When I was resident in Regent Garden, Silver City, I used to buy minced meat that was quick frozen from half a shop nearby. It was a very quiet area, the lady habitually half shuttered and locked the grill door. I had to ring an electric bell to get service if she happened to be out of sight. After a while, I would time my purchases to my return journey from picking up my youngest. At that time in the afternoon she normally was seated hand slicing meat from bristle about six feet from the opening. I would make sure my child had locked the car door before I walked out to buy a few packets of meat.
The entire row of two-storey shops consists of five shoplots. Four of them were in use, one at the end was untenanted and looked run down. This was fairly common in Silver City, many shops in unpopular areas were just left vacant. The owners would not sell even if they could not let the shops out year after year. These poperty owners must have deep pockets as they would have to pay quit rent, accessment rate and utilities even for unproductive real estate.
One day I talked to my left hand neighbour who owned and managed an electrical sale and repair shop outside of our housing area. She was one of the first to move into my row of houses. She told me that four shops made up a catering service consisting at least two legal entities owned by one man. The unassuming looking lady who sold me meat is his wife, a person who is from a rich family herself. The boss owned two shops, the one I frequented was rented from a close relative at a nominal rate. He took over the catering business from his father, that was the Chinese cuisine line. He partnered a friend to start the kosher line and later began a vegetarian one as the green movement swept the area. That was why there were three distinct kitchens for the three separate services.
The boss' wife is a rare breed who do not want to run the three kitchens. She merely passed her time preparing and selling parts of the animals that could not be used in the catering. As I became a regular, we chatted. During peak business period, her husband would purchase an animal 3-4 days. She pointed to her three deep chest freezers, they would be each almost full then. During slack time, one animal might last 10-14 days. That was when I would see her doing patch work under an old study lamp an hour or so before she would close for the day.
She is knowledgeable about animal facts - the culinary kind. I asked about liver, it supplies iron. She said all pieces were booked always. She sold them by the kilo at whole sale price. Kidneys? That too, restaurants would stock them as the older generation considered it to be a delicacy. Interestingly, penises were in demand for medicinal use. The most unexpected call she had was someone asking for animal teeth. I laughed with her, neither of us could imagine a common use. She deflected that call by giving a few phone numbers of the eateries that brewed stock from animal heads.
Recently I thought of her, in the year 2000 way before COVID, she was already practising social distancing. She would hand me the meat packs in a bag, collect my payment and give me the change standing at least three feet behind the grill door. Yet I can't say she was unfriendly. She would often voluntarily suggest how I should cook that batch of meat according to the prcentage of fat. For a woman with means, she was peaceable, contented, and quite happy to serve a customer like me who run in and run off within three minutes.
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