Foster Sundry, 215 Knickerbocker Ave., Bushwick; 718-569-8426; fostersundry.com
Past the Taiwanese soy sauce, the dried fruit from Afghanistan, and jars of harissa is Aaron Foster’s whole-animal meat counter. Since 2015, Bushwick carnivores have been coming here for the shop’s grass-fed, grass-finished beef. Beef comes in on Tuesday, pig and lamb on Friday. Foster, the former Murray’s cheese buyer, is known to give out his number to those unfamiliar with some of the lesser-seen cuts, such as a whole Denver steak. “We email them all the time to ask for advice,” says Fernando Aciar, owner of nearby restaurant Ostudio at Night. The shop takes special orders, too; Aciar’s gotten veal brains for his grandmother’s croquetas and picanha for asados. “Everything from his cheeses to spices to pasta is the highest quality,” Aciar says.
Aaron Foster, owner of Foster Sundry in Bushwick
Illustration: Pete Gamlen
What meat should people eat more of?
Americans eat remarkably little lamb. But cooked right, the flavor is delicious. I’d also love to see more people eat goat. It’s clean and a little more strongly flavored than lamb. And rabbit, too — I’ve lived in Italy, and people eat rabbit extensively there. It’s super-delicious.
Can you suggest a cut of meat for a dinner party that won’t bankrupt the host?
A classic roast beef is relatively inexpensive and surprisingly delicious done rare, hot from the oven, sliced thin with horseradish or mustard. You could do Yorkshire pudding if you’re feeling festive. These cuts are not in vogue, but they’re very good and inexpensive.
What other cuts of meat are underrated?
I grew up eating London broil, which is a top-round steak, and it sucked. It was cooked badly, just gross and tough. But the top-round steaks we get now are tasty and not as lean as you remember. Nowadays, everyone wants flank and hanger and skirt, but it’s worth taking a second look at something like a London broil.
Trendy cuts do seem to go in cycles.
For sure. Skirt steak used to be inexpensive and widely available. Now it’s one of our most popular cuts, and it’s not cheap. And hanger, I think, was popularized by cooking shows. These hosts would tell viewers to “ask your butcher for four hanger steaks.” But that’s four cows — the amount of hanger on an 800-pound steer is a pound or a pound and a half. We get one cow a week here.
— Katie Arnold-Ratliff
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