Many Americans sit down to a prime rib roast or other type of roast beef for holiday meals or special celebration dinners. Many more eat beef on a regular basis. If beef is a regular part of your diet, don't you think it’s about time that we began to ask some simple questions about our beef?
What about the Protein on the Plate?
Imagine if wine came labeled only “red wine” or “white wine.” We’d turn our noses up. We now want to know the vintage, the appellation. Sometimes we can learn even more than the grapes used, several vineyards will tell you what section of the vineyard or slope of the hill these particular grapes came from. Beyond that we can learn about the particular vintage or year, the winemaker's technique. Maybe you're enjoying a Jordan Winery Cabernet with your steak au poivre.
Ask your server about that steak and you’re lucky if you can find out if it's grass-fed or not. Grass fed and grain finished? Locally grown? Feedlot produced? Where is it processed? Can you find out if it’s packed with sub-therapeutic antibiotics, or not? 70% of the antibiotics in the US are given to cattle, much of it ends up in our groundwater.
If you’re buying from a local farm, you can probably learn a great deal more, but in a grocery store or in a restaurant, one can seldom learn the origins of the beef.
Speaking with the queen of artisan beef, Carrie Oliver is a revelation.This is the epiphany she is trying to drive home: we have a right to know where our beef comes from, how it is raised, and much, much more. Beyond that, she is on a mission to educate the palates of beef consumers.
Setting the Table
We used to drink coffee. Now we drink Fair Trade, Organic, Shade-Grown coffee. We usually know the origins of the bean, Costa Rican? Single estate? Ethiopean? While the coffee commodity market still thrives, so too does the business of specialty coffees. And for many consumers the choices we now have about coffee, matter to us.
So it is with wine, with chocolate and increasingly with other foods we consume. We are making the connections from farm to table, from methods of production to environmental and health concerns. And let's not forget TASTE! All the values-driven choices would hardly move the needle if the food didn't taste better. Nor would we be buying it in such quantities and at premium prices. But we have come to value all the benefits, of taste, of health, of environmental protection.
Introducing Artisan Beef
Now turning to beef, meet self-proclaimed "Beef Geek," Carrie Oliver who founded the Artisan Beef Institute and Artisan Beef Tastings. She has developed a system for helping consumers to educate their palates. Not everyone loves Cabernet Sauvignon or Zinfandel. Different breeds of cattle, what they're fed and how they're slaughtered all will produce a different product.
Oliver explains:
"Artisan beef is like a fine wine but more. Unlike store-bought beef you know the origin – the provenance – of the beef including the names of the farm(s), truckers, slaughterhouse, and butcher who helped bring it to your plate. It is raised, processed, and aged by experts whose goal is to create fabulous tasting, signature style beef with it’s own unique, recognizable flavor and texture.
What’s more, artisan beef comes from farms, truckers, and slaughterhouses that employ low-stress management techniques at all stages including raising cattle without the use of growth promotants such as added hormones or preventative antibiotics."
What about grain-fed versus grass-fed?
"I am a strong supporter of beef cattle that have been raised and finished on a grass-only diet. We have been feeding grain to cattle for well over 100 years. It is too simple to say that one practice is better than the other. Moreover, whether grain-fed or grass-fed, you will find that flavor and texture vary from farm to farm depending on the specific diet, amongst other factors."
Why are slaughterhouse issues so important?
Many pig farmers will say they can pick the right breed, forage and rotate fields, care for them and raise them humanely, only to lose the benefits of this way of farming at, or on the way to, the slaughterhouse. Oliver explains the same holds true for beef:
"Not only is the slaughterhouse process critical to the quality, flavor, and texture of beef, you must also ensure that low stress practices are maintained before, during, and after transportation. I have yet to meet an artisan cattle producer who doesn’t vigorously nod his or her head in agreement: The moment that cattle get onto a truck, all my hard work can be ruined. Going back to wine, the concept is the same. The vineyard manager can grow the very finest grapes, but if the winemaker chooses to pick them at the wrong time or selects the wrong aging and bottling technique, the potential of those grapes to become a fabulous wine is lost."
What is the best way to watch our budget but also improve the quality of the beef we eat?
"Buying beef in bulk – whether buying by the quarter, half, whole, or as part of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share, from your butcher, or an online purveyor – is by far the most economical way to buy beef. Plus, unlike when you shop at the supermarket, you know what the beef is going to taste like and that you like that flavor! There’s the added benefit of knowing the people who raised and processed the beef, too. If you are pleased or displeased, you can actually let them know?"
For a full explanation of the USDA grading system and an overview of Carrie Oliver’s Artisan Beef tastings, see this excellent write-up in Oyster Food and Culture.
Carrie Oliver's blog Discover Beef is a great read and a fine way to learn more about the meat you eat.
Photos of Charolais cattle "Colorado's Best Beef" Elliott & Ferris Families, Front Range Region, CO.
Jacqueline Church - Award-winning writer, speaker, teacher on topics at the intersection of gourmet and sustainable food issues.
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