NYC Food Detective: MARLOW’S DAUGHTER KNOWS MEAT

Posted by Ed Yowell

In 1998, friends Mark Firth and Andrew Tarlow, decided that their Brooklyn neighborhood needed a good place to hang-out and determined that the best place would be their place, so they acquired a 1920s Kullman (“tin-top”) diner on Broadway in Williamsburg and created Diner.  In the process, they fortuitously found Caroline Fidanza, a sensible cook who believes that the best, simple, seasonal ingredients make for the most satisfying, flavorful dishes.  The trio went on to open Marlow and Sons and the rest is Brooklyn culinary history, or not.  

The newest Marlow sibling is Marlow and Daughters, a neighborhood butcher shop, just up Broadway from Diner and Marlow and Sons.  The shop, created in space formerly occupied by an old, full-of- history, neighborhood barber shop, replete with an unexplained bullet hole in the wall, is a step back to another, slower, era, when eaters knew the folks who sold them their food and they, in turn, knew where the food they sold came from.  

During the decade between the openings of Diner and Marlow and Daughters, Caroline developed symbiotic relationships with regional food producers, starting with her buying what they offered and continuing on to them producing what she needed.  The result: you can tour our regional food shed by visiting the showcases of Marlow and Daughters.  As you enter, on the right are farmstead and artisan cheeses, mostly from Vermont and New York,  and on the left are potatoes and milk from Washington County.  These relationships are the shop’s foundation and a source of justifiable pride.  For instance, working with livestock farmers, explaining her business needs and quality standards, Caroline has helped them “build better animals,” she says proudly.   

At Marlow and Daughters, meat’s the thing.  When I visited, Caroline introduced me to the head butcher, Tom Mylan.  Behind the back counter at his butcher block, Tim was engaged in the first stages of reducing pig to force meat for sausages, and, while skillfully working a very sharp knife, he animatedly discussed with his associate butcher, Carlo Mirarchi, Brazilian vs. Italian cuts of pork.   

Caroline’s tour led us to the walk-in fridge, the size of some Manhattan studio apartments.  There, because Caroline and Tom acquire entire animals, I saw a whole lamb, half pigs, and eighths of beef cattle.  Each piece was stuck with a hand-written sign on which was documented origins-- real places all, not web sites: Three Corner Field Farm, Flying Pigs Farm, both Greenmarket producers, and Slope Farm-- and the date of procurement.  The latter being important particularly for the beef, as Tom ages it himself for at least three weeks.  All these critters originated no farther than a day’s drive from the shop, which helps to assure healthier humans and a healthier planet.   And, be assured, these animals were raised humanely and sustainably, the beef cattle being grass-fed and mostly grass-finished (also an environmentally friendly act).  Two-legged critters, chickens and ducks, traveled a bit farther, from Quebec and the Carolinas, for instance.   

The primal cuts of meat, via Tom’s butcher block, go to a showcase where various roasts, steaks, and chops are displayed next to hearts, trotters, shanks, tails, and neck and marrow bones.  I asked Caroline how her customers took to snout-to- tail shopping.  She replied, “They usually follow our recommendations. When they ask for a hanger steak and we have none, I explain why and suggest that a flat iron steak will do as well.” (I note here, while Caroline and I talked, two customers studied the case and, when asked what they wanted, smiled nervously and headed for the door, leading me to guess that many eaters don’t understand yet freshly butchered meat.)  

In addition to steaks and shanks, Tom and Caroline offer house-made pate, duck legs confit, pork rillons, whipped lardo, and fresh sausages, like, on the day of my visit, Medieval Sausage (pork with cinnamon, cloves, mace, coriander, and blood orange zest) and Dumpster Sausage (pork, pork heart and tongue, beef heart, Benton’s Country Ham, and house-made lardo.)

Perhaps, one of the most satisfying things about Marlow and Daughters, other than talking meat with Caroline and Tom, is leaving with your purchase wrapped in real, old-fashioned, brown butcher paper.  That, and change. I took home Benton’s Country Ham and Medieval Sausage and a lot of change from my $20 bill.    

Marlow and Daughters is located at 95 Broadway in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.   

If you do not live near Marlow and Daughters, there are other New York City sources for regionally produced, humanely and sustainably raised meat and poultry: Greenmarket, of course; Fleisher’s, now making home deliveries in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Long Island City; and Dickson’s Farmstand Meats, delivering to several Manhattan and Brooklyn pick-up locations and, rumor has it, opening a shop in Manhattan.