I am almost ashamed to admit this as a prepper, but I fell for the Prairie Gold Foods “drive-by-steak scam.”
It was back a month or so ago when the markets one Friday evening really looked like the following Monday was going to be the Big One. The wife and I were contemplating a Costco run that weekend to stock up, when this fellow in a pickup rolled up, scratched his head, and toted a brochure and a box to our door.
“I’ll handle this,” I said with my usual bravado, having pitched many a pitchman off the porch. But this guy asked if we knew the X family a few blocks away. No? Well, they were on a regular bulk steak-buying plan with his company, but they were out of town, and this fellow’s boss told him to get rid of the steak boxes at a discount. Would we be interested in a box of various flash-frozen, vacuum-packed, store-’em-frozen-for-more-than-six-months packaged beef cuts at half-price?
The box contained a variety of cuts, from a nice bone-in Kansas City to well-marbled filets, a thin ground pepper-steak cut, nice ribeyes, and some decent strip steaks
as well.
Half-price turned out to be $180 for just over 20lbs of beef. I knew, after looking at the cuts of meat, that the price per pound was pretty high compared to, say, Costco — but at the time I was thinking it’d be really nice to just stick these pretty, pretty steaks into the freezer and check “frozen beef” off of my prep list. And of course, the deal was done before I had time to check the Internet to find out that these steaks are sold by the same sob story every day.
Well, they turned out to be very nice steaks. On the smaller side, yes, but the quality seems pretty good. That’s the pepper-ground steak on my plate, with the frozen Kansas and filets flanking. We don’t regret our purchase, but won’t likely do it again.
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Ha! Every single drive by meat company does that. I don’t care how good they are, I simply won’t buy from someone who lies to me. I even had one try that on me in a McDonalds parking lot once.
Back in the late 1970’s, there was a company, “Omaha Steaks”, that went to offices selling this product. My wife’s employer at the time, Pitney-Bowes, a postage-meter outfit, bought into a plan to use as rewards for performance, and the gudwife frequently brought home their products. I was in my mid-30’s then, could stuff away a lot of red meat, and I found the offerings to be on the small size, but tasty.
I was, however, absolutely intrigued by the vacuum-seal packaging and the long shelf-life, unknown then to consumers, but which today, I can duplicate myself with Food Saver equipment plus the purchase of VERY fresh meat which I then seal and freeze within 3 hours of it being cut off the side of beef or hog. Once the bacteria get to the meat to start it’s “aging”, you don’t want to freeze it, you want to cook and eat it. Freezing doesn’t stop decomposition of meat, it just slows it down. This is why “freezer-burned” meat has that bad taste to it.
It’s all in the proper handling of the meat, as either your imam, rabbi, or prison meat-cutting instructor should have told you.
I’m sure the wholesaler will sell to you directly.
And I’ll bet that someone online is offering that box at near cost.
“Omaha Steaks are still around, my wife bought a pack out of the truck without me knowing!!! Still the meat is good if as stated a little small in size. The bacon wrapped are outstanding. Shady but good I guess I would conclude. Go figure…
I live in Omaha and it’s cheaper to buy from a specialty butcher and have him seal and flash freeze than to buy Omaha Steaks. My survival meat rotation is a little simpler: shoot deer, butcher, freeze, eat, repeat.