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The economics of goat

The other day, Tim McCormack had a chat with a butcher at M.F. Dulock in Somerville about why it's so hard to find goat meat. It has to do with the fact that, unlike beef, people only tend to want goat for stewing. He explains why that makes butchers reluctant to regularly carry goat (note: click on the "Show more" links for each entry).

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The simple explanation seems to be that there isn't enough demand for goat at high-end specialty butchers like Dulock.

The obvious solution: go to a Halal market. They all have it.

Hmm, Garden Halal Meat on Blackstone Street has a buffet with North African stews. That just jumped to the top of my food to-do list.

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If I was looking for goat meat I would probably look to the halal markets first where you're more likely to find immigrant customers who likely consume it more regularly.

That seems like a better source than a butcher with a mission "to strength­en our local food sys­tem by offer­ing eth­i­cal­ly sourced meats and hon­est dia­logue" and that boasts "We care­ful­ly source our live­stock from small farms in New Eng­land and the Hud­son Val­ley."

No offense to them as it looks like a good shop, just not one with customers that would be regularly looking for goat meat.

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Food Land in Malden is the Halal Jam spot

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I'm not sure about where exactly to go in Boston (places in Everett/Revere/Chelsea would be where I'd look first), but I used to live in Attleboro and would shop at Armando & Sons Meat Market and they always had multiple choices for cuts of goat on hand.

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It’s responding to an argument neither the author nor the butcher made. Most butchers don’t carry goat, for the reasons the butcher stated. For some reason you used that unassailable argument as a jumping off point to take shots at a local butcher because you apparently don’t like the shop’s mission statement. What a strange response.

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The first line of the post is about a conversation with this butcher about why it's "so hard to find goat meat" around here.

That is the claim.

My point, which is one that others here have confirmed, is that if you go to a halal butcher or a market in the area that caters to other immigrant groups that more commonly eat goat it is not hard to find. Here's a nice supermarket in Roxbury that carries it.

Pointing out that a butcher with a mission statement as quoted is not one that matches those demographics and would therefore have a perspective that there is a low demand for it is hardly taking a shot, in fact I said that it looked like a good place.

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If you look at the actual thread, you'll see that I never said it was hard to find goat meat, generically.

The way Adam phrased it is a bit misleading, and while I don't really blame you or him for that, I do want to make it clear that that wasn't the original point.

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I'm well aware that I could get goat at a number of shops in the area, but I was at MF Dulock specifically because of that mission statement. We eat very little meat, and when we do, we ensure it's from a place that cares well for both the animals and the land.

That requires either us or the supplier knowing the farmer, which isn't possible at most markets.

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...or direct from the farm. Anything you buy there will be frozen, so go to the farm and stock up. See the CISA website for farms.

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Most people don't want to raise goats because goats are Trouble. :-P The only reliable source I know of is Chestnut Farms at the Boston Public Market. And I also don't want to go halfway across the state just to pick up a couple pounds of goat meat.

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… liver, kielbasa and stew meat from a farmer who came to the Dewey Sq farmers market till last summer when she decided the driving into town and out again was too much. I hope to see them back this year.

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….frozen at the Market Baskets in Revere and Chelsea

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….frozen at the Market Baskets in Revere and Chelsea

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….frozen at the Market Baskets in Revere and Chelsea

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I have seen goat meat in Shaw's on HP Ave.

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