Going Out for Steak??

Steakhouse Reviews | Johnny Prime

 Over the years I've read many restaurant reviews. One of my favorite places for restaurant news and food in general is Eater.com. But if I'm looking for reviews of steakhouses specifically, I will often look over the Johnny Prime site. They tend to give honest reviews of steak places all around NYC and around the country. Lots of photos, menu descriptions, even the final check photo. These are not ads for these places, but good quality reviews. In addition to the steakhouse, there are lots of other food related links that keep you going down the rabbit hole of the site. There are tons of links to videos, recipes, general meat knowledge. I've used this site in the past for lessons for my students and for increasing my own culinary knowledge. 

 One of the unique features of the reviews is they will include steakhouses that have closed. They are highlighted in red, so you'll know. You may ask why? Why include places that are closed? Well, he explains the food really well and includes a rating. These could be helpful to see what mistakes were made resulting in the closure. As we all know, some places just close due to things not related to the food quality. Leases and expenses, health issues, other opportunities for owners, all have played a roll in closings. Its a tough biz sometimes. These past menus could give a future chef some great ideas even if not recreating the whole menu. 

 There are so many food sites and posts out there that its hard to follow what is worthy. Thanks to this site for some great content and reviews. Cheers!

Inflation or Demand?

In the past few years we have seen some dramatic increases in the price of meat. This is a general statement that most consumers would agree with, but it is a generalization with a lot of exceptions and misconceptions. Let’s look at some wholesale market prices year to year. These prices are listed on the USDA market news as well as other financial reporting sites. My research is pretty basic and some numbers could be off slightly but it gives you an idea of where the markets are trending.

Choice Beef

                             Last year     This year

Bone in Rib Eye   $9.90          $8.45

Boneless Rib         $11.07      $9.63

Brisket                   $3.74        $3.55

Striploin B/in         $6.83       $6.68

Tri tip                     $5.84       $4.10

Outside skirt          $11.90   Basically unchanged

Other cuts have gone up slightly but basically beef prices are down from last year

Chicken whole       $1.38        $1.34

Chicken in 2021 was $2.37

Pork

1/4” trim butts     $1.31      $1.39

B/o pork loin       $1.55      $1.45

Belly                   $2.74      $1.65

Pork and chicken remain very low priced at the wholesale level.

So looking at this why are prices of certain meat cuts so high in the supermarkets? Yes there are increases in trucking costs, packaging etc but some prices maintain a very high price tag, even as wholesale prices come down. Why? Because they continue to sell. It’s pretty basic capitalism, if the price goes up and people still buy it then the price is not going to go down. Some companies have made record profits in the past few years, plain and simple.

 

The same goes for foodservice. If a chef insists on using overpriced items and complains but doesn’t shop around or substitute with other cuts, then the purveyor will keep the prices high. Then the restaurant simply charges more and if the diner is willing to pay, who cares?  But an aware purchaser can work around high prices to keep menu prices level or increase profit margins. I’ve seen prices fluctuate dramatically between different purveyors. Now it is important to examine less expensive cuts to be sure they are an acceptable quality or that trim levels are similar but sticking with a particular brand may lead to overpriced items. You can call it cutting corners but if the overall quality is the same then it’s just being frugal. You can also create cuts in house by buying larger cuts and fabricating them yourself. Some require the kitchen to use the byproduct trim but not anything difficult. 

 Here are some examples;

Chef x sells pork collar. They buy it at $8.50 lb from a specialty purveyor. 

Chef y sells pork collar and homemade sausage. They buy specialty whole Boston butts for $4.25 lb.

Chef a sells pork collar and pork sliders. They buy standard commercial Boston butts from the warehouse store for $1.95 lb.

Each chef is choosing a purchase that fits their menu but they are all selling a pork collar roast which is very simply removed from the whole pork Boston butt. 

Recently I saw boneless duck breast for about $12 lb. The whole duck from the same brand was about $3.20 lb. It takes me less than two minutes to take off the legs and bone and trim the breast. Basically I get the legs, bones, giblets, fat for a super cheap price. I’ve seen the same thing for Frenched chicken breast pork racks and many more. Some basic knife skills and menu expansions can dramatically increase profits. 

 Ok so the news is inflation is out of control. Or maybe our purchasing is a little out of control  be smart and make more cash! 

Underutilized cuts? Overvalued cuts?

 

I’ve heard the term whole carcass utilization many times by many chefs and culinarians. The need to not waste any meat in a carcass is an absolute necessity in these days of higher prices. If your goal is to buy a whole animal and break it down to use every part then you need a logical plan. Although the meat industry gets a bad wrap for waste, this is exactly what they do. They break down the whole into market cuts, not leaving out any part. The dilemma for them is how to get the most value from each section. The bottom rung of the ladder is if a cut is not being sold above the market price of ground meat then grind it. But that’s not the only concern. Some cuts are so small and difficult to isolate and therefore never make it as a market cut. In the beef animal you have cuts like the pectineus, which sits on the side of the top round. It weighs no more than a pound. Or the oyster that resembles skirt steak but weighs maybe half a pound. I’ve isolated the pork brisket which is also small.. The meat packer isn’t going to isolate these, package them and market them unless there is a guarantee they’ll be sold. Their research teams are constantly looking for ways to increase value but it’s hard to justify a cut that represents one pound out of a 800 lb carcass.

 Small market local butchers can go outside the box, literally. A craft butcher at the retail level can isolate these unique cuts and suggest them to special customers for top dollar. They have the chance to sell one off items and create a desire with menu ideas. The special cut can have a placement in a showcase that can feature it in the limelight. A customer might enjoy the cut so much they may consider reserving it for the next time a whole carcass is broken down. 

 A chef in a restaurant, on the other hand, needs multiple portions of a cut to have a consistent menu. If they decide to do whole carcass then the menu may need many overlapping dishes that don’t include the specific name of the cut, such as braised beef or pulled pork, but also many more complex dishes. These and many other dishes don’t require a specific description, just a consistent presentation. This requires a knowledgeable waitstaff to explain the dish. No one needs an explanation for rib eye or rack chop but they make up a fraction of the carcass. Selling all of it equally is much more difficult. Experimenting with multiple cuts using the same basic cooking method to try for a consistent outcome is difficult and can be expensive if it doesn’t go well. An example is trying to make a thin sliced grilled item from both the top round and knuckle. Both might be tender enough but have slightly different textures or cooking times. Both require some cutting skill to trim correctly to an appropriate thickness. 

