All Cod are Scrod, but Not All Scrod Are Cod.  How Odd.

I was making Eric Jorgensen’s Hearty Fish Chowder using cod the other day, and it brought to mind scrod.  My dad always told me that scrod were young cod.  I did a bit of research to see if he was right.  It turns out that scrod means different things to different people in different parts of the country.

Some definitions of the word scrod do indicate that it means a young cod.  But, it also has a broader definition meaning any young, firm, white-fleshed fish.  In New England, the term scrod indicates the Catch of the Day, specifically fish that have been deboned, or filleted.

The word scrod is said to be derived from the now-obsolete Dutch word schrode, which means “a piece cut off.”  If this is the true origin of the word scrod, it makes sense that it would mean a piece of fish that had been cut, or filleted.

Fish Tales

There are many apocryphal stories circulating about the origin of the word scrod—who knew this would be such a well-debated subject?  One story has it that a chef, ostensibly from the famous Parker House, would go down to the docks to choose the best of the best of that day’s catch.  The secured catch received on dock, or scrod.

Pardon the pun, but that explanation is a bit fishy.  There is no actual documentation to support the story, although it is a fun one.

Another story is that scrod is a kind of shorthand for the freshest fish.  When fishing boats would go out for days at a time, the scrod were the fish that were on the top of the catch, or the ones most recently caught.  Over time, scrod came to designate the white fish of the highest quality.

So, I guess in a narrow sense, dad was right.  Scrod are young cod.  But when you see scrod on a restaurant menu, it refers to any young white-fleshed fish.  Scrod is more of a generic term.

So, the next time you buy filleted cod, you can certainly call it scrod.  But you can also call haddock or pollock scrod.  You might not know exactly what kind of fish was used to make your fish and chips, but you can be sure that it is some kind of scrod.

Interview with Carrie Oliver

After reading an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal by Mark Schatzker called Having a Cow About Steak Quality I immediately set out to learn more finding the perfect steak so I did some research and found The Artisan Beef Institute and Carrie Oliver. After exchanging emails and a phone call, I asked Carrie if she would answer a few questions about “Artisan Beef, what it is, why we should be buying it and where to find it.

As you will learn from reading this interview, Carrie is a wealth of information and she is happy to share it with fellow steak lovers here and at her web sites. She is currently working with several cattle producers and has put together a home tasting kit at her Oliver Ranch Company for anyone who wants to compare 4 different steaks from different ranches.

Enjoy the interview and I welcome your comments at the end.

How did you get started in researching and writing about Artisan Meats?

This began as a personal journey. We wanted to buy beef that was genuinely naturally or organically raised but didn’t want to trade off flavor. Sadly, no one could tell us what was on our plates and the steaks were random from week to week. When I discovered why, I was both inspired and upset and decided to do something about it.

After careful study of the industry (and many beef tastings!), I realized that producing tasty beef is incredibly complicated. Flavor and texture can vary widely by farm, breed, diet, the age of the cattle, and many other variables. The industry has attempted to bring some order to this by seeking uniformity in cattle and promoting USDA Grade (Prime, Choice, Select), and marbling as the key indicator of quality. Unfortunately, this has led beef to become as a commodity product focused on yield and throughput, not flavor.

I felt that I could break this commodity trap by going the opposite direction and helping people discover and celebrate the wide range of flavors of different beef in North America. To do this I created the concept of Artisan Beef and founded The Oliver Ranch Company and The Artisan Beef Institute to find and support those producers who raise cattle with the same care and attention that you see going into fine wines, gourmet coffees, chocolate, or even tomatoes.

Are you a big meat eater yourself?

I love to cook & eat meat, though like many families we are eating less of it nowadays than we used to, especially pork and chicken. We also tend to eat smaller portions.

I know you are also involved with The Artisan Chicken Institute with lamb and pork coming soon, but let’s talk now about beef and how to find the most flavorful, tender, mouthwatering steaks available. On your web site you say, “beef flavor, texture, and quality are not driven by USDA grade or percentage marbling alone.” So then what does determine great flavor, texture and quality?

I love this question, as the answer is so surprising: beef flavor, texture, and overall quality are influenced by the same factors as wine. The breed, quality of genetics (think root stock), growing region, specific diet, husbandry practices, age at harvest, aging time and technique, and importantly, the relative talents of the farmer, trucker, slaughterhouse workers, and butcher – these all play an important role. Marbling is just one factor. Moreover, some people find the marbled fat has filmy or greasy feel and would rather avoid it.

The BIG difference between wine and beef is that with wine, one often wants to create stress in the grape. It is the opposite with beef; we never want stress – it can ruin both flavor and texture.

