Let’s talk about mincing meat today.
I have an old meat grinder in my small collection. Standardwerk #10, Americ. System. Made in Austria, sometime in the twenties of the twentieth century. It has always been in our family. My mother got it from her mother, and now I own it. Immediately after WWII, when there was a shortage of everything, such a machine meant that there was meat in the house. Since we lived in the countryside in my youth, there was always a pig at the barn. And my mother still says to this day how much meat went through that machine. And how many sausages we made. And grinding bacon for crackers and lard.
By the way, there was always a goat at the shed that gave us milk. My father worked for the state railway and the neighbors always joked that the goat was the railwayman’s cow.
Today, we mostly use ready-made minced meat. We buy ready-made burgers that we never know what’s in them. Although they swear to us that it is made from the best meat. We are all in a hurry and rarely take the time to prepare meat at home.
But you should know that grinding at home drastically reduces the risk of E. coli contamination. That’s true whether you start with great meat from butcher shops and farmers’ markets or whole cuts from the supermarket. And I guess it’s cheaper. But the choice is yours.
This grinder has a place of honor in my collection. After two generations of use, it was time to retire it.
And like all the museum pieces that will appear on these pages, this one is not for sale. So don’t bother to ask…