 Back to the big processors. Another phenomenon I’ve noticed is the once underutilized cuts have now gained popularity. Cuts that were once considered a step above grind are much more expensive. Examples such as inside skirt steak, boneless short ribs (chuck flap), teres major, sirloin flap (bavette) pork shanks, all are now what I consider high priced items. So where are the under priced deals? Larger cuts from the round continue to be inexpensive. Beef top round, bottom round (gooseneck), knuckle, fresh ham of pork, pork picnic, lamb shoulders, all are low priced. But these cuts present lots of marketing and cooking challenges. They tend to be tougher or overly lean. They have little name recognition or if names are used they indicate low value and quality. So what’s the alternative? The large processor can always grind. The craft butcher can cut in inventive ways or offer cooked items such as roast beef, cured ham etc. The chef/restaurant might consider looking at recipes for these cuts and finding overlapping uses, or thin slicing and quick cooking.  Using skills to entice the customer can enable the use of more of the entire animal. One thing I teach my students is there are two ways to make a menu; 1) think of the dish and buy the meat for it or, 2) look at the purveyors sheet and find the least expensive items and create a menu using that. 

 I know this is general information without being to specific and prices are always changing, but use of an entire carcass is not easy. We didn’t get into any of the byproduct but I’ll post another article about that soon.

ASF??

 So Covid 19 has certainly been a problem for the meat industry. First plants shutting down, then reopened with staff shortages. Trucking and supply chain issues are common, like any industry. But, as of this September, the prices and profit margins are up, especially for the largest processors. Farmers are not seeing the same results with worker shortages and prices for them remaining static. Meat prices have increased by over 10% from last year except in the pork sector. Pork is up too, but not as much. That could quickly change.

 ASF or African Swine Fever has been around for many years. A hemorrhagic fever, it presents in its early stages as a high fever, cough, loss of appetite and broken blood vessels in the ears. It was originally discovered in wild hog species as far back as the 1700s. Wild hogs typically will have immunity due to their being exposed to it in the past. Ticks feeding on the hogs can transmit it. Wild hogs foraging on remains of infected hogs can transmit it. Close contact can transmit it. The problem arises when domestic breeds contract the disease. They do not have the immunities that a wild animal has. This is similar to Avian Flu, where wild birds may have the disease and spread it to domestic birds with devastating effect. This hemorrhagic viral hog disease causes the pig to basically bleed out in just a few short days. Hemorrhagic fevers are the type of disease that  are easily transmitted and there are no vaccines or preventions other than culling the infected herds. The map below show the outbreaks in domestic hogs in 2018.

 

 The disease has spread dramatically into China, Vietnam as well as Eastern Europe. Being that this disease affects overbred, domestic hogs raised in confinement the results are devastating to farmers. China has had at least a dozen outbreaks resulting in losses totally over a billion dollars. Huge herds have been destroyed to contain it as of this past summer. 

 In Europe, the first cases showed up in Portugal in the 1950s and has haunted farmers for years. Tight controls and safety measures on farms have kept it at bay but it shows up year after year with some outbreaks worse than others. Most recently Belgium has had an outbreak and Germany has discovered it in wild boars. 

 Before I continue, ASF can not be transferred to humans, unlike swine flu. It is more similar to the disease that effects wild deer, EHD, Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease, which devastated some deer populations in the North East US. These diseases certainly need to be observed closely for changes in their strains. 

Back to the A S Fever. There has never been a case in the US. The amount of wild hogs and ticks in the US doesn’t bode well if it spreads here. Many farms already have some strict protocol in place to keep their pigs safe but for smaller, heirloom breed growers that want to keep their pigs outside part of the time, this could be disaster. 

Recently cases have showed up in the Western Hemisphere for the first time in over 40 years. Cases have been discovered in the Dominican Republic and Haiti this fall. The implications and results of this entering the US could result in serious problems for hog farms. The current relatively low prices for pork could possibly spike to previously unknown highs. Currently, one of the reasons prices are higher here in the US is due to our companies exporting more product to other areas, such as China. If this disease were to get a foothold here, the world may be seeing a price increases like crazy. Pork futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange will jump and someone, not farmers, will make a bundle.

 

Meat Prices Up/ Meat Quality Down

 This post is talking strictly about the large commodity meat industry and not about small local processors. In the past few months we’ve seen a steady increase in meat prices on the commodity level. Large meat processors are limiting production due to a variety of reasons, Covid related mostly. There is speculation on the farmer level that this may be intentional to drive up prices but that is not the focus of this post. but prices have certainly gone way up in a year. An example would be boneless beef striploin 0x1. Last year at this time they were $6.09 per lb. and this year $7.52, wholesale price. Before our summer break at the CIA we cut a few of these. The price was high but I found another issue. The regular Choice cuts we bought seemed to be below grade, more like Select. This is a small sample, but before the pandemic we were finding a lot of mid to high choice strips mixed in the box, some bordering on prime. Some articles are stating cattle are smaller and being pushed to market faster. Feed prices are up too, due to environmental issues. This might be pushing more cattle into lower choice level. Of course there have been some instances of cheating, such as the A.Stein case in Brooklyn where the purveyors were specifically changing the labels from Choice to Prime last year but that is certainly not common. It seems like more beef are hitting the low scores, legally. 

In this photo we see the basic range of Choice and the one on the right is what I’ve been seeing lately. Higher price, lesser quality. You can still buy mid to high Choice through one of the more expensive certified programs and be guaranteed the quality but those prices have gone even higher. A lot of that product is also being sold on the internet sales market which has grown over the pandemic. The high end internet sales bloomed as people stayed home but wanted the steakhouse quality steak and a lot of companies pivoted to those sales last year. 

 I see some similar things with the pork industry. High prices on certain items and some fairly low quality. most pork is not USDA graded so there is mainly the processors quality standard that dictates how good it is. I’m not saying quality standards have slipped but as plants become strapped for workers and places are trying to do more with less, quality seems to back slide some. I found some pretty poorly cut primals and some mushy “RSE” pork. Also, some of the pork was huge, probably a result of plants slowing down and hogs getting oversized. 

 The meat industry, as a whole, struggled through different parts of this pandemic, but some companies have certainly not been hurt financially. The higher prices and slower production have created a formula for some pretty hefty profits but as quality declines and prices stay high, people will adjust eventually and that could change everything….maybe for the better.

Cochon 555 2020 Reflection

Hello Everyone,
It’s been a while since I last posted anything here. Now that I’m stuck at home enjoying my “summer break” during this crazy crisis I thought I’d rev up my old two finger typing technique and restart this blog.
  Last Sunday, March 8th, before all the shut down on large groups in NYC and everywhere, I once again had the privilege and honour to judge and attend another Cochon 555 event at the Altman building in Manhattan. The dishes were superb, as usual, at this annual event. The chef’s creations and inventive excellence shows why the pig is a perfect nose to tail menu item. The event celebrates heritage breed pigs and its main focus over the years has been to showcase the attributes of quality heritage pork and small farmer contribution to the growing of these animals. Craft’s porchetta, Little Park’s Adobo Ribs, Hudson and Charles pressed pulled pork, Bar Boulud’s Fete du Cochon, and Almond’s Pâté almond were just some of the bites that stood out for me....and there were plenty others.
Cochon also features a whole hog butchery demo and this year featured Liz Clarke from Sullivan County Farms which delivers local meats and farm products into NYC. The pig was sold off to the attendees and some of my students assisted.

 So heritage breed is no longer a new thing in restaurants. We see it advertised on many quality trending menus. So what has changed in the pork industry overall? There are some restaurants that develop a relationship with smaller farmers and local distributors like Sullivan County. Others buy from established meat purveyors that have also brought in local or regional heritage breed pigs. Companies like Fossil Farms and Debragga and Spitler, Dartagnon, distribute very high quality pork. These mid-sized companies are where most chefs in NY find their heritage pork.
 Some bigger companies have tried to muscle in on the heritage/ high end pork market. The biggest is Smithfield/ Farmland with their Prime Pork brand which was once called Duroc Pork for the dominant breed used to create it. This pork is fed no growth promoting beta-agonists which insures more marbling etc. ( Why they grow their other pork with growth promotors is another question, and possibly another blog post later) Snake River Farms, known for their Wagyu beef, also does a high end Kurobuta pork which is basically Berkshire. These products are available nationwide and by large distributors.
  Do customers really look into where their pork is from or what it is fed? Are chefs willing to spend the extra to support local”ish” farms? I think as many customers in quality restaurants move away from a meat centric diet and eat less of it, they are willing to spend extra on something really good when they decide to eat it. The heritage breed market may have flattened out a bit but it is still strong and hopefully, once we get over this crazy virus time, we can get back to enjoying the good stuff.

The Meat Hook Brooklyn NY

  A couple weeks ago I got up early and braved the tangled roads,bridges and construction to visit with the butchers at the Meat Hook in Brooklyn. I've known about the place for a long time and been meaning to get there to see whats going on. They are located within the confines of the Brooklyn Kitchen store on 100 Frost St. Meat Hook features some amazing dry aged grass fed beef, small farm pork and poultry, unique sausages and a ton of prepared products including their own lardo, marrow butter, smoked bacons. Ben Turley was glad to show me around and explained how and where they get all their meats. The concepts of Meat Hook include absolute integrity when it comes to being able to tell their customers how and where their meat is raised. They do this without being pretentious or "preachy". Ben explained the relationship between the shop and their customers as "Here is our product. Its really good and we like it. Its kind of expensive but we understand if you don't like it or don't want to afford it." They don't scream "how can you even consider eating anything but or local product?" But their product is really good! The pork had lots of marbling, the grass fed beef had good color and some marbling and lots of intermuscular fat. The sausages were well made and loaded with flavor. The Szechuan Sausage was great and the Toasted Fennel and Garlic was a fine choice. They were making a green Chorizo called Toluca when I showed up. That one was superb. All their stuff is made in-house and not off sight unless it is made in their close-by sandwich shop location.
  The Meat Hook Sandwich Shop is about three blocks away from the main location and offers really nice large sandwiches, quality beverages, and good sides. They roast all their own meats and use locally sourced baked goods. If you find yourself in Brooklyn, head over to the shop and buy some quality grass fed steaks and then walk over to the sandwich shop and get a killer lunch sandwich.

 The Butcher Shop

100 Frost Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211
(718) 349-5032  meatmail@the-meathook.com
Monday - Saturday 10AM - 8PM, Sunday 11AM - 7PM

The Sandwich Shop

495 Lorimer Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211

(718) 302-4665 sandwiches@the-meathook.com

Monday - Saturday  11am - 9pm, Sunday 11AM - 4PM

Readings....Year of the Cow

The other day I was getting some work done on my driveway. The guy running the excavator was waiting for a load of stone and we got to talking about food. He recently bought the machinery from a small butcher shop in Hudson NY and now he and his family cut and process all of their own meat. He buys beef from a local grower and breaks it all down into meal size parts. Many people today are considering this type of purchase which goes back to a much earlier time of subsistance farming. Most are buying locally raised meat and having a small processor break it all down and package it for the freezer. Meiler's in Pine Plains does this and so do some other small local plants.
 Back in the early summer I was contacted by a publisher about a book that was just coming out, Year of the Cow by Jared Stone. Its a story of a TV producer in LA that buys a large chest freezer and then finds a farm thats producing some quality beef and buys a full steer. Its a great story of nose to tail cooking presented not by a chef but by a quality home cook. Jared loves cooking and is willing to take the time to slow down from his very hectic life and actually cook! Jared slowly cooks his way through the beef for a whole year, preparing all sorts of delicious braises, steaks, jerky and some unique offal dishes. The book is also about how his family changes the way they eat and what the effect is on their health and energy level. It as much about eating whole foods as it is about eating local. He describes his lifestyle changes and how his energy levels go up when he changes what he eats.
 I hear and read about people who want to eat local and how its the right thing to do. Many race out to their high end market or stop by a booth at the farmers market to buy some local meat. They will ask "do you have any striploin or rib eye steaks?" and then balk at the pricetag. Most people don't realize that the precentage of beef that is the recognizable high quality steaks (striploin, tenderloin, rib eye) make up only a very small fraction of the full carcass. The lrgest parts are the huge solid roast sections of the round and the complicated muscle layers of the chuck, both of which don't make the same quality level steaks as the previously mentioned. But they can be made into steaks if tenderized or used as braising slow cook steaks, which have tons of flavor but require cooking knowledge. This book gives some great ideas.
 Year of the Cow is published by Flatiron Books NY NY and can be found on Amazon for about $16. Its a quick summer read and will make you hungry.

Divide and conquer...or not?

I like a nice rib eye steak. I like it thickish and cut from the chuck side. I like it with some rich intermuscular fat (fat between the muscles) and I like it grilled at a high heat over hickory coals to give it lots of crust. I season it a day ahead with salt, pepper and chopped garlic. That fat drips down into the coals and flares up in a smoky swirl. It goes perfect with a large salad of greens out of the garden and some nice basic apple cider vinaigrette which helps cut the richness of the steak. That, and a nice glass of Montepulciano (12 bucks for the big bottle!), is a perfect steak dinner. This may be a meal I have 4 or 5 times a year. Is it healthy? I'm not sure, nor do I consider that part of it. The fat is rich but I'm not eating this everyday. I suspect the processed fat in french fries or nuggets, with its antifoaming agents, is also harmful. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mercola/whats-infast-food_b_805190.html
 Enough about what I like, lets discuss the trend in foodservice to take traditional steak cuts and divide them into smaller pieces that all seem to resemble a tenderloin medallion. We do this in class all the time. I've been teaching how to divide the top sirloin butt into medallions for the past ten years, showcasing the baseball steak and attempting to convert even the cap into medallions. ( If you are not following this here is a link) http://www.beefinnovationsgroup.com/valuecuts/sirloin/data_pdf/beefLoinTopSirloinButt-How_to_Cut.pdf This cut, traditionally, would be a large slicing steak. I still think that is a great way to cook it, with some exterior fat left on the edge.
 Another presentation is to denude the striploin and divide it in half the long way and make striploin medallions. This is a way to cut the steak thicker and not serve such a huge portion. The trouble with this is that the steaks can sometimes look like a half moon.
 We also see the rib eye being divided. This process involves taking the cap or inner deckle off and isolating the longissumus dorsi ( which is basically the same muscle that runs along the entire back of the animal and is the striploin). The problem with this is the nuscle that is isolated for medallions is conical in shape and difficult to portion into even looking cuts and the cap ( deckle) must be sold as a seperate piece. http://www.beefinnovationsgroup.com/valuecuts/rib/data_pdf/beefRibRibeyeLipon-How_to_Cut.pdf
 A big part of all this dividing thats going on is chefs wanting to serve smaller, thicker cut portions. This may make sense but there really needs to be some serious yield testing done on these. Every cut I mentioned requires a lot of trimming and denuding of fat. These, other than the tenderloin, are the most expensive cuts you can buy. Taking them apart, trimming them into "unnatural" shapes really cuts into the profits if you aren't charging enough.
 Another reason I think the beef industry likes these innovations is that beef in general has gotten larger over the years and many chefs were complaining they cannot cut a nice thick steak at a reasonable weight. This way of cutting enables the beef industry to grow monster size cuts and not worry because chefs will be cutting everything in half.
 I am not the one to suggest whether these cutting styles are a good idea or not. Chefs need to cost and experiment with these cuts to see if they are profit worthy. But don't forget fat is flavor.