When I go to the supermarket or Costco where I buy a lot of my meat, I have no idea where that steak comes from or what breed it is. (you call this “Mystery Beef”)  Why is it so important to know where the beef is coming from, what breed and what it was fed?

If you think about it, the way we currently buy meat is a bit absurd. Would we buy ice cream with no idea what flavor it is? Would we be willing to choose our apples from a big barrel while wearing a blindfold? Why are we willing to buy mystery beef?

Fact: there are some 800,000 beef cattle ranches in North America raising hundreds, perhaps thousands of different breeds and diet combinations. Highland, Hereford, Limousin, Angus, Charolais or various crossbreeds – at your local supermarket they can all jumbled together and labeled “Choice” or whatever. Just like the varieties of apples and the orchards that produce them, they taste different. Unfortunately, with supermarket beef you have no information to help you pick the ones that you like best.

Have you ever had that experience where this week’s steak isn’t as good as the one you bought from the same store last week? I call this The Great Supermarket Lottery.

One of the best reasons to know the origins of your beef is that it can tell you something about how it is going to taste. Further, if you happen to like that particular flavor and texture, you know where to go to buy more of it. You can also decide which farms and butchers you want to support – ones whose farming practices and animal husbandry you believe in.

I see more and more supermarket fish departments required to label where their fish comes from. I wonder why they are not doing the same with our meat and if there will be a day sometime soon when they have to?

In 2009 the USDA started to require the country or countries of origin to be included on the labels of some fresh beef products (known as COOL). I suspect this was well intentioned but it really doesn’t tell you much about the quality or flavor of the beef.

Plus, COOL is not required for smaller retailers, restaurants and cafeterias, butcher shops, or processed foods such as beef lasagna. I’ve seen ground beef packages that listed six countries on it (Product of the United States, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, and Uruguay).

I would like to see retailers, butchers, and restaurants voluntarily offer far more information than this. At minimum, as with wine, they should offer the name of the farm, feedlot (when relevant), breed, diet, and aging technique. THEN we will start getting some clues as to how the beef is actually going to taste.

Do the butchers at supermarkets even know any of the history of the beef they are selling? Is the breed or ranch marked on the boxes it’s shipped in?

For the most part I don’t think so, no. The majority of stores are selling what is known as “boxed beef” or “shelf-ready” beef. Some might specify a particular grade, brand name, grass-fed, or organic but very few can name the farm, breed, region, diet, etc.

With boxed beef, processors seal major cuts (such as the whole Rib-Eye primal) in plastic bags and pack them into cardboard boxes. When the boxes arrive at the store, a meat cutter cuts them into individual steaks or roasts and packages them for sale. Many stores even skip this step and simply order pre-packaged steaks, roasts, and ground beef from large processors.

Fortunately, some smart purveyors are responding to consumer requests for transparency. I encourage everyone to ask the name of the ranch, feed lot, breed, diet, and aging technique and whether the cattle were raised without growth hormones and preventative antibiotics. The more we ask these questions, the more people will be able to answer them. I’ve created a guide with additional questions that I use to find Artisan Beef, too.

With your experiences of tasting steaks from around the country, can I even find a really flavorful piece of meat in my local supermarket?

Sure, every once in a while you’ll win The Great Supermarket Lottery

But seriously, if you can’t find Artisan Beef or visit a farmers’ market in your area, you can do a few things to increase the odds of getting a flavorful steak.

• Start with steaks that have been labeled as “naturally raised” or “organic.” The beef will at least have come from cattle that were raised without the use of growth hormones, beta agonists, or preventative antibiotics. These drugs are telltale signs that a producer’s goal is to fatten cattle as quickly and cheaply as possible, not to produce fabulous tasting food. They reflect a straight-up commodity mentality.
• Next, ask for beef that has been dry-aged or wet-aged for at least 10 days before being cut into individual steaks as aging helps tenderize beef.
• If your supermarket or local butchers carry it, definitely try the grass-fed steaks (and burger!). Some of the most delicious, flavorful beef is from cattle raised 100% on grass. (In part, this is because grass-fed cattle are typically a bit older – 18 to 24 months – than commodity beef; beef from older cattle tends to have more flavor.)

It is important to keep in mind that we all have different palates. If you like bold coffee or wines and beer with complexity, you might prefer grass-fed beef and dry-aged beef, which are often more deeply flavored and adventurous than wet-aged or grain-fed beef.

On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you rate a supermarket steak compared to one of the Artisan steaks you recommend at The Artisan Beef Institute?

