Monfongo:
The King Ranch, in Texas, crossbread the Brahama(for it's ability to survive in the harsh, dry, Texas rangeland around Falfurias, Kingsville Guolf Coast area) and the Shorthorn for it's meatyness. They were finally able to register these cattle as 'pure Bred" after many generations of in breeding and elimination of the throwbacks to the Brahama.
this breed is known as the Santa Gertrudas; it is well suited for marginal rangelands and can be fattened up for commercial sale in just one month after being taken off the range. It is an extremely hardy breed andthemeat is very sweet and tender when taken from the feedlot.
Dominicans hae had some 400 years of cattle breeding and have yet to come up with a beast that is marketable by US standards.
Are their standards just too low, or are the breeders just to damned cheap to intorduce a breed for crossing in order to produce a better product? from what I see, the latter is the answer. They're satisfied with what they have and aren't interested in producing anything better. "What was good enoughfor my grandad is good enough for everyone" type attitude permiates the Dominican Agriculture society aandyou can see this in all their farm products.
Lettuce comes to the Colmado already infected with rust, thetomatoes are half green or completely so, the celery is still in an immature stage, as are the potatos, melons, peaches and other local fruits and veggies.
We both know what this is the result of. The farmer wants to get his produce to the market before theprices go down andkill his very narrow margin of profit andI can't blame him for that. The people I blame are themiddle-men who don't offer the farmer a sufficiently high price for him to stay in business. We have a small farrowing house on my father-in-law's land. So far we've gone through 5 litters of damn nice looking pigs at market time. the most we've ever been offered is 25 pesos/lb. That barely met the expenses, so I've decided to forego any further breeding andselling. Now, I'll raise for my own and family consumption. At least that'll give them and us some protien on the table. Newxt step is to put a smokehouse in place for preserving the meat without the injected flavoring being used by the industry. there is a commercially available outhouse that will make an excellent smokehouse and there is plenty of mesquite wood for smoking.
Who knows, maybe I'll even open a BBQ Stand here in Santiago. Introduce another strange new food product. BBQ Texas Style. Pork, Beef, Chicken and Goat, served with potato salad, frenchfries and dill pickles/dulcito peppers.
Will probably go broke the first month.
Texas Bill
aranoid:
