Where the Buffalo Roam

Recently, Ed Tuccio, a Long Island restaurateur, real estate agent and buffalo farmer, told me he was perplexed when his 300+ buffalo disappeared. I was a little stunned to hear that myself, wondering how anyone could misplace that many huge, wooly beasts. Turns out they were all on his 250-acre farm, just buried beneath three feet of newly fallen snow. I guess they figured they’d wait to stand up until the storm passed.

I met Ed because my husband, parents and I had heard that there were buffalo roaming on the east end of Long Island in Riverhead and decided to find out if we could buy some local buffalo meat for dinner. There wasn’t a ton of information on the Internet, so we wrote down the address for North Quarter Farm and took a ride. Once we arrived, we saw expansive farmland and a handful of buffalo in the distance. Quite a sight, but as the mature bulls can weigh more than 2,000 pounds, we decided to stay in the car.

Not content to go home empty handed, we drove on to Tweed’s Restaurant & Buffalo Bar (17 East Main Street in Riverhead), an historic eatery opened in 1896 that uses local ingredients, from buffalo to beer. This is where we met Tuccio, the owner, who told us all about his herd and sold us five pounds of freshly ground buffalo meat. He even encouraged us to go up to the fence and whistle for them next time we pass: “Toss them a piece of bread, and you’ve made them happy.” All that said, they’re wild animals so I think I’ll keep my distance and make a good throw.

We all knew from the start that buying local is a good thing, but we also found out that supporting buffalo ranchers also means that they can increase the size of their herds—supporting the growth of a species that was near extinction more than a century ago. (By the way, the term buffalo and bison are used interchangeably in the U.S., even though scientifically they are American bison.)

I checked out Tweed’s menu before we left and saw a bunch of appealing buffalo dishes, from kebabs to filets, but Ed

raved about their Buffalo Chili. If we hadn’t just purchased our dinner, we would have sat down for steaming bowls of it and ordered one of the local beers on tap. Next time. Instead we headed home and made local bison burgers that were moist and tender and had a little more personality than typical beef burgers. Not only delicious, buffalo contains less fat than red meat and half the cholesterol of fish and chicken—an added plus!