Given how random the selection is at the supermarket, I don’t even bother to compare them. Even if we “win the lottery” and happen upon a great steak at the grocer, it would be hard to repeat the experience since we wouldn’t know what we ate in the first place.

Speaking of ratings, you have developed a unique rating system and beef tasting guide for both home and professional cooks to use as guidelines to evaluate beef. Can you tell me a little about the system and how it works?

At the first steak tasting I hosted I realized that we need language to use to describe the beef we eat. Beefy, meaty, gamy, juicy, and tender, this about sums up our vocabulary. Working with a team of wine and food sensory experts, ranchers, butchers, and chefs, I have developed an easy-to-use process and guide to help people describe and calibrate the aromas, flavors, and textures of meat and to compare the differences between different farm & butcher teams.

The guide is purposely designed to be objective - there is no worst to best scale – and fun. You can use the guide whether you’re tasting steaks or burgers from just one farm or comparing different farms.

The key is to cook the beef the same way and without fancy rubs or seasonings. For steaks, I recommend that people choose the same cut from each farm, ideally trimmed to the same thickness, season the steaks with unflavored kosher or sea salt, and cook the steaks to medium rare. Avoid the use of pepper as it flavors the beef and many people cannot taste past it.

As you taste each steak or burger, take notes and then give it your personal rating. At the end, rank the steaks. After a few times doing this, most people will see a pattern emerge.

Please describe your three basic criteria - Texture, Personality, & Impression?

At the high-end of quality I find beef that is so good it will tell a story and evoke an emotional reaction in me or other tasters. Artisan Beef will distinguish itself on these three basic criteria - Texture, Personality, and Impression. Some people also like to explore specific flavor notes as well.

Texture is simple enough, it can range from very soft to very chewy. Some people like chewier beef than others. You should consider whether the Texture of one steak or burger appeals to you more and why.

Next is Personality.

Let’s keep it fun (not intimidating like wine), so imagine if you could meet this beef at a dinner party, what kind of Personality would he or she have?

Is he reserved and shy, by the end of the night you conclude that he’s just about the beef, i.e. there are no other flavor notes than just “beefy”? Or on the other hand is she very adventurous, the life of the party, do you taste many distinct flavor notes in the steak such as blue cheese, caramel, toasted nuts, or even lamb?

This is important because some people find reserved Personality beefs elegant, while others find them boring. Adventurous Personality beefs are fascinating to some tasters, but off-putting to others. It’s a matter of opinion.

Last, there is Impression.

Now that you’ve met this beef, will you remember him 10 years from now or did he leave just a fleeting memory? Did the flavors linger for a very long time or were they there and gone? Some prefer steaks and burgers with a brief Impression, others a long lasting one.

Once you get used to using my guide, I guarantee that a really good steak will evoke an image in your mind. Was this an Outdoor Adventure Beef, Easy Going Beef, Seductive Date Beef, or something else?

You don’t have to like the steak for it to offer up an image, but Artisan Beef will be distinct. And the accompanying flavor notes will have you racing back to the source to buy your favorites again and again.

You say, “It is important to know that we are not seeking to find the “best” steak, burger, chop, or roast, thus, our scales do not go from worst to best.” Does this mean that everyone’s tastes are different and I may like one style of steak and you another. So if I can define my own personal tastes, I can seek out similar steaks with the same criteria?

Yes, when it comes to my tasting guide that’s right. Once we get into Artisan quality, it is already great beef.  We each have our own taste buds and also values when it comes to food, so it’s important to have a guide to help you understand what it tastes like – don’t you agree?

I have been to many wine tastings and understand what to look for in a glass of wine, how a smell can describe so much about a wine and how it tastes while sitting in my mouth touching my taste-buds offers enormous amounts of information about the quality of the wine and whether or not I will like it. Can I do the same with steak?

Yes and no. Steaks from different farms will have a unique aroma and you can tell something about the texture by its appearance and feel to the touch (fine grained is usually better and in general, the texture should be soft).

You will likely develop an awareness of certain sensory attributes that please and do not please your palate. For instance, I am very sensitive to Ocean Notes in beef and pick those up just from the smell.

My experience tells me, however, that you need to eat the steak in order to truly identify its unique Texture, Personality, and Impression. With practice, you’ll learn how to make the right choice in beef just as with wine.

You speak a lot about the merits of grass-fed cattle on your web site. Can you describe what a grass-fed cow is? Does that mean it eats no grain at all? Isn’t grain important to fatten up the cow?

