The Black Market Beef Incident

When I was younger, my parents had a group of friends that had — shall we say — less than savoury credentials. Drug dealers were a given, bikers were common, and I’m pretty sure there might have been a mob member or two in there. This was not really remarkable to my sister and I at the time, because we didn’t know this wasn’t the way other people’s friends were for us to be able to make the comparison. We just got used to scruffy looking people, and people who swore and drank constantly, and a lot of worried wide eyes when a cop car drove by.

When I was around 14, my parents hung around with a couple who were connected to the Black Market. Yes, I know, as hard as it is to believe, there was a group of Canadians actually referring to their stolen goods as “The Black Market”, which I was never aware was supposed to be more than an expression. My parents, never one to turn away from a deal, were regular patrons of this couple, and purchased a lot of things we were unaware were “fallen off the back of a truck”.

One such opportunity arose when my parents learned that they could purchase an entire side of beef for a fraction of the regular cost. Apparently, this price was tiny, and there was almost no way my parents could say no. They couldn’t afford not to buy this beef. They had a large freezer they could put the pieces in after it was butchered, and my mother cooked up a roast beef for dinner that they were very excited about. Maybe there’s something to that saying about stolen beef tasting better, but whatever the reason, they were very excited to sit down to that roast.

Dinner began without incident, although my parents commented that the beef wasn’t as high quality as they had hoped. It was a bit stringy and tough, but the family soldiered on. I mean, it was only a deal if we ate it, right? As we were chewing like crazy, the phone rang, and my mother answered a frantic call from her Black Market friend. Her eyes went wide, and she dropped the phone without hanging up, shrieking at my father…

“Don’t eat it! It’s not beef! It’s horse!!

My father almost threw his fork away, as he bent over wretching. My mother, beside herself, got back on the phone to scream at their shady connection for their screw up. My sister looked up at me, questioningly, as I took another bite from my roast horse, and I smiled back.

“It’s not all that bad, really.”

To my knowledge, my mother has never bought meat off the back of a truck since. So, y’know, lesson learned.