Sooper's Deluxe Cut: Yogi Beefalo Goes For A Car Ride

On my weekly foray through the construction and banging at Sooper's I often pass by the Buffalo steaks and wonder how those half-frozen beasties I saw meandering through the last of the snow in Yellowstone this past April are doing. There were five of them headed down the other lane of the road taking their own sweet time, cars lining up behind, plodding onward to the slowly uncovering tidbits of green grass after a winter spent warming their bellies standing around Old Faithful.

My Canadian travel mate, sensitive city-raised attorney soul that he is, bid me a big frownie face when I told him about the buffalo-laden fateful marketing adventure onto the shelf in American grocers. A tiny little newborn calf stumbling along after its mother and the obvious majestic torment of living through winters in "hell" sealed his own conviction of the noble animals and their ability to endure. Having been raised in a rural area where animals had to work to earn their keep or they became freezer meat--I didn't have the heart to proclaim them simply beasts. I was more inclined to anthropomorphise a Grizzly into Yogi than to think of a buffalo as Boobooish. Somewhere though I felt a commitment was made, by me, to not indulge in any taste testing and to duly contribute to sustaining the life of any wobbly calve should it ever cross my way. Hence no buffalo burger meat for this table.

Yet, ever the attorney needing to prove his point, my Canadian fine fellow has sent me the ultimate proof, of his depth of conviction, that these animals are, after all, just a car ride away from being domesticated.

That's fine. But not in my car.