All cattle eat grass. Yet most of them (over 95%) are “finished” on a diet that includes corn or other grains. “Grass-fed” means cattle that eat no grain at all. There are several different grass-fed standards. But ALL require producers to raise their cattle on pasture (vs. a feedlot) for a certain percentage of time and that cattle eat no grain. The American Grass-fed Association and Food Alliance standards are great – they also forbid the use of growth hormones and preventative antibiotics.

It is a myth that you need to feed cattle corn or other grains in order to fatten them up. Many grass-fed beef pioneers consistently produce well-marbled beef with a good fat cover.

I am a huge fan of grass-fed beef and burgers for a number of reasons. For one, I’m a flavor hound and grass-fed steaks and burgers tend to be more intensely flavored and have more adventurous Personalities, which I prefer. From an environmental perspective, with proper management cattle raised on grass can help sequester carbon and enrich the soil. There are compelling arguments with regard to animal welfare and nutrition, too.

I’m an even bigger fan of Artisan Beef as it takes into consideration other factors than diet and husbandry practices alone, including flavor and community.

How prevalent are drugs in the cattle industry and what type of drugs are they using and why? Do they effect the overall taste of the meat?

As with humans, the cattle industry uses many drugs, including vaccines, to ensure the health of the livestock. Controversy surrounds the use a different set of drugs: growth promotants, including hormones and steroids, which are used to get cattle to grow bigger faster.

A new type of drug called beta agonists is used to promote muscle mass, which again helps improve throughput and yield. Finally, some producers administer sub-therapeutic antibiotics to cattle to prevent them from getting sick and spreading disease to other cattle. (Some feedlots can house a quarter of a million head of cattle in a year.)

What few meat lovers know is that growth hormones and beta agonists can make beef tougher. Further, all these efforts to grow cattle faster work against those of us who enjoy having flavor in our beef. That’s because older cattle tend to be more intensely flavored. There are gustatory reasons to avoid commodity beef.

Does the breed of the cow really matter?

Yes, breed is a critical decision for any farmer or rancher. Some breeds and crossbreeds are better suited to some growing regions and climates than others. For instance, a longhaired breed that hails from the cold, wind-whipped, rugged Scottish Highlands may not thrive in the humid American south. (Remember, stress is bad for beef.)

In addition, breeds are genetically predisposed to certain characteristics including tenderness, marbling, heat and cold tolerance, mothering instincts, ease of birth, and countless other attributes that directly or indirectly impact flavor, texture, and quality.

Some will purposely selected a breed that does not marble easily as they want to offer leaner beef to their customers. Others will choose a small breed because their customers like smaller portion sizes.

At the supermarket I see a lot of promotion for Angus and Black Angus and they always cost more than the other non-Angus steaks. What’s so special about Angus and should I buy the hype?

Angus is technically a specific breed of cattle that originated near Aberdeen and Angus, England. There are Black Angus and Red Angus cattle. That sounds simple enough but in North America, Angus is often just a brand name. To be marketed as Angus beef, the USDA says the animal simply needs to be 51% or more black-hided.

Either that, or the cattle must have at least 50% provable Angus genetics (one parent or both grandparents has the paperwork showing they are registered Angus.) The USDA and some brands list a few other criteria but Angus is often just a marketing term.

I should note that in most of my tastings, including my home tasting kit, I have included two or more Angus beefs, including several in which we compared two 100% Black Angus steaks from different farms. Ask any of the tasters, the steaks were strikingly different from each other.

I read on your web site that “Stress – which can be inborn, man-made, or from a natural event – can ruin the taste and texture of beef.” How in the world can I determine if a steak I want to buy comes from a cow that had a stressful life?

Because the color, texture, and pH balance are notably different, it’s my understanding that you will not find this beef on a supermarket shelf. A butcher can tell if there are any problems.

I have always understood that USDA Prime rated beef was the best and therefore the most expensive and hardest to find. What is your understanding of these ratings and is Prime really that much better than Choice and if that’s the case, how inferior must Good (Select) be?

Despite conventional wisdom, marbling – the primary metric considered in the USDA grading system – plays a limited role in predicting the tenderness, flavor, and even juiciness of beef. Many people do not realize that USDA grades are based on a visual inspection alone. To me this is like determining the flavor and quality of a wine or apple based on how it looks. It’s a start, but too simplistic. Lean beef can be very full flavored and tender.

At countless tastings, I have seen very lean beef do just as well as very marbled beef. Indeed, there are a number of people who do not like heavily marbled steaks or fatty burgers. Sometimes that fat can have a disagreeable mouth-feel, kind of a greasy or filmy aftertaste.

So What Do I Do? - Do you have some buying tips for home cooks searching for the real thing, that is a steak with incredible taste but won’t bankrupt the piggy bank?

