What the hell is ABLMS? It DOES NOT sound like a fun field trip. It sounds like an acronym for a horrible disease.
But DO YOU LIKE FOOD? DO YOU LIKE CHEAP, BUT AWESOME, LOCALLY-RAISED FOOD?
ABLMS stands for Andrew Boss Laboratory of Meat Science, located on the "farm campus" [ahem, St. Paul] at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. Professor Boss would have made any urban homesteader or hipster farmers marketer proud with his pioneering philosophy on quality and variety in meat production.
More importantly for you, it's the location of the U of M Dairy and Meat Salesroom, where you can buy fantastic ... wait for it ... meat and dairy at well below grocery store prices.
I heard legends of the store through a few foodie, cheapskate friends and then came across another tale of it's glory in the charming Minnesota Table : Savoring Local Food throughout the Year by Shelley Holl and BJ Carpenter.
The hours were a bit baffling, clocking in at 2-5pm on Wednesdays. Only. Ever. And those hours didn't include the extra time you'd presumably have to spend finding parking on the notoriously unparkable St. Paul streets and standing IN LINE before the doors open to the eagerly-waiting public.
Last week brought an open schedule at 1pm on Wednesday, and I packed up and headed out a bit warily for my excursion. Plugging in the location to my Google and arriving just a short time later (I do live in the "farm country" of the Twin Cities, meaning St. Paul), I found a brightly colored sign marking the market entrance directly in front of a prime parking spot.
It was fate. Fate wanted me to buy as many products as I could fit in my bags and lug home. The short walk to the doors proved it.
January is the "slow month", but there were still over 10 people filling the tiny store (my highly honed estimating skills make the entire room to be 14' x 35') for the 30 minutes I collected goods. I've heard all other months, there's a line outside the door, where you wait for one customer to leave, so another can go in.
Each long wall is filled with tall freezer and refrigerator coolers, filled with ice cream, cheese, sometimes yogurt and cottage cheese, and meats of all varieties. Meats run the gamut between regular ground pork/beef/turkey and roasts to all sorts of fun offal, suet, and interesting cuts. There's also pre-made burgers, sausages, and jerky.
If you're in a hurry or don't need to gawk at all their products, you can pre-order your items and the student staff will have them waiting for you when you arrive on market day.
Is everything delicious? So far. I bought a variety of staples for my first go, and for feeling like I paid so little I stole it, I'm impressed.
Want to see what they offer? Here's a list of meat products and dairy products (not all things are available all the time).
Follow the yellow-signed hallway:
If you happen to get there (or have been there before!), I'd love to hear what you think about ye olde ABLMS.
