As you may know, we love meat, artisanal things, and box of the month clubs. Thankfully, someone has combined all those things into one in the form of Carnivore Club, and it is glorious.
Here’s how it works: you sign up, pay $50 a month, and you get a box of cured meat in the mail.
Oh, and not just any cured meat. Each month the guys at Carnivore Club find four local producers doing interesting, artisanal things right here in Canada, and that’s what you get to try.
And of course, what you get is different every month. My first box, May, was sort of a jerky month. Now granted, if you sign up now you aren’t going to get the same meats because June will be a different theme. But I figure if I tell you what you’re missing, that’ll probably give you a good idea of what Carnivore Club entails.
First thing on the menu was some maple jerky from Bay Meats near Sault Ste. Marie. Natural maple flavour, the jerky still looks like flesh—it’s clearly jerky still made by people, not machines.
Next up, some bison meat sticks from BUFF. Meat sticks get a bad rap, mostly likely thanks to gas station abominations, but these ones are sort of light and nicely balance tanginess, sweetness, and sourness.
Speaking of getting a bad rap, it’s time to redeem pepperettes, and the ones from Les Importations Papille do the job. ‘Pepperette’ sort of conjures up an image of a narrow little meat stick, but these natural pork pepperrettes, which are smoked, are nearly sausages.
Finally, the box was rounded out with some biltong from Florence Meats. If you’re a jerky fan, track some down. Biltong is a South African version of jerky, where big strips of meat are cured with herbs and vinegar and dried but not smoked. If there’s one thing you need to look up, it’s this.
Of course, I have no idea what’ll be in the next meat box, but I know that it’ll be a) cured, b) artisanal, and c) delicious. So, want different tasty meats in your mail every month? Well, there’s a club for that.
Dave Robson is the editor of DailyXY. He spends his time reading books, drinking Scotch, and smoking cigars.
