Sustainable Eating in Cleveland

West Side Market

The West Side Market is a pretty good place to buy local food, if you're careful.

The West Side Market consists of an outdoor row of produce vendors and an indoor portion that contains booths selling meat, fish, dairy products, pasta, deserts, and seemingly anything you could want to get. As far as I could tell, these booths were permanent. I didn't look at all of the booths because I was specifically looking for meat, and I think I got a pretty good representative sample of that.

I looked first at Sebastian Steaks, where the sellers did not know where the meat was raised at, but did assure me that it was free of hormones. Vince's Meats across the aisle had a friendly grandmotherly woman that told me quite a lot about their product. Their meats come from Mahan Packing, a Bristolville company that takes in 70% Amish, Ohio-raised cattle. They are fed grain, hay, timothy, alfalfa, rye and the like, not corn, and no antibiotics. Unlike large slaughterhouses, Mahan always has as inspector on the floor and follows strict policies. No lungs are processed, and brains of cattle over 2 years old are carefully handled. Meat that is bought in the supermarket can be 4-6 weeks old because it is vacuum-sealed. Vince's meats, she said, are fresh kills. "They were mooing five days ago."

There was also Bistricky's meats. My notes get confusing at this point. Under Bistricky's, I put a bullet point that says "hormones." I'm not sure if this means their meat had or did not have hormones - I guess this is something I should verify when I go back. However, the next bullet point says "Mostly Amish," so unless the Amish use hormones, the answer seems to be, "no hormones." Anyway, Bistricky's is located south of Wooster.

Another booth called J&J Meats did not carry organic meat, which may be undesirable whether or not it is local. At most of the booths, it also seemed that you had to buy meat as it was cut, and could not request a half portion. I did not check if they do ground beef, but I didn't see evidence of this being the case.

A young man (Do I sound sixty years old when I call someone a "young man"? What are you supposed to call them?) at Kate's fish told me that they carry several kinds of Lake Erie fish, year round. Yes, even in the winter, although if the lake is frozen they might not be able to get as much out. They had Walleye (9.99/lb), White Bass (2.99), and also have Yellow Perch, Carp, Buffalo on different weeks.

Other than meat and fish, there are several booths that sell ethnic food and ingredients, deserts, and even regular items like Faygo soda. None of these things looked very local though.

The produce section was sort of disappointing. It was June the 6th, admittedly not yet a time of summer bounty, but the only local product I could find was radishes from Hartsville at Boutros Brothers Produce. It was not on display as a local variety, though. From my little chart I knew that asparagus, broccoli, peas, radishes, strawberries, greens, herbs and rhubarb were in season, so when I saw them I asked the vendor.

None of the vendors seemed to be making much of an effort to sell Ohio produce. One harassed-looking woman told me that it was too early and I wouldn't find anything. Another vendor, when asked if anything he had was local, paused uncertainly for a second and then simply answered, "Yeah," even though a lot of what he was selling was clearly not even grow-able in Ohio. To his credit, as I walked away he said something like, "Well maybe not the..." but I wasn't really listening by that point. That's an important lesson. When questioning farmer's or vendors, do not ask, "Is it local?" Some people will be honest with you, but not all. A better way to phrase the question is perhaps, "Where is this from?" Unless they have already crafted a standard convincing answer for nuts like you, which is possible but not that likely, they will tell you the city, local or not. But the point is, I truly don't know if it was too early, or West Side Market produce people just did not want to sell local stuff. This is a question that will be answered when I come back later in the summer.

What I bought:

1. Kate's Fish White Bass - Lake Erie, $3.08
2. Vince's Meats T-bone Porterhouse Steak, $8.60 ($9.89/lb)
1. Boutros Brothers Produce Radishes - Hartsville, $0.75 (2 lbs for $1.50 (?))

Total: 12.43

During this week I also went to the farmer's market in the Biomedical Research Building at Case (next entry), which set me back another $6, so $18.43 total. Pretty good.