A Bygone Era

     Last night's meal was my first attempt at Moroccan cuisine.  With all modesty I have to admit that it was a huge success.  I'm ready to feed the next caravan out of Marrakesh!  But it was not without it's problems in preparation.  First I needed to allocate some lamb chops.  And that wasn't easy.  In those halcyon days of my youth there was at least one butcher shop in every town, even the small ones like North Wales.  In fact, at our humble abode the butcher actually came to us.  It was Herman Metz with his butcher shop on wheels.  Once a week he would stop at the curb in front of our house and deliver the freshest cuts of meat on the planet.  My mother would step into his truck with her written list and watch as the pork chops and steaks and roasts were cut to order.

     Come to think of it, that wasn't the only food delivery on our street.  Beside the milk and bread left between the doors in the pre-dawn hours, there was also fresh fruit and vegetables from Mickey Marchese and Frank Robison, and eggs fresh from the farm of Mr. Bechtel in Souderton.  It seemed like the world came to our door in those days.  My father's life insurance premium was also paid quarterly when the agent made his rounds and every other week Mr. Maag would stop by to collect for the home delivery of the newspaper.  The sheets and towels were cleaned and pressed and delivered from the laundry in Lansdale.  Even Dr. Anders came to the house to diagnosis my chicken pox.  No wonder my mother never bothered to get a driver's license.  She didn't need one.

     But somehow all that changed in the intervening years.  No longer could we enjoy home delivery of many of the necessities of life.  We then had to go to each specialty store to supply our needs.   Fortunately there were places like Frank Molettiere's small butcher shop in town, or the Tri-County Egg Producers Cooperative Association over in Center Point where a sweet young thing named Sandy answered the phone and waited on customers. There was also the tiny Bennett's Market just behind the Corner Hardware Store by the only traffic light in the borough where Bill and his son kept the shelves and cooler cases stocked.

     But back to my lament concerning the lamb chops...Last week I did notice that the cavernous Whole Foods store in Plymouth Meeting did carry them, at an exorbitant price of $19.99/lb.  So I sought a more attractive (and less costly) alternative.  There was still an outdated Yellow Pages phone directory upstairs so I looked up "Butchers" and to my dismay, found none.  So consulting the index discovered they were listed under "Meat-Retail"  and read down the very short list.  The first half dozen I tried to call met with a variety of defeats, from disconnected numbers, to automated answering machines, to "please leave a message" requests.  Finally in desperation I called one more name on the list, over in Plymouth Meeting about a mile from the Whole Foods mega mart.  Yes, they did have lamb chops!  "I'll be right over!" I responded with relief in my voice.  And at Carl Venezia's butcher shop on Germantown Pike I was able to purchase chops cut to order, just like in the days of yore, and at a reasonable price, too.

                                       

    
     So I drove home pleased with my success, but also asking myself, "So this is progress?"  Where has the sense of community gone?  It seems we are becoming more and more isolated as we become even more crowded together.  I fear we are losing our individual identity as we are more homogenized.  These are some really deep thoughts that a couple of lamb chops have provoked.