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November 02, 2006
Meat is good
I've always wondered if there was a reliable way to find the best-tasting steaks. Was price the best indicator? Kobe beef is slap-me-silly expensive, but is it the tastiest? Is there some hidden system, some trick to discovering the holy grail of steak that must - get - in - my - belly?
I'd always heard that marbling -- the distribution of fat throughout the meat -- was necessary for high quality, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture uses it as one of their criteria when assigning grades to a particular cut.
Then there's the question of diet. It stands to reason that what the cows are fed would influence how they taste. But what do they eat, and which feed has the greatest effect on my food? What's better: corn, grain, barley, clover, grass?
Mark Schatzker asks these questions over at Slate, and in a blind taste-test provides some definitive answers. The bottom line? The least expensive steak with the least marbling, from cows fed on milk and all-natural pasture-grown grasses before they went to meet their reward, is to die for.
Apparently, happy, hippie cows are tasty cows.
The particulars -- with links to where you can get your steak fix -- are here.
Posted by Mike Lief at November 2, 2006 07:13 AM
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Comments
Yep. Cows eating exactly what they would eat if they were left alone make the good stuff. I've been getting pastured beef from a farm up the gorge for a couple months now--love it.
Posted by: Anwyn at November 6, 2006 09:03 PM