Today, it is hard to find Artisan Beef as this is a new and unique approach to livestock rearing and meat production. I encourage people to use one of the questionnaires that can be downloaded from my site. It’s a tick list of questions that will get you most of the way. The rest is a matter of judgment and, of course, tasting the beef.

I also review, rate, and provide tasting notes on my site, host live Artisan Steak and Burger tastings, and offer a Discover Beef Experience Artisan Steak Tasting sampler for home tastings. I have found ranchers and butchers on my own but many have contacted me directly.

People know that I’m interested to help more producers so many call, email, or send message on Twitter or Facebook with the names of their favorites. Finally, as a consultant, I can help individuals, restaurants, and retailers find Artisan Beef or close to it.

The most powerful thing we can do is to ask a lot of questions about the origin of various meats. We need to work together to encourage and even demand change in the meat industry.

Let me end with the fact that Artisan or near Artisan Beef does not have to break the piggy bank! The three points I make in all of my tastings:

1. Beef is like wine
2. Low stress makes for better beef
3. Buy by “the case”

When we taste a wine or beer we really enjoy, we stock up. Why? Because we save money by buying in volume and get to have our favorite flavor on hand to enjoy whenever we like. The same works with beef. Buying a ¼ or a side of beef or joining a cow-pooling arrangement or CSA is a fantastic way to get a really great price (typically less than commodity beef at retail) and eat the style of beef you like best.

Related Topics

Finding & Buying Great Steaks

Finding the Perfect Steak

With Memorial Day just a day away, lots of us will be at a barbecue grilling up burgers and steaks. A couple of weeks ago I read an article in the Wall Street Journal by food writer and author Mark Schatzker called Having a Cow About Steak Quality that is changing the way I now look at beef and how I will purchase it in the future.

I spoke with Mark last week about his quest for locating flavorful beef and his new book Steak: Steak: One Man’s Search for the World’s Tastiest Piece of Beef published by Viking. Turns out Mark traveled around the world in 80 days to find the perfect steak and chronicled his journey in his new book. I have not read it yet, but if it is as good as the article I read in the Wall Street Journal, I’m sure it will be great.

Be sure to also read my interview with Carrie Oliver where she discusses grass fed beef as well as her coined term “Artisan Beef”.

Interview with Food Writer Mark Schatzker

Hi Mark, let me start by asking you how you became so interested in beef that you would go around the world to write a book about finding the best beef available?

I became interested in steak for one very simple reason: I love the way it tastes. I love the way other meats taste, too, particularly lamb, duck and pork, but there’s just something about steak. At least once a week, a formidable craving sets in.

However, my relationship with steak was lopsided. Steak kept letting me down. Too many of the steaks I was cooking were bland and uninteresting, they didn’t quite have the beefy punch I expected them to have.

And then, very occasionally, I’d eat an outstanding steak. What was going on? Why was so much steak mediocre, and so little of it good?  I wanted answers. I wanted to know the secret to good steak. I started buying steaks, phoning up ranchers, and eventually it all led to this book.

For those of us who have not read Steak yet, what can we expect to learn from it?

Formost, I think readers will enjoy the voyage, traveling to Japan to eat Kobe beef and find out if they really do massage their cattle with sake and feed them beer, or to Argentina in search of that country’s legendary grass-fed beef. More importantly, however, I think they’ll learn there is so much to this wonderful meat.

For example, did you know there are almost as many “volatile aromatic compounds” in a grilled steak as in a glass of red wine? I want readers to come away with a genuine understanding steak, the complex chemicals that make it flavorful, how feed affects the way a steak tastes, what happens to a steak when it’s cooked, why a well-done steak tastes so different from one cooked medium rare, and so forth. Let’s face it: steak deserves no less.

Will it help us find great tasting beef?

Yes. Finding it is difficult, though getting easier every day. But if steak lovers aren’t armed with knowledge, they’re essentially playing steak roulette every time they buy a rib eye or strip loin.

In your Wall Street Journal article you talk about how the USDA back in 1926 thought “fatter cattle tasted better than lean ones, so long as they weren’t too old. So that’s what they looked for” plump, well-fed cattle. They looked for fat on the ribs called feathering, and fat on the flank called frosting. If there was a great deal of that fat, the beef achieved the highest grade, Prime.”

You disagree that fat on today’s cows equals flavor. Can you explain why today’s fat is less flavorful? Isn’t fat fat?

The problem has been the assumption that fat itself is where the flavor is coming from. This may be the mantra of the grilling world, but it’s demonstrably false. Fat adds richness, mouth feel and juiciness to a steak, but not much in the way of beefy flavor.

Want proof?