Cochon 555...turns that butcher loose!!

Over the past 5 years I've been involved with the Cochon555 events that travel around the country. I typically get a bunch of student volunteers to help out at the NYC event and have helped with demos there and in Vail. If you are not familiar with Cochon check it out here http://cochon555.com/  It is an amazing competition that features five area chefs preparing five heritage breed pigs and also five quality vintners but also other great foods and distilled drinks. The chefs create numerous nose to tail menu items and their creativity is totally unleashed.
  Brady Lowe, the grand idea master who came up with this incredible party, is an advocate for locally raised and heritage breed pigs and one of the main goals has been to showcase the farmers as well as the chefs. It really is a truly great time had by all.
 There is one part of the event that trumps all others for me, and that is the butchery demo. Each event features a whole hog being cut up by a star/craft butcher. The butcher typically works with heritage breed pork on a regular basis and gets a chance to show their skill to hundreds of on lookers. This is the cool part... the hog is whole, unsplit and the butcher can cut it any way they like! So how many ways are there to cut a pig? Don't you just cut it into primals etc just like the big companies? Absolutely not. The styles I've seen at these events allow the butcher to go beyond the norm and let their culinary mind take over to create cuts that you just don't see in a supermarket or purveyor's box. The commodity pork we see presented out there doesn't follow seams or leave any fat on cuts. The breakdown doesn't take into account muscle shapes. But at Cochon they TURN THAT BUTCHER LOOSE!! and the resulting work is truly unique to that person.
 Over the years I've broken down many quality local pigs and I typically show my students the standard commercial cuts so they can recognize them when they buy it but we talk a lot about alternative methods. I've also cut pigs at my nephew Austin's after we do a slaughter. In both cases I don't use a band saw and barely use the hand saw.
 The term "artisan" butcher gets kicked around a lot. What makes a butcher artisan? All of the butchers I know or have known over the years were hardworking tradesmen or craftspeople if you must put a label on them. They cut to fill showcases or prepare meats for grind, sausage, charcuterie, salumi etc. They do it with speed and dexterity and not always thinking about "art". But on this Sunday Jan. 25th 2015, Erika Nakamura will be the artist, front and center at Cochon 555.... and I'll be watching with my glass held high!

Beef Impact Study....Not New News

 Ruminants are not efficient eaters! If you feed a pig some carbs it will put on fat and grow quickly. The same goes for chickens and most other poultry. But beef? They eat and then ferment their foodstuffs and produce all sorts of gas. They take much longer to reach full size. They drink a lot of water and the feeds they eat require irrigation, fertilizer, harvesting, storage and lots of energy! Here is an article explaining the study.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28409704 It states beef causes at least 10 times the impact on the environment than other meats. This is not really new news. The question of whether or not to eat meat is one that many people are considering today but it may come to another layer, not whether or not to eat meat but if you decide to eat it, what types have the least impact? This study shows how much less poultry and pork require much less feed and water per pound. They don't require pasture lands and can be raised in a lot of environments.
   Here are a few other things to consider. If you don't eat meat, and choose strictly a vegetarian diet what is your impact? Certainly there is a reduction in greenhouse gases and this fact is as an absolute. But how and what are you buying? How far away did your food come from? Its ironic to state you don't eat meat because of the impact on the environment but then buy olive oil imported all the way from Italy, drink wine from Chile or Spain, eat lettuce produced in California in winter, cook with chopped garlic that originated in China. What about the processed foods? Breads, crackers, boxed cereals, all packaged in plastics etc. An example is the super nutritious food, Quinoa. Its attributes are fantastic but it is grown in the high Andes Mountains. How does it get to us? Our food's environmental impact is enormous and meat is a major part of it, but we need to consider many things beyond the farming impacts. We need to consider travel and packaging.
  Back to beef....I would like to see a study on the impact of raising beef on pasture compared to grain finished. Beef raised close to the consumer, without the feedlot and the crop impacts that go along with that, in areas that can support pasture raised beef. I'll bet the impact would drop considerably. There are a lot of conflicting papers and articles on this subject. On one hand you have the conventional beef industry claiming grass fed impacts just as much as regular beef because it takes longer for cattle to reach their market weight. This may be true but they are not considering breed and pasture quality. There are breeds that will finish better on grass than others, Red Devon comes to mind. These cattle are smaller which, as a chef , I find appealing. Beef size has gotten huge in the past few years. On the other hand, studies that are designed to refute the pluses from grass feeding also come from the vegetarian side. Grass feeding impacts the planet, that is for sure, but there are different styles of grass feeding. If you finish the animal on stored "grass" which can be a number of feeds and the resulting impact will not be that much different than feedlot beef. If you use this as your model then it won't show a big difference between the two styles. Real pasture raised, where rotational grazing techniques are used, and pasture lands are sequestering a certain amount of carbon must have less of an impact than regular grain finished feed-lot beef. That just seems like common sense.
  One way or the other, ruminants are less efficient than other meats. The price of it should reflect that and often does, and therefore the consumers would naturally reduce the consumption. The problem is when we allow cheap meats from Brazil, Mexico or Uruguay that keep our burger prices artificially low and consumption high.
  The spin on this subject is well funded and passionate. Fingers are pointed and accusations are made from the vegetarian and conventional beef industry sides....but the impacts are real and consumption is increasing due to the increases in wealth in China. Here is an article that lists the amount of meat waste the world allows...http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/19/meat-dairy-waste This is a way to reduce the impact also.

