your hard work and dedication.

Ken Burger, Chief Brand Officer

A Butcher’s Joke:

In our Meet Your Butcher series of the Moo Crew News newsletter we have been using the term artisan to describe several of the “cutters” here at Moody Meats.  I was speaking with Adam Moody recently about what qualifies a meat cutter specifically, or someone in any profession for that matter, to be considered an artisan. Then a few days later I opened my email and saw that Chad Hassler, Owner and Operations Manager, had forwarded an article that also touched on this subject. It was from smallfoodbiz.com January 20, 2012 and was the result of the writer’s visit to a recent San Francisco food show. Following is an excerpt from that article.

Is Artisan losing it’s meaning?  Words like “artisan” and “small-batch” were being tossed around and touted at almost every booth at the show.  In many cases though when you dug a little deeper it turned out that the product wasn’t quite as advertised.  In one case a small brand told me that their products were “artisan” and “handcrafted” only to find out, after a little digging, that their products are actually made by a third-party manufacturing facility that utilizes machines for all their production.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that small companies shouldn’t look for ways to make their production more efficient but at the same time I think that then disqualifies you from using terms like “artisan” and “handcrafted.”  Unfortunately, since terms like that aren’t regulated, there’s really not much that can be done.

The reason that this is incredibly important to those of you who are actually artisan, handmade, small-batch, locally sourced, etc, etc is that those phrases that you’ve been using to help differentiate your products from the mass-manufactured brands may be losing their currency in the marketplace.  On the one hand, if every company from the biggest of the Big Brands (franchise chain Panera Bread calls themselves “Artisan Fast Food”) to the cottage food producer is using these terms then that’s not an efficient way to differentiate your product from the crowd.  Also, there’s the chance that consumers will stop trusting the word because they see it being used in cases where it so obviously doesn’t apply in which case, even if it’s true for your products, it’s not necessarily going to be something the customer will believe.

The dictionary defines Artisan as a skilled craftsman; somebody who is skilled at a craft. How is small batch defined?  One definition of batch is the amount of material prepared or needed for, or produced in, one operation. But what is small? Small compared to what? Of course when we think of cooking something in small batches it does elicit images of mom in her kitchen pulling out a sheet of freshly baked oatmeal raisin cookies. What do the words artisan and small-batch mean in relation to how Moody’s operates? Let’s take our ham salad, BBQ and pulled pork products as examples. All are made with overnight slow cooked meats in batches of about fifty pints. Most of the mixing is done by hand. Sure we follow the same recipe every time but each batch is still taste tested and of course, tweaked if needed to insure the right flavor and texture. Containers are hand labeled and hand packed. Our natural lard is usually made in a small batch of two or less gallons. Did you know that every egg we sell is individually inspected while hand washed? Every egg! Our Double Smoked bacon is hand trimmed, truly center cut, sixty “shingles” at a time, monitored for proper smoke coverage then individually hand packaged. Our Avon and Zionsville butchers, Steve Burnette and Dennis Richardson each have about twenty years of individual experience cutting meats. They are authentic artisan meat cutters.  And Moody’s has four other Journeyman cutters with five or more years of experience. Does Moody’s have skilled craftsmen, artisans, prepping all those beautiful meat case selections and custom cutting your personal orders?  Yes we do. Does Moody’s provide consistently fresh, truly small batch products? Yes we do. Does Moody’s always strive to provide you with as much locally sourced meat and other local products as possible? Yes we do! Moody’s is a leader in local, sustainable and responsible farming.

In the future when you see the words, “artisan”, “hand made”, “small batch” and “local” used to promote a company’s products  remember us at Moody’s Butcher Shops…, locally sourced, small batch cooking, hands on processing and artisan staffed. Moody’s Butcher Shops, Authentic. Fresh.

Ken Burger, Chief Brand Officer

 Ingredients:
1 tablespoon oil
¾ lb. lean beef, cut into ¾- inch cubes
3 cups water
10 ½ -oz can condensed beef broth
16-oz can tomatoes, un-drained, cut up
¼ cup barley rinsed
2 teaspoons paprika
1 medium onion, sliced
2 bay leaves
1 ½ cups frozen mixed vegetables
Salt
Pepper                               

Heat oil in Dutch oven or large saucepan over medium-high heat; brown meat. Stir in remaining ingredients, except vegetables, salt and pepper; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover. Simmer 1 ¼ to 1 ½ hours, stirring occasionally. Add vegetables; simmer 20 minutes or until beef and vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally. Remove bay leaves. Season to taste with salt and pepper. 6 (1 ½-cup) servings.

About 160 calories and 14 grams of protein per 1 ½ cups.               