Eat a spoonful of beef tallow or lard and tell me what it tastes like. Anyone who’s ever eaten wild venison will know that lean meat can have an incredibly strong flavor. The story of where flavor comes from in a steak is fascinating but also complex, and I think the best way for people to get the full picture is to buy the book.

But I will say this: Back in 1926, fatter cattle tasted better, but not because of the fat. The fat indicated that the cattle were a little older, and that they’d been eating good feed. So the USDA began rewarding ranchers and cattlemen that could produce fatter cattle.

What happened was predictable: the industry got very good at producing fat cattle very cheaply. A fat cow in 1926 would have eaten grass, and perhaps some other feeds like cotton-seed cake, snap-ear corn, or beet pulp. A fat cow today eats steamed and flaked GMO corn. They may both be fat, but they certainly won’t taste the same.

Can you talk about some of the drugs they are using in the cattle industry today and why they are using them?

“Growth promotants” are a big one. Cattle can be treated with these as many as three or four times during the course of their increasingly short lives. Basically, we’re talking about growth hormones and steroids. When cattle are treated with them, they get bulkier faster. As a result, the yield improves. You get more meat  on the same amount of feed.It’s all about dollars and cents, of course. Flavor never enters the equation.

There’s another much newer drug called beta agonists. These promote muscle mass. No one seems to know quite why, but they do. Studies have shown that beta agonists also make cattle jittery and can, in higher doses, cause them extreme discomfort. As far as steak quality goes, beta agonists are known to make beef tougher. But their use is, nevertheless, extremely widespread, and the reason is that if one feedlot is using them, their beef will be a few cents a pound cheaper, giving them an advantage over the other feedlots.

The other feedlots, therefore, have no choice but to start using beta agonists or slowly lose customers and go out of business. That’s how a commodity system works. Flavor isn’t given a single thought.

So if I can’t depend on the USDA grading system of Prime, Choice or Good (Select), how do I determine if a steak I purchase is going to be flavorful?

The only truly reliable way is by eating it. But there are questions you can ask in advance that vastly improve your chances. I’d advise people to look for cattle that are a bit older — say around 24months old.

And to look for cattle that haven’t eaten too much grain. Grain gets cattle fat, but it also dulls the flavor. I have eaten good grain fed steak, but I find that the less grain a cow eats, the more intensely flavored its meat will be.

However, it’s anything but simple. My one great steak love is excellent grass-fed beef — “grass-fed” refers to cattle who have never eaten so much as a kernel of corn. There’s not much of it. A lot of grass-fed beef is, quite frankly, awful. To make matters a tad more simple, here’s are some online places to get good steak.

Light grain-fed beef: Greyledge Farm
Grass-fed beef: Tallgrass Beef or Alderspring Ranch

There are more on my website: Mark Schatzker’s Steak

What do I look for when it comes to :

• Color - The experts tell you to look for flesh that is cherry red. I disagree with this. When cattle get a bit older, their flesh   darkens. This will be a steak that has more flavor.
• Texture - Look for steak with a fine grain in the muscle.
• Touch - When touching it, it should be tender and soft. If you feel veins of gristle with your finger, beware.
• Marbling - Hard to say. I’ve eaten extremely lean steaks that were outstanding. But with grass-fed are lightly grain-fed beef, marbling can indicate a better steak. But not necessarily. And as far as standard supermarket beef goes, I don’t think it means much at all. I’ve eaten extremely marbled steaks that had as much flavor as a glass of tap water.
• Smell - It should have a beefy smell. Some grass-fed beef can smell a little grassy. Don’t be put off by that. The beef may well be outstanding.

Can you tell me about the photo of the steaks at the top of this post?

This is a pic of three AWESOME rib eyes from Alderspring Ranch that I ate up at the family cottage with my wife and kids. Notice the slightly deeper color. Notice that relative lack of marbling compared to Prime. And here’s a big one — the fat color. It’s yellow. It’s not bright yellow, but certainly a deep ivory. That’s beta carotene from the grass, which is good for your. The USDA doesn’t like yellow fat. The USDA loves white, flaky fat. But there is nothing wrong with yellow fat, from a flavor point of view. It’s solely about appearance, which is idiotic. I prefer a steak with yellow fat, because I think there’s a greater likelihood it’ll have flavor.

Other than how a steak is cooked, what makes one steak more tender than another? For example, I have purchased both Choice and Prime New York Strip steaks from Costco and the Prime in my opinion was more tasty and much more tender. Any ideas why?