NYC Local

  I'm looking for more info on this subject and the goal is to encourage all types of restaurants to consider using more local products, so please feel free to add lots of comments.
   The difficulties in serving local meats in a restaurant setting are many but certainly not overcome with some planning and changes in purchasing mindset. First we need to define local. What is an acceptable range for local? Some claim 50 or 100 mile radius but for a restaurant in NYC this may be difficult. There are farms close enough but the volume would be depleted in a day if most restaurants had a “local only” menu. So many restaurants have broadened to a regional area. Purchasing meats in NYC from the region might mean extending out to farms in Pennsylvania, western New York, New England, New Jersey, or even beyond into Virginia, Quebec, Ohio. The focus may drift from locality to the raising style of the meat and of course, price. Some of the prerequisites for “local” might be free roaming or pasture fed, maybe grass fed, or raised outdoors. Restaurants may require specific labeling such as USDA Certified Organic or NOFA, certified American Grass fed, Humanely Raised and Handled and more. Defining local is up to the restaurateur and the customer. Purchasing is another hurdle. Most small farmers that are raising meats in this style are selling their meats for top dollar in the local farmer’s market or as whole freezer orders. Many will not sell a subprimal cut let alone an individual portion cut. So how does the restaurant purchase? Some are buying the whole or half animal, breaking it down in-house. This presents problems of inequality in the types of cuts available. There is only so much Rib Eye compared to chuck cuts.
  Some purveyors have jumped in to try to satisfy the restaurant needs and this area of purchasing is growing. Examples would be Debragga and Spitler selling all grass-fed beef cuts and burgers from their sources in western NY and featuring Mangalitsa pork from NJ as well as specialty poultry from small processors in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Another quality purveyor, Pat LaFrieda, is selling some local products and is adding more. These types of purveyors are servicing the very high quality restaurants in NYC and they allow a restaurant to purchase meat in the “normal” way without having to buy a whole carcass or pick the meats up themselves etc.
   Another option is to buy from some of the smaller niche markets that focus primarily on retail sales. Places like The Meat Hook and Fleishers in Brooklyn or Saugatuck Craft Butchery in Westport, Conn. are selling cuts customized for restaurants. Many restaurants that sell local make a connection with a farm at a farmers market or off a website where they can make arrangements to either have it delivered or go and pick up directly. Restaurants typically want to feature the name of the farm on their menu so this connection can be very important.
    Many NYC restaurant menus that are featuring local meats are not necessarily 100% local. Some will approach it with a few local items such as a local burger, local chicken or duck, local pork cured products but rarely will you see a local beef striploin or tenderloin steak. There are some but many tend to run these expensive cuts as a featured item as opposed to a regular menu item. Restaurants that feature local also tend to feature meats from a distance but raised in a style that will be appealing to the same type of customers. Meats that feature a specific name brand such as Niman Ranch, Creekstone Farms, Meyer Angus, Berkwood Farms Pork, Bell and Evan’s Poultry. These are examples of quality name brands that are certainly not local but are produced in ways that might have some of the same features that the customer is looking for in a local product. Heritage breed names, feed styles or lack of pharmaceuticals in production are features that many customers will seek out, in addition to local, when considering their purchase.
   There are certainly plenty of restaurants featuring local meats but some are doing a much more comprehensive effort than others. A prime example is Gramercy Tavern where much of their meats are locally sourced. Perla is also featuring some local product and the chef has a lot of butchery skill in utilizing the whole carcass. Bill Telepan, owner of Telepan, does some local products and features lots of local pork on his menus. Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns needs to be mentioned here as well. They are strict about their local offerings and hold to their ideals that serving local is very important. But the truth of the matter is that many other restaurants claim they sell local but the menu reflects only a small portion of their meats are local if any at all. Many “talk” local but are not serious about using local products when it becomes inconvenient.
   Some restaurants are approaching the local menu idea with a different idea. In addition to their regular menu they have a small selection of “nose to tail” items on a separate menu. This gives the chef the freedom to purchase a whole carcass and make all sorts of interesting alternatives. Bar Boulud features a four item nose to tail menu featuring Raven and Boar pork, Feast features Whole Hog Mondays. The term “feast” is becoming a popular way to present a “tasting” menu with a singular meat theme. Resto and Trestle on Tenth both feature unique party menus or “feasts” that are price fixed featuring whole carcass dishes. They require you reserve a few days ahead. Blue Hill offers a summer ”feast” and they showcase seasonality as well as location.
    A good source for locating local meats is the EatWild website. They showcase a number of New York farms and the restaurants that are featuring their food.
    The solution to serving local meat is multi-layered. Flexibility seems to be the key. Being able to feature the whole carcass, especially with beef and lamb, and using all of the variety of cuts is the best way to feature local. Pork is the easiest in that it can also be sold as cured and sausage products and poultry are easy because they are small enough to be sold as whole or cut up portions. Having the staff to break it down and use everything is crucial but also having a chef to think of enough dishes to use it all is also important. The alternative is to leave it up to the purveyor to sell local in typical restaurant cuts. This is a growing area and more places are getting into it. Companies are re-evaluating their products to see if they can cash in on the local movement. An example is Leidy’s Pork from southern PA. They are not a small company compared to others but they are also not a huge conglomerate located thousands of miles away. Olymel is a huge pork producer in Quebec that sends their products around the world, or Taylor Packing Co., a Cargill owned beef processor in western PA that slaughters 4,000 beef cattle a day, can they be considered local? These are the decisions that must be made with care in the restaurant

Local Cheers and Woes

 I recently saw a special party menu featuring local beef tenderloin. Sheesh! A large party featuring over twenty beef tenderloins! That's more than 10 whole animals. What was the reasoning behind the menu idea? Many chefs today want to ride the next popular wave and create menus that will catch the customers desire to be eating what is on the cutting edge of the culinary world. The term "local" has jumped on to many menus all over the nation and beyond. Local seasonal vegetables, local free-ranged eggs, beer featuring locally grown hops, wines from local grapes all combined on to menus,
giving the customer a way to support local farmers. Meats are part of this puzzle and featuring local meats is absolutely possible and being done, even on the food truck level.
 So why did this menu irk me so much? My worry is that "local" takes on some sort of elitist tag when viewed on a menu. The last thing the local supporters and farmers want to see is their products becoming an elitist out of reach food source for restaurants.
 Here is a scenario. There's a chef running a nice bistro with and eclectic menu that they've created from experiences and travels. They look to serve local products. Why? In their travels to Spain, Italy or Hungary they found that the best food had was in small places that featured the food and wine from that area. Chefs there had a relationship with a local greengrocer or butcher and they bought through the age old practices of haggling and "working" each other for the best prices. The chef here wants to recreate that experience in the US. Do they want to put this local stuff on their menu because its trendy? The answer should be NO, they want to use the local products because they have a better flavor and they have a relationship with their farmer or purveyor.
 The hard part for a restaurant, especially when concerning the use of local meats, is two fold. First the price tends to be higher and restaurants are always struggling with profit margins. It is sooo tempting to look at the prices from a large distributor and buy pre-cleaned vegis or pre-cut meats that are ready to go and may have decent flavor. Second, buying meats from a local source often means buying a large primal or full carcass. A purveyor that sells cuts that are broken into small subprimals is most likely to not be selling truly local products or they are going to charge a fortune. They also most likely will not have enough of one cut available, especially if it is a small item such as a teres major, tenderloin, lamb loin or middle meat cuts such as striploin or rib eye. The" local only"butcher shops that I know can get top dollar for these cuts in their retail case so why would they want to sell to restaurants at a discount. My friend Kevin at Side Hill Farmers in Syracuse NY would be more than willing to let chefs know what cuts are available that are outside of the normal middle meat cuts.
 The point is if a chef wants to feature local they need to be flexible and inventive in their creations. It showcases much more skill as a chef to create a dish from a beef bottom round or lamb breast than from the middle meat cuts. These types of cuts, although, as local, they may still be more expensive than larger commercial meats, will be reasonable enough to make a good margin.
 So how would a large hotel or banquet hall present local? This may require some really inventive thinking but a chef might consider a grind product as part of the menu or appetizers. A chef might buy a half hog and make a myriad of different sausages that could compliment the meal, or provide a local burger on the lunch menu. A big operation might not be able to do the absolute local product but might consider a regional meat item. A casino in Connecticut could feature pork from a large plant in Pennsylvania rather than from a distant plant. This shows at least the spirit of local and could prove attractive on a menu. The definitions of local can vary from chef to chef.
 Personally, I think beef tenderloin lacks the flavor depth of many other cuts and it takes very little skill to roast it. To put "local" beef tenderloin on any banquet menu reeks of desperation of a chef that is trying to keep up with the "trend" of local without changing from their old mindset and in the end appearing as a food elitist, even if that wasn't the original intention.