I like to make enough soup to use a whole bag, 16 oz. of frozen vegetables because I like to freeze some. But that seldom happens because a good soup never lasts in our house. For reheating adding some additional broth is a good idea.

Remember to keep adding to your arsenal of secret ingredients and “make it your own”.

Adam with grandson, Oliver

A few years back there was a very clever TV commercial with Peyton Manning yelling at various people engaged in their work. The tone from the obviously disgruntled Manning was that of disgust and disappointment in the quality of work being done.  Of course, the sarcastic point of the ad was that all of us yell at the TV when a player drops a pass or misses a block or throws an interception as if we were all experts!  This truth was made evident during the Colts’ last season: it must not be as easy as it looks to be a world-class NFL quarterback or there would be a lot more of them.

Perhaps spectators of the farming arena should take note of this.  The truth is there really are no spectators in farming.  I often point out that, in one way or another, we all farm by proxy. Every time we hand over our hard earned dollars to a food system we are “hiring” that system to raise and process and sell the very food we eat.  In this hiring we are voting for, and therefore edifying or supporting that system.  It is not hard to find animal activists who disagree with the industrial models of livestock production. But are they supporting this model by purchasing the cheapest form of food available from such a system?  The disparities that exist between “agri” and “culture” are ever widening as more and more consumers want to have a say in the way their food is raised. Yet too many know very little about what that involves. Their expectations may not be able to be fulfilled void of getting back to the 80 acre farm themselves and putting on the overalls of their ancestors.

Just like the insinuation of the Manning commercial, meeting everyone’s expectations every time is not as easy as it looks.  Sustainable farming, or management intensive agriculture as I call it, requires much more than merely driving a tractor or the automated feeding of 30,000 chickens by the push of a button. The skill and management necessary for sustainable farming is incredibly heuristic and therefore is difficult to teach within the restrictions of a classroom or an article.

If we want to continue to have a choice regarding the origin of our food then we must support those choices by “hiring” the producers and processors that meet our expectations and vote for them with our dollars. The biggest challenge that exists for sustainable local food systems is not the weather, weeds, or the weasels.  Nor is it government regulations or BIG industry.  It lies in the ability to consistently gain and maintain the critical mass needed to sustain the business economically.  It needs you!

For consumers to have a choice in any purchase there must be an economically sustainable business alternative or there will soon be only one choice which, of course, is no choice at all.

Adam Moody

Justin Miller

Justin Miller is our featured Artisan Cutter for this edition of the Moo Crew News. Born in Indianapolis on May 13, 1980 to Alexis and Nina Miller, Justin has four siblings: John, at Holy Cross School of  Theology; Isaac, at Purdue; Hannah, married and living in Crawfordsville and his youngest sister, Lucy, adopted from China. Justin’s father is an Orthodox Priest, pastor of Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church and operates his own appliance repair business.

At the age of ten, Justin and his family moved to the Crawfordsville area in 1990 where they bought a 150 acre farm in an effort to distance themselves from urban living in Indianapolis and integrate into a local church community. Justin’s education consisted of: Montessori school in his primary grades,  Boy Scout and Eagle Scout training, South Montgomery High School, and Purdue University where he earned a B.S. in Forestry and Natural Resources.

Fresh out of college Justin worked in the construction business for a local contractor. He met his future wife, Anne Lawrence of San Jose while at an Orthodox Young Adults Conference in December of 2000. They married in July of 2004 and started their family right away with a little girl.  Looking for opportunities Justin moved his small family to San Jose, California where he made a living working construction and helping his wife’s parents. Apparently his Hoosier roots ran deep and kept calling him home since it was only sixteen months later when Justin and his family moved back to Indiana. His in-laws followed shortly thereafter.  Justin’s family has grown and he and Anne have three beautiful children; six-year-old Nectaria, Jacob who is three, and little eight-month-old Peter.

As is often said, it is not just what you know, but who you know. And that is how Justin found Moody Meats. Justin was in search of a career opportunity when a family friend mentioned that Moody’s was looking for a butcher.   This resulted in Justin landing at our Ladoga processing facility in August of 2008. Justin apprenticed as a Butcher’s Assistant and is currently involved in many aspects of production ranging from custom artisan cutting, to making our well known BBQ, pulled pork and ham salad.

Outside the Butcher Shop, Justin enjoys gardening, classical music, singing, prayer, walking, beekeeping, woodworking, investing and studying local and church history. He dreams of  learning to fly, working with horses, and building his own house and hopes to one day establish an orthodox monastery in Montgomery County.

