I was browsing the internet this morning and ran across your piece on Ted Turner, swift fox and the beef industry. I got a good chuckle from your experience with Christmas "prime rib". I showed it to Deb, and she said, "Gawd, Tony's becoming an old curmudgeon just like you."
Every time I pay $8 or $9 a pound for steak that comes off the grill tasting like my old hip waders, I launch into the same tirade: "If cattlemen want to increase beef consumption, they should stop whining about how hunters and environmentalists are to blame for all their problems and provide consumers with a decent product." Deb says I have issues.
In fairness, I don't know that it's the beef producers' fault. I don't know whose fault it is, but I do suspect that if beef consumption is down, the quality of the product available to the average consumer is a major factor.
We've shared enough meals together that you can attest to my fondness for a great steak and a glass of wine. Yet lately I find myself eating less beef than ever before. No, I'm not becoming a vegetarian, nor am I losing my taste for red meat. The problem is that I'm having an increasingly difficult time finding quality beef.
I can pay $3 or $3.50 a pound for pork tenderloin and know I'm going to get a quality meal every time (unless I fall asleep and overcook it). That same $3.50 invested in a steak would be a total waste of money. During the last year I've paid as much as $9 a pound for ribeyes, New York strips and t-bones (all graded choice), some of which were barely edible. They weren't as bad as the "prime" rib you described, but hardly worth the $9 a pound I paid for them.
Like you, I consider myself pretty handy around the kitchen. I age my own venison. I regularly fix dishes like parmesan walleye with champagne-basil sauce, slow-braised pheasant in a Marsala-cream sauce, walleye cakes with a lemon-dill butter sauce and a tortellini Alfredo that's to die for. I even make my own venison, duck and pheasant stocks for braising, sauces and gravies.
But I don't eat as much beef as I used to because I can't find beef that measures up, dollar for dollar, with other meats. Fact is, I'll take my aged venison over store-bought beef hands down.
The question is "why?" Why, short of ordering prime, aged beef from Omaha steaks, which I have done, can't I find a decent cut of meat at the grocery store? Why can't I find a well marbled, great-tasting steak even when I'm willing to pay $10 a pound?
Perhaps one of your readers could provide the answer. Is it growth hormones? Are the middlemen squeezing an extra buck or two a head by scrimping on the finishing? With grain prices so low, why can't we get good, grain-fed beef? What's the deal?
Where's the beef?
Dan
And Tony Dean's response to Dan:
Dan:
I have solved part of the beef problem. I now buy my beef direct from a local producer, as I've done for several years. Great Beef! Fed locally, and if it were graded, it'd be US Prime. I'm now getting the same stuff the great restaurants get...and it's wonderful. I just wish my rancher friends would figure out that it isn't hunters, fishermen or environmentalists that comprise the enemy...it's the system that allows low grade beef to be sold over the meat counter.
I would definitely recommend to all of my friends who love great beef...(and pork)...that they contact a local rancher who raises beef and arrange for a corn fed steer to be delivered to a local meat market for butchering. The rancher makes more money, the meat market gets a piece and you get far better beef.
Now, if we can just figure out a way to get our sheep raising rancher friends to make some great lamb available to us without the middleman.
Ever tried lamb chops medium rare...or a leg of lamb?
Now that's living.
Tony
(Addendum) In 2004, Dan and I bought a corn-fed heifer from Brady and Wendy Rinehart's Pompadour Hills ranch in northern Hyde County. We had it processed at a small meat processing plant in Onida. The beef has been splendid!
This is the way to go if you want great beef. You simply cannot get consistently good beef from today's "select grade" meat that is commonly offered over the counter at most supermarkets. By the way, the "select" grade is selling at US Choice or prime prices. What a rip.