Tenderness has to do with muscle fibers. It can be influenced by a variety of factors ranging from how a cow is handled on the day of its slaughter — gentler is better — to how quickly it gained weight (cows need to gain around 2 lbs a day to be tender). Genetics of the individual cattle also plays a very large roll in tenderness.

Your experience with Prime is interesting. I generally find it to be overrated. I’ve eaten scores of Prime steaks that had almost zero flavor. Every now and again, however, you do find a good one. I think the reason some Prime are tasty isn’t due to the marbling. Marbling doesn’t make a steak any more tender or flavorful, though it may well make the steak more juicy.

I think the reason is that cattle need time to put on that much fat, so it’s coming from cows that are little older. They were either older when they arrived at the feedlot, and hence had more time to eat grass, or they stayed at the feedlot a little longer than the others.

In your article, you say “the way a steak tastes has a lot to do with what a cow eats - and the best beef is raised on grass.”  Ok, I’ll go along with that but where does one find grass fed cows and isn’t it going to cost a fortune?

I’d like to qualify that by saying I have eaten some good, sometimes great, grain fed steaks. But the absolute tops for me is, indeed, grass.

You can find grass-fed beef all over the place now — farmers markets, the internet, even Whole Foods has recently begun a nation-wide grass-fed program. But keep in mind there are a lot of ranchers selling grass-fed beef that’s too young and from poor breeds that have been grazed on lousy grass.

This steak won’t taste very good. In fact, it might taste downright awful. You need to find grass-fed steak produced by graziers who really know what they’re doing. You want the Robert Mondavi of grazing, not your eccentric neighbor who buys Chilean grape juice and ferments it himself.

Will it cost a fortune? That depends on your definition of a fortune. A lot of people drink wines that cost $50 or $100. In that case, great steak is a bargain. But great steak will never be cheap. It can’t be. It takes time and care, and there just isn’t much steak on a side of beef.

So as much as we all dream about buying an incredible steak for $10, it isn’t going to happen. It’s a fantasy. Furthermore, I believe that it’s dangerous to want food to be cheap. This is stuff we’re putting inside our bodies. If there’s anything we ought to be paying a little more for, it’s food.

What about the breed of a cow? Is that an important determining factor?

Yes and no. Some breeds do have unique palatability traits. For example, Highland cattle have very finely grained meat. And the Japanese Black Wagyu, which produces the world famous Kobe beef, has an enzyme that desaturates the fat, which leads to a different mouthfeel and, in my opinion, characteristically sweeter flavor. (Black Wagyu also marble like crazy.)

But a breed is only as good as the rancher or farmer raising it. If you take a handful of breeds and stick them in a feedlot and feed them steamed, flaked corn, you’ll find some differences in flavor, but they’ll be pretty mild.

It’s also important to recognize that a lot of claims made about breeds are false. For example, the breed requirement for Certified Angus Beef is that the meat come off a cow that is 51% black hided. The thinking is that Angus cattle are black, so any hide that is more than half black must be Angus. It’s some of the lamest logic I’ve ever heard. For one thing, Angus cattle are also red. And here’s another thing: a lot of other breeds are black, too. Holsteins, as a matter of fact, possess blackness in excess of 51%. Don’t get me started on this…

What about a cow’s age when it comes to slaughter? Does that influence the overall taste of the steak?

Yes. Too much of the beef we’re eating now is too young. It’s more like mature veal than beef. In Europe, some butchers proudly serve beef from cattle that are 10 years old. The older the cow is, the more beefy the meat will taste. I’ve spoken to many farmers and ranchers about this. A surprising number have told me that a four or five-year-old heiferette (a cow that’s had one calf) is the best tasting beef, period. Good luck finding one of those, however.

Speaking of aging, can you talk a little about the difference between dry aging and wet aging? What are they, how important is aging beef and what is ideal for the best tasting steak?

When beef cuts are seal in cryovac plastic and put on a shelf to age, that’s wet aged beef. When cuts of beef are hung from a hook in a fridge, that’s dry aged beef.

The first hing you need to know about aging is that it’s extremely important. Fresh beef is less juicy, stringy, and milder in flavor than aged beef. When beef ages, enzymes break down muscle fibers into amino acids. This makes the beef more tender, and it also enhances the flavor. (If you want to read about the fascinating chemistry behind this, it’s all in the book.)

The second thing you need to know about aging is it’s hugely overrated. Studies suggest that most of the benefits of aging happen in the first 10 days or so. However, it’s gotten very trendy for butchers and steak houses to sell steaks that have been aged for 40, or maybe even 60 days.  A good steak shouldn’t need to be aged that long. The most tender steak I have ever eaten was aged three weeks. Those butchers and steak houses are exploiting the myth of aging to charge steak lovers a lot of money.