Assorted meat dishes at The Cannibal in NYC from local sources

P.S. Local beef tenderloin sold at my friends at the Saugatuck Craft Butchery in Westport Conn. sells for $38. per lb!

Dry Aged Pork??

 Just over two months ago we started an interesting project in class, dry aged pork. My meat class teaching assistant, Dan Erne, and I took the loin of a locally raised hog and left the skin and fatback on the outside, placed it on a rack and left it next to the beef rib we were aging. The temp was about 35 -37F in about 70-80% humidity. Being on the top shelf, in front of the blower fan, allowed for good airflow and we also slathered a little rendered lard on the ends. We let it sit for 30 days and did a tasting for the class, then again at about 60 days. It was simply pan-seared with a little salt and pepper. The idea was to allow my students to really taste it without a sauce distracting. The flavor was certainly richer and full with slight undertones of that same distinct flavor that is dry aged beef. The older one started to get a little strong or musty in flavor. The result, in general, was that pork can be dry aged to improve taste.
 There are some things to consider when dry aging pork, the pork needs to be very fresh when starting. The preferred is from a whole carcass that you are breaking down but if you want to age vacuum packaged pork it needs to be as fresh as possible. The second thing is to have the skin on and any extra exterior fat. Again buying a half hog and breaking down guarantees a skin cover so if you were to age packaged pork the only choices would be either the ham or picnic. The loin is not sold skin-on commercially by any large producers.
 My nephew raises a few, various heritage breed hogs and we slaughter them in the late fall and he has a small walk-in cooler that we hang them in. We cut two of the hogs about a week later and the pork was very very good but a third hog hung for well over three weeks. This pork was outstanding.The flavor was like no other pork I've had.
 Aging pork is probably best at about 3 - 4 weeks and the fattier the pork, the better the result. A thick cut chop is guaranteed to be, by far, the best way to eat a grilled chop.  
 

Cold Shortening

This time of year you might think cold shortening is a result of men joining the Polar Bear club but it is really something else. Cold shortening is the result of chilling a carcass too soon after slaughter. Most folks don't realize the amount of things that need to take place right after evisceration to create the maximum amount of tenderness in meat.
 First I'll do my best to explain what cold shortening is without getting too technical. When an animal is slaughtered the system for transporting oxygen to the cells shuts down, obviously. This causes pumps that move adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to shut down and allow calcium ions to

bind up proteins, all at the cellular level. This is part of the process of rigor mortis. If the carcass is chilled too fast, this condition is magnified, resulting in muscle contraction that shortens muscle fibers, making the meat tougher. Think about it, when you get cold you shiver and your muscles tighten up. Its not exactly like that but sort of. Also, there are natural enzymes that kick in after slaughter to break down and loosen muscle fibers but a cold shortened muscle will remain tougher and never achieve the tenderness levels of a properly chilled carcass. Hanging a carcass allows for some muscles to be stretched which minimizes cold shortening for some muscles.
 Preventing cold shortening can present problems for a processor. To prevent it studies show that the fresh pre- rigor carcass ideally should be kept at a balmy cave like temperature of 60F 16C for about 10 - 16 hours.  A large beef plant wants to move thousands of animals through each day can't wait quite that long so many will speed up the process by applying electrical stimulation to the carcass. Zapping the fresh carcass depletes much of the glycogen energy that would allow cold shortening to happen. I saw this at a Cargill plant years ago. It was like "CLEAR" and bam, the whole side of beef twitched. Another trick is to add a calcium chloride solution into the carcass which increases the activity of the endogenous enzymes, the enzymes that break down meat when it is aged.
 The old method of slow chilling was much more haphazard. If a carcass has a lot of exterior fat, a poor yield grade 4 or 5, the carcass will naturally chill slower, resulting in more tender meat. I can remember picking out hindquarters of beef with my dad in the markets on 14th street in NYC and he would always look for the extra fatty ones. They cost us more but the quality level was always much higher so we could charge accordingly. Plus we would buy an old bull carcass for lean beef to mix in the fat trims for our grind. That meat was tough like a shoe but perfect for grinding.
 I recently talked with John Jamison from Jamison Farm in Latrobe PA and he confirmed the 16 hour rule for keeping a carcass warm for the first part after slaughter. The USDA allows him to keep the carcass at this warm temperature for longer than what is considered normal. He says the quality of the carcass is greatly increased. Most of his production is with lamb but he has experimented with lean grass-fed beef also, with great results. It is a delicate balance between tender meat and food born illness. If a processor wants to allow a carcass to chill slowly they need to be diligent in keeping the process as clean as possible.
 Another factor that can effect cold shortening is the condition of the animal when it is alive. A calm animal that has had no food for 24hrs but not starved will be less likely to have the condition than an animal that is aggravated or stressed.
 One other experiment has been done to change the muscle structures pre-rigor. We normally hang a carcass by the gambrel on the back leg. This stretches certain muscles guaranteeing they cannot develop cold shortening. But what if we hang the carcass in different positions? This would allow for the stretching of muscles typically allowed to shorten. This opens the door for small processors to do some custom things. It is very difficult for a large processor to change the way they hang carcasses because everything is geared to the chain speed and equipment used to break down everything.
 A bit of history also. Farmers that slaughtered their own meats often did it in the fall when the temperatures would range from just above freezing to about 60F. An old timer that knew what they were doing would slaughter on a warm morning and hang the carcass for a few days in the barn with the temperature slowly lowering. Perfect condition for tenderizing.
 A friend of mine shot a deer this fall just when the weather turning a little warm. He typically hangs it for about a week before I cut it for him. He was worried about the warm temps and I told him to relax, he did and so did the muscle structure of his deer. It was one of the most tender wild caught meat I've ever worked with.
 So as the temperature once again plummets this week keep in mind not to cold shorten, leave that to the polar bears.

