How Allentown handles tubes of beef
In my experience it is like a giant plastic sausage…that drools oily blood juice when you snip the tip.
The New York Times video that quoted their price at $18 in the past and $60 in the present did not include a shot of said tubes. Just the extremely appealing end-product:
The Swing District blessed with this food for lunch also happens to be choosing our majority in congress this November. Just like the New York Times, Swing Left has been chatting with voters there; read on to learn a little about Allentown, PA; join Swing Left to learn a lot.
“El precio de carne.”
The price of beef. When I called Allentown with Swing Left last month that’s what one woman said. I heard kids in the background. She said it was about to be dinnertime. It was her first and fast answer to an open-ended, please riff question: What would she change about the direction the country is going?
“The price of ground beef. Am I going to have to learn to cook differently?”
The quick affordability answer was stated emphatically. The follow-up question that she posed had panic in it. Happy kid and adult sounds in the background. I’m guessing she cooks for maybe 6 people, spanning at least 3 generations. It takes that many generations to learn how to feed everyone the same meal happily.
We deep blue state super-liberals and politicians of all the colors like to pose that question outwardly, “Can Americans learn to cook differently?” Five seconds into that Ground Truth phonebanking call with an Allentown voter put that question to rest for me. No.
Back to the tubes of beef.
Patties come stacked in packs in of 120. These plastic-wrapped pillars are too tall to handle elegantly, no way to get above the pull of gravity down your forearm as the juice drips from elbow to OSHA-approved non-slip sneakers. I don’t miss those moments. Meat-free kitchens are waaaayyyy easier to manage.
Nevertheless, working with those unappealing pricey tubes has not turned anyone I know off of meat. That little NYTimes snippet clarified what we all know instinctually: restaurants can’t make food that tastes worse, that is less satisfying … they must pay that extra $42 … and keep battling beef drool to feed us well, the way they know how.
Phonebanking the Ground Truth way is very similar to doing what the New York Times reporting team did in Allentown the same week I did that phonebank. Impartial questions get honest answers. It was enormously satisfying talking to all of those Allentowners and then see what they said echoed in the paper the next Sunday.
Swing Left hosts a Ground Truth info session/training every Tuesday at 8pm EDT. Trying to understand our perplexing polity? This is the happy, hopeful compliment to your Times reading.
Sign up and, then, read this New York Times photo essay, video and article and drool over that carne molida like a freshly pricked tube of beef.
