Selling the Deckel

Savenor’s had a lesson on good marketing yesterday.

They had a two big hunks of brisket in the chiller. One had a hand-written label: “The Amazing Deckel!” It was ten bucks.

I had a nice chat with the butcher, asking “what is a deckel anyway?” I figured that we needed to eat something this week, after all. Why not?

So I brought it home. Seasoned it heavily all over. Put it on a low fire on the covered grill, with some hickory chunks, for a couple of hours. And then I braised it for an hour with some onions and carrots from our farm share, some rosemary and garlic paste, and a bottle of Amstel.

Seriously good! And, when you come right down to it, it only happened because of that little hand-written label, which was extolling a cut of meat that’s basically unpopular and hard to sell, but which also has some advantages.

There's an important marketing lesson here.

(There was another hand-written note it in the case, on a pork shoulder. “Local, farm-raised suckling pig.” I’m still far from confident with pork, but I’ll tell you how it turns out.)