When asked what he enjoys about working at Moody’s Justin answers with a wry smile, “Working with really big knives.” He then adds, “Serving our patrons with the best meat around, the smell of freshly smoked hams, and providing exemplary customer service.”

Maybe you like the customer service or the top-quality meat, or maybe you just like guys with big knives.  Whatever your pleasure, if you find yourself  in our neck of the woods please stop by and say hello to Justin and the rest of the Ladoga Moo Crew.

Adam and Lucy Moody

Sacrifice: Dying that produces new life.

As such, in this the third part of my series on the topic of sustainability, we look at what would seem to be the least popular leg of the process to talk about.  In my experience this topic is most neglected in discussions, seldom getting a mention when I listen to lectures or read reports on the subject.  Maybe the speaker or writer knows it will be a “hard sell” and prefers to keep the discussion “light”.  After all, who wants to talk about sacrifice and death? They are weighty and can be demanding subjects to wrestle with.  Or maybe it is neglected due to ignorance. Regardless, there is no complete process of sustainability without death.

The fact is ALL the food we eat today, whether plant or animal, was grown at the expense, or sacrifice, of another plant or animal.  More than that, the plain truth is everything you eat was once alive and had to die before it could be consumed.

If you have a cycle of sustainability, and life and birth is part of that cycle, ( and we know that it is), then death and sacrifice must also be part of the cycle.  We observe the cycle of life and see this to be true.

In my life I have experienced what I believe are three of the most beautiful examples of this truth. Let me share them to help this truth come to life for you.

We once had an apple tree growing in a fence row of our farm. Old and twisted, it was “self pruned” by years of ice and wind brought by our Indiana winters. As it was waning in life I noticed a young apple tree had sprouted under the canopy of this old tree. A split in the branches of the parent had allowed sunlight to get through and bathe the spout in life giving light.  Over the next few years the parent tree completely gave way to the emerging young sapling which had the advantage of familiarity with the soil and climate, and the protection from early and late frosts from the parent which by now was just a rotted out stump of a trunk.  A small but yearly harvest of apples was sustained.

I was once deer hunting during bow season when all the leaves were still on the trees.  One warm evening I had perched myself above a heavily used trail in a tree stand.  A doe with two very playful fawns slowly meandered into the area.  The wind was in my favor that evening and I had not made a sound or movement, but the mother deer, suddenly “sensed” a problem and stomped her hoof into the ground.  The fawns absolutely froze. After a few moments she put her head down as if she was eating for a moment then raised quickly to check the area again.  Her ears were really working and with her nose in the air she would roll back her upper lip striving to validate her intuition. Upon a second stomp of her hoof the two fawns moved back down the path from which they came. The mother stayed behind for another five minutes or so continuously testing the air and the area. She never “busted” me directly but she knew there was something wrong and would not let it go. She protected her babies, staying behind and guarding the area and their retreat to insure their safety and possibly sustaining their lives to the next generation.

In 1997 I approached my father with a proposition.  I said to him, “Dad, I want to take the farm in a different direction.” “ I want to start raising food instead of commodities.” Dad was in his 60’s and was debt free. He owned his farm free and clear.  As I laid out the plan for what would ultimately become Moody Meats, I asked dad what he thought.  His words have never left me. He said. “I wouldn’t do it, but if I were you I would.”  Over the next twelve years dad selflessly worked for me earning $100 for a fifty hour week on MY dream to fulfill his dream of keeping the farm vital and viable for the next generation.  In 2005 he sold 95 acres and gifted the majority of the revenue to Lucy and me in order to expand our business.  His best friend from childhood and a fellow farmer thought dad was nuts.  I heard dad tell him “…there is much more of a chance of Moody Meats employing my grandchildren than that 95 acres of corn and beans will produce.”

Dad has passed now. To this day I cannot forget the sacrifice he made in his waning years when he could have just cruised out with grace and enjoyed the slower pace he was so fond of. His example of sacrifice and death to himself, like the other examples above, demonstrates to me without a doubt what a necessary part sacrifice and death play in the cycle of sustainability and in our lives.

I’ll step out on a limb here and state that the sacrifice that God made in our behalf through the gift of His Son, Jesus is the perfect example of true sustainability. This is fitting and such a good reminder to many of us at this time of the year who celebrate, not only the birth of Jesus but also Him giving His life in death so we might enjoy new life.

With that I’ll finish by saying as we approach the holidays that as far as me and my company, Christmas would just be another day without Jesus, our Christ.

Thank you for your patronage. May you have great enjoyment and peace this holiday.

From all of us to all of you, Merry Christmas and have a Safe and Happy New Year.

Adam Moody, CEO, Founder and Farmer