I really like Buffalo meat. Some of my best memories are hanging out with the boys in my parents back patio and BBQ'n some Buffalo and having a few dozen baby (7 oz.) Bud Longnecks. Once I introduced Cheryl to it, she was also hooked on the Bison. It is a lot more tender the beef, and has a lot more flavor.
Since we do not do much in the way of excess, once in a while we like to treat our self's to some Buffalo. We try to order some for the start of BBQ season and that will last us most if not all of the summer.
Cheryl put in a call to our regular source the
Sayersbrook Bison
Ranch in Potosi, MO. to order the buffalo.
They ship the Buffalo frozen in a foam box that looks like those cheap foam
coolers you get at the drug store inside a cardboard box. They pack the
meat in the cooler box and add some dry ice and then Fedex it off to
you.
Here is what happens when Fedex does not do it's part...
We placed our order early on Wednesday May 7'th, 2003. It was shipped in a box
clearly labeled perishable that same day with a deliver by date of Friday
May 9'th.
Well May 9'th came and went without any Buffalo showing up. Cheryl was
home all that day and the day before so we did not miss the delivery.
About 1:00 Monday afternoon (3 days late) the Fedex truck shows up at the
house. As soon as she opened the front door, Cheryl could smell the Buffalo.
It had sat over the weekend in Fedex's hands and started to rot.
What do you do with a cooler box full of no longer frozen Buffalo when the
weekly garbage pick-up just happened less then 2 hours ago? Well you could
throw it all away. Then spend the next week hoping the garbage can does not
stink the garage up. This could be extra nasty with our bedroom being located
over the garage and warm weather (up to 80's) predicted for the next week.
It just seemed to me that cooked meat might not get as ripe in the trash as
much as raw meat would. The smell was already noticable and I did not want to
wait around a week to see what would happen. So I fired up the big BBQ and
had at it. Even though I knew this stuff was not safe to eat, I have to admit
that it sure did look good once I flipped it over and saw those wonderful grill
marks. It was almost broke my heart to toss all that wonderful meat in to the
trash. But it sure beats the night we would have had if we had ate any of it.
Sayersbrook was great about this mishap. Cheryl called them as soon as the order arrived and told them what had happened. They said not to worry about it and they would be sending out an replacement order that should arrive on Wednesday. They would put in a claim against Fedex to reclaim the money.
In all fairness to Fedex. The day that Sayersbrook shipped the order out was also when much of the Midwest and south, including Missouri were being hit with some of worst thunderstorms and twisters to hit the area in 40 years and many people lost everything over those few days. We will just have to wait and see if the replacement order arrives on time.
UPDATE: 5/14/03 The replacement order arrived today. It was on time and still frozen. I even got to play with the left over dry ice.
UPDATE: 5/18/03 It looks like cooking the spoiled meat was a good idea.
The trash went out tonight and it never started to stink.