There is also a cult around dry aged beef. I think people are taking this a bit far. I’ve had excellent wet aged beef, and some bad dry aged beef. It all depends on the kind of beef and the butcher doing the aging. My preference leans slightly in the direction of dry aged beef, but I’m far more concerned with what the cow ate and how old it was when it was slaughtered than how the beef was aged.

Do ranchers who raise and sell grass fed steaks get their beef graded Prime, Choice and Good? If so, is Prime going to be better than Choice?

Most of them don’t get it graded, because the grading system is used by meat packers who don’t raise the meat — they just slaughter it, cut it and sell it to hotels, chain restaurants, supermarkets, etc. Most grass-fed producers sell directly to customers. However, I find the grading system makes more sense for grass-fed beef than grain fed. I know of one rancher — Alderspring — that sells its very well marbled steaks for more money than his regular steaks. I’ve eaten some of those steaks, and they are incredible.

Most of the web sites I’ve found that sell grass fed beef send it to you frozen. What’s your opinion on freezing beef? Does it alter the flavor?

A lot of would-be steak snobs turn their noses up at frozen steak. I think this is a great shame. If steaks are well wrapped and flash frozen — which is to say frozen very quickly in a really cold freezer — I don’t think much is lost at all. Perhaps just a little bit of juiciness. But freezing allows someone like me who lives in Toronto to buy a steak from a small producer in, say, Montana or Wyoming without actually having to go there personally. That’s a wonderful thing.  I’d much rather eat a great frozen steak than a mediocre fresh one.

Flavor

So how would you describe the difference in flavor between a steak from a properly grass fed cow and one we purchase at our local supermarket?

A good grass-fed steak has an intense beefy flavor. It will taste sweet, it will taste nutty — there may even be a few other notes in there, like mushroom or Parmesan cheese — but above all else, it will be resoundingly and gloriously beefy.

Second, the flavor is dynamic. It tells a story in your mouth, the way a fine Bordeaux or Burgundy does. And it has a long finish. It’s not a cloying greasy echo that lingers in your mouth. It’s more like a beautiful symphony gently fading out. When I taste a great steak, I am sometimes so astonished by the incredibleness of the meat in my mouth that I close my eyes to let my mind take it all in.

Is the taste difference that noticeable?

More than you can imagine. I often do tastings with friends or fellow food writers. When they take a bite of good grass-fed beef, they go back to the crappy commodity steak and are equally astonished by its utter lack of flavor. The most common descriptors they use are “wet cardboard” and “glue.”

In general, when judging steak taste, what flavors do you look for? When I drink a big Cabernet Sauvignon, I might taste nuances of many different flavors including plum, cherry, vanilla, tobacco or blackberry. Are there flavors associated with great tasting steak?

Finding flavor notes in steak, as we do in wine, is starting to get popular. I don’t quite buy that model, personally, with steak or with wine. I think there certainly are notes that one can pick up, but I feel that expressing them can be misleading, because what does not get expressed are all the notes for which we don’t have names.

What I tend to look for in a steak is a pronounced flavor, intensity, and finish. Sometimes I’ll pick up identifiable notes, but sometimes there’s a concert of meaty notes that there just aren’t names for. Maybe it’s simpler to put it this way: you know it when you taste it.

What about other cuts of beef - am I going to notice a big difference in taste when it comes to ground beef for hamburger or chuck steak for a pot roast?

Yes, absolutely. I love grass-fed burgers. And burgers from good grain fed beef are also leagues better than the regular stuff. You’ll find you don’t need nearly as many condiments. Beef soup made with better quality beef has  richer, beefier flavor, and braised beef similarly is big on character.

I’ve seen some grass feeding ranchers say their beef is organic. What does that mean and how important is it when buying beef?

Organic means that the cattle are raised without antibiotics, hormones, etc., and they eat organic feed. Organic feed includes grain, so not all organic beef is grass fed, but some is. Does it mean much? I don’t think so. Most grass-fed beef ranchers I know don’t use pesticides or hormones or antibiotics.

Any last tips for home cooks looking for that tender, delicious, beefy steak?

Sure. Let the steak get to room temperature before cooking it. Salt it 5 minutes before cooking, and then salt it  bit more when it’s done.

And don’t cook a really thick steak on a very hot grill, because it’ll be black and bitter on the outside, and raw on the inside. It’s important to sear a steak to get the delicious crust on the exterior, but once that’s happened, you need to heat the interior gently. So after you flip, consider turning down the heat and letting the steak cook a tad slower. If you do that, you won’t need to rest your steak. It’ll be juicy and tender right off the grill.

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