COOL or Fool

COOL....Country Of Origin Labeling.  In late November the FDA implemented a new rule that states any whole muscle meat item must declare where it originally came from. Simple right? You walk into a market or you are ordering ground beef for your restaurant and you simply say I'd like US grown beef and there it is on the label. WHOA! Hold your horses! ( that's another topic!) This law only applies to "whole" muscle cuts. Any processed meat does not require the labeling. Any ham, bacon, bologna, hot dog, breaded meat, seasoned meat, sausage, etc does NOT require any sort of origin labeling. Ground beef does require a COOL label but if the meat is processed in any way, such as precooked or seasoned, it does not.
 Both Canada and Mexico are fighting this new law because they believe it violates free trade agreements. We've been buying a lot of meat from both of those countries for a long time and most consumers would never know it. In fact we've been buying a lot of meat from other countries. Here is a quote from the USDA web site "U.S. beef imports in 2012 totaled 2.22 billion pounds, or nearly 8 percent higher than in 2011. Imports were stronger year over year from Australia (+45 percent), New Zealand (+8 percent), Mexico (+56 percent), and Uruguay (+39 percent). Australia and Canada supplied the largest imports of beef to the United States, at 655 and 537 million pounds. Among the remaining top beef exporters were New Zealand (495 million pounds), Mexico (242 million pounds), and, jointly, Central American countries (Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Honduras at 140 million pounds)." 2.2 billion lbs.!! And this is just beef, we also are seeing some huge hog farms in Mexico and that country's exports are growing.  This is big business and some large processors stand to lose some market share if the law stands. We also export a lot of meat to those countries.
 But who is losing if this law goes away? Well the law potentially helps cattle growers here in the US; those hard working ranchers that have been hit by a number of tough conditions over the last few years. Droughts in Texas, freak cold snaps and snow like in South Dakota this fall, floods like in eastern Colorado, all part of our meat supply. Large meat processors would rather hedge against our cattle growers by importing 2 - 3% of the meat they process. Many large companies are fighting this law and state that it is unnecessary government regulation. Their statements claim food safety laws in Canada and Mexico are fine and we don't need to worry about meat imports. Here is an article in the online publication Stitata about the use of the Beta-Agonist Clenbuterol found in Mexican meat....... "Consumption of clenbuterol contaminated meat has caused 56 cases of clenbuterol poisoning in the municipality of Tlahuelilpan. The cases were treated promptly and all recovered. In order to prevent a wider contamination, officials seized 72.5 kg of meat. Clenbuterol is a drug that is used to treat asthma. In some formulations, it increases the creation of muscle and is sometimes used to increase the muscle mass of animals such as cattle, pork or sheep. Clenbuterol residue remains in the body for a long time (months) after consumption and can affect lung and heart function." There is a lot of corruption and looking the other way when it comes to regulations in Mexico but this type of abuse of chemicals is a concern globally! The Canadians aren't without scandals as well. Here is an article about E-Coli tainted product headed for the US. http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/10/01/canadians-kept-in-the-dark-for-two-weeks-over-tainted-meat-scandal-liberals/   Even in our own meat supply we find things that need to be addressed so how can we, as a nation, allow meat from other countries without at least giving the public a heads up?
  But this law only regulates a portion of the meat brought into the US. All of the processed , value added meat does not need labeling. So if a giant pork company like Shuanghui, which now owns Smithfield, processes pork into value added hams, they do not require a country of origin labeling. Chinese produced pork could be sold in the US as a Smithfield product. This company was also caught abusing beta-agonists and yet our lawmakers determined that it would hurt our economy if we further regulate. What is to stop multi-national companies from shipping whole carcasses out of the US and processing them overseas and bringing them back as US product, even under the existing law? Nothing!  In reality further regulation would only hurt the bottom line of a foreign company. All of the fast food burgers sold in the US do not require any label about country of origin because the meat is cooked.  Our US processing plants and the workers in them are effected by this and we need to seriously consider COOL for all meat products. The law isn't stopping companies from bringing in the meat...it simply identifies the sources so that chefs and consumers can make their own decisions. Only a fool wouldn't agree with COOL.

Round, Rump and Sirloin

US Style 

  I recently had a student from Australia and we were going over the beef primal and subprimal cuts in class. It gets complicated enough for my US students and they sometimes struggle to memorize every cut but this guy from Australia was at a further disadvantage. In England or any country that is influenced by it such as Australia or New Zealand, beef is cut differently than in the US and the names for each cut are not the same either. Many of the English terms don't exist in the US. In fact around the world we find different cultures dividing meats in a variety of separation points on the carcass. In this article I will attempt to explain some of the English cuts and compare them to the US style. I'm not sure why, here in the US, we strayed from the English cutting styles but it might date back to early times when we rejected many English traditions after our war for independence.

  Here is a short list of cuts that are "translated" from English.

English Style

I'll list the US style first followed by the English.
Top Round = Topside
Bottom Round = Silverside
Shank = Leg
Knuckle = Thick Flank
Top Sirloin = Rump
Foreshank = Shin
Striploin = Sirloin
Export Rib = Fore rib and part of striploin
Plate = Thin Rib ( sort of )

The confusion between the two cutting styles happens when certain terms are used for different cuts. The most confusing is the difference between the striploin and the sirloin. The US striploin is often cut into the very popular NYstrip steak. In England it is known as the sirloin and cut into sirloin steaks. The trouble with that is in the US we have a different cut known as the sirloin from which we cut sirloin steaks, more specifically, top sirloin steaks. Very confusing....especially for those who travel or need to purchase meats for restaurants in other countries. I often see menus here in the US featuring a grilled "sirloin" or NY "sirloin" when what is actually being sold is the striploin. This may be the result of  Our US sirloin is known as the rump in England. The rump is used for steaks or roast there but here in the US we find a "rump" roast. More confusion...the rump roast here is actually the thicker end of the bottom round! In Canada the cuts are fabricated the same as here in the US but we find instead of using the term "round" for the back leg, they use the term "hip". All the rest of their terminology is exactly the same as here in the US.
  An excellent resource for researching the different beef and other animal cuts from around the globe is a book written by Howard Swartland, published by Nottingham University Press called Meat and Muscle Cuts. But the only way to really get a feel for how meat is divided and named in another country is to go and see it done in a butcher shop or processing plant.

