Very Old Beef

This article first appeared in The Leader Vindicator Newspaper.

Very Old Beef

A good friend sent me a story about a person from Washington, DC who visited a farm in rural New York and was delighted to dine on a steak from an old cow.

Cuts from old cows are referred to as ‘mature beef’, indicating that the animal itself is much older than those typically harvested for food.  The concept is not new; anyone with a bit of culinary curiosity knows mature beef is a common delicacy in France.  Mature beef is mentioned in the book Steak by Mark Schatzker.  Allan Nation, the late mind behind The Stockman Grassfarmer magazine, recalled in several of his books that he was ‘haunted’ by a roast from a seven year old cow in Hawaii because it was so delicious.  Stories praising mature beef are out there, and they intrigue food people.

According to writers, the lure of the beef is its flavor.  Consider this quote from Yi Wah Roberts, the mature-beef-obsessed farm visitor I mentioned at the outset of this article:  “I remember the smell and the look and the way the fat melted – as opposed to sticky fat, being a smooth, pleasant fat … The flavor is just absurd.”

Sounds good, doesn’t it?  Readers absorb the words and desire a similar mature beef experience for themselves.  I’m asked on occasion if my family sells anything of the sort, and, when I reply to the negative, it’s suggested that we should be.

Contemplating dreamy-beef-fat zeal, it’s easy to forget how seriously unique curious eaters are.  We read articles that fool us into thinking ten out of ten people are yearning for interesting variations of beef.  Reality says it’s more like one out of two thousand.  Introducing and selling a new style of beef is not simple.

Customers hate change if they don’t expect it.  Consistency is one of the retail details we maintain in our arsenal of marketing tactics because beef variation throws shoppers completely out of whack. 

For example, the reactions of sheer horror I received when I introduced our grassfed beef line several years ago were overwhelming.  People actually called me to ask if I’d lost my mind.  Many more trepidatiously tried a piece of grassfed and immediately reported it to be tough and no good at all (not exactly an encouraging start to a new enterprise).  Still others, despite efforts to clearly differentiate the two production systems, continue to be confused, believing that our grainfed beef is somehow connected to grass and our grassfed somehow connected to grain.

We experienced several seasons of bewildered customer feedback and we didn’t even change our original product offering.  We simply added another option, the same way a coffee roaster offers light and dark roast beans to accommodate different preferences.  I can only imagine what kind of riot would take place if I suddenly filled a freezer with beef from a nine year old cow.

It’s difficult to encourage diversity in the beef market because people don’t understand that it can exist, and it can be delicious.  No matter our background, we’re all accustomed to basically the same steak.  We all share similar expectations for appearance, tenderness, and taste.  Therefore, even when we want to try something different, we all expect it to taste the same. This leads to disappointment and rejection.

The simplicity of steak’s reputation creates a rather ruthless system of review: If a steak meets basic expectations, it’s ‘good’.  If any deviation from the norm is detected, it’s ‘horrible’.  We have to move beyond knee-jerk reactions borne from preconceived notions.

Mature beef from a cow on grass will taste different than people expect.  Assuming the cattle are tended intelligently by someone passionate about grass and the herd’s well-being, their beef will not taste bad, like the emaciated old dairy cows rural people gagged on at grandma’s when they were kids.  But, as observed with the introduction of our grassfed, most people will react poorly upon their first encounter regardless of quality.  If I want to enter new, specialized market territory, I first need to encourage customers to think about beef differently.  This is my mission.

A good first step is to partner with a chef who shares a deep understanding of beef. By working in a restaurant setting alongside a culinary expert, tasters would have the opportunity to hear what it is they’re going to eat, and then eat it after it was prepared by an expert. Such an introduction would eliminate the risk of poor cooking tactics at home that will ruin a piece of beef, shifting the focus instead to the nuances of the flavors.

Factor in the number of breeds, feeding styles, maturity levels, and cooking styles, and you’ll soon realize that beef selection can be as delicious and diverse as the craft beer selection at a distributer.  I want to create the opportunity for people to become beef experts, understanding and appreciating the differences between steak from one breed and another, or between one feeding style and another. 

Creating a new beef reality is not insurmountable; people are enthralled by unique apple varieties, beer styles, coffee roasts, and even styles of sausage.  It’s not a great leap to start thinking the same way about breeds of cattle and feed styles.  A customer base operating on a higher plane of awareness can completely revolutionize the market for steak. 

In 2021 we’ll inch closer to the dream.   We’ve been assembling a diversity of breeds for our grassfed herd that will unlock a whole new world of flavor for those who are willing to try.  Who knows, maybe this time next year you’ll be wandering in a daze, remembering fondly a roast that originated from one old cow that nobody else would give a chance.

Are you ready?