To Wash or Not To Wash

 The other day I had a group of students start their class day by opening a few beef shoulder clods that were in vacuum bag. I was in the class, away from the sink where they were opening. I walked out to find them rinsing the beef off with cold water. I immediately called everyone together to explain why this was a bad idea. I asked why they were doing it and the response was "I thought it was making the meat safer".
 The idea of washing meat is certainly not a new one. For years home cooks were told to wash poultry and that would make it less likely to make their family ill. Many an unscrupulous restaurateur has rinsed chicken that is starting to turn with a mixture of salt water and lemon juice, jeopardizing the safety of their customers simply to save a few bucks. Deer hunters have often hosed off their catch to remove excess hair after removing the hide. But would it be normal to see someone rinsing off a steak or chop?
 Back to the rinsing of fresh poultry. A large percentage of chicken or turkey will have some bacteria pathogens on its surface. Does rinsing it off in your kitchen sink remove that bacteria? The reality is rinsing basically spreads the bacteria further around the kitchen as it drips. But that's not to say when you open a poultry bag that you can't rinse off the excess juices to slightly freshen the bird. That may be something you do for flavor reasons but it does not reduce the bacteria counts and should be done with caution to be sure not to cross-contaminate the whole area. It is always wise to wash down the area with soapy water with a cap of bleach in it. Here is a short article on the problem with rinsing. ( it also has a great old clip of Julia Child ) http://consumerist.com/2013/08/26/quit-washing-your-chicken-it-just-sprays-germs-everywhere/

  What about red meat? If an item is stored in a vacuum bag for a few weeks it will purge out liquids that resemble blood. The purge will surround the meat and when the bag is opened the user will be tempted to rinse it. Red meat should never be rinsed. It dilutes flavor and is certainly not needed. Red meat is better trimmed as opposed to rinsed. Removing a thin layer of the fat and exterior membranes will be enough to clean it.
 On the much larger level, how are processors rinsing meat products? Almost all meats are rinsed at some stage in their production. For poultry, birds are stunned, bled and then dipped into hot water to loosen their feathers. The feathers are then plucked off by machines. Needless to say the birds are not clean at this point. The birds are then eviscerated and finally chilled. All of this process is very fast, just a few minutes from start to finish. At the chilling stage most birds are dipped into an ice water bath. Poultry companies have rinses that are applied along the way to reduce pathogens, primarily Salmonella and Campylobactor. The rinses in the past contained elevated chlorine counts but recently there are different products that are now used. An article in the Washington Post explains the process modern poultry companies are using http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/chemicals-might-be-distorting-chicken-safety-test-results/342/  Today we see less chlorine and more peracetic acids and cetylpyridinium chloride (also found in mouthwash). This is what chicken and turkey companies are doing to reduce pathogens.
 What are beef companies doing to clean their carcasses? The major scare for beef is strains of E-Coli and the prevention starts with washing the carcass with very hot water before the hide is taken off. After evisceration the split carcass is either washed with hot water and steam again or sprayed with a mild lactic acid. These pasteurizing methods are effective, especially for beef of higher quality that is then chilled for a day or two.

 But the truth about cleaning is meat is going to have pathogens. Sure we can say animals should be kept in cleaner environs before heading to market and they may help but bacteria loves meat and the way to control it is always proper handling and cooking.
 

Teachable Tasks

Butcher?? In the old European systems of teaching this and other trades, students were immersed in
the craft as apprentices. They spent their time helping with the very basics, never touching the very expensive end of the craft. Time was spent cleaning, prepping, or simple tasks that wouldn't require much skill. There was always lots of repetition, doing a task many, many times to achieve accuracy.  It took a few years to move from apprentice to journeyman where the student was considered competent and could move from job to job with their craft, knowing they brought a specific skill set. They would continue learning, observing various styles that their own original master may not practice. Finally the journyman could become a master by showing their skills and passing tests in front of their peers. Once a master, they could start their own business with an understanding by creditors and customers that this person has the skills to succeed.
 In many restaurants or in many modern meat cutting situations it certainly does not require the skills of  the old style master butcher. The old masters were versed in live animal selection, slaughter techniques and offal cleaning. Those skills today wouldn't be necessary in most artisanal shops or a restaurant that purchases entire carcasses. A smaller shop that buys full carcasses would need a complete skill set to know how to maximize the yield and what to do with each cut. A restaurant that buys the whole animal would require someone that knows how to make it work into quality portions. A modern day "master" may be someone who understands butchery and cutting skills and has a complete knowledge of all of the bone structure and natural seams. They would understand the yield possibilities of the entire carcass.
 But in the modern era of meat being cut into subprimals, or even further, into pre-portioned cuts, back at processing plants, what skills do we still need to teach? What reasons are there for a retailer or restaurateur to cut any meat? Does it make sense to spend time valuable labor on something that can be purchased already done? These are questions chefs and retail managers need to answer for themselves. I have my own views on this subject but mine are tainted by the fact that I already have the skills and have been breaking down full carcasses for years. So here are some pros and cons of cutting in house as opposed to buying pre cut.

 Cons:

• Labor costs 
• Space to produce the product
• Space to store all the cuts
• Skill level of staff
• Equipment required
• Food safety

Pros:

• Cost savings
• Whole muscle cuts
• Custom creative options
• Advertised on menu or price list
• Teachable tasks

An example of a teachable simple task would be cutting a boneless 0x1 striploin into portion steaks. I never understand why any restaurant would purchase these as portion cuts. It takes no more than 10 minutes to trim the fat, remove some connective tissues and slice the individual portions and the typical savings by doing this in house are 10 to 20 %. The same goes for beef tenderloin. Very basic fabrication and not only that, a lot of tenderloin pre-cut portion cuts are bonded together using transglutiminase so they aren't true whole muscle cuts. The task of trimming basic sub-primals into portion cuts not only saves money in many cases but also creates a sort of pride by the cutter. The chef that cuts their own steaks will have more pride in that product.
 So what about the whole carcass? Is breaking down an entire beef side a teachable task? This is more debatable. This requires a lot more skill and some serious time. Beef is the most difficult when it comes to whole carcass use. If no band saw is present it requires a lot of difficult handsaw work. We do the side of beef in class and "bench break" the entire thing on a table but it is no easy task. Beside the physical work involved, there is also the matter of a lot of extra fat and trim that needs to be used in balance to the valuable steak cuts.
 Pork on the other hand is much more logical for in house butchery. A half hog can be broken down in just minutes. All of the parts can be used including the fat and many cured products can be made. Even if some errors are made during the breakdown, extra trim can be used for sausage or terrines.
 A lamb carcass is relatively easy but again the use of each cut must be balanced. There is a lot more leg and chuck meat in comparison to the rack and loin chops.
 A lot of the cutting tasks we might consider are visible on You Tube. I've used many clips as a study guide in class and the fact that you can show someone how to do a cut over and over is very helpful.
  All considered, there are many teachable meat cutting tasks that are ignored in many restaurants and retail stores and if the chef or manager would apply them they may find an increase in value.
 

pH and Heat = PSE Meat

Mangalitsa with slight PSE condition

Michael Clampffer, known for his superb Mangalitsa pigs and very fine cured products, asked me a question the other day. He had been experiencing a touch of PSE in a few of his pigs and was wondering why it was occurring. They were handled very well and did not travel far for slaughter. For those who don't know, PSE stands for Pale Soft and Exudative and is basically an imbalance in the pH level in the meat, making it a pale color and very watery, jello-like texture. Its cousin, RSE is basically the same thing but without the paleness (Red Soft Exudative). These conditions usually exist in over-lean pigs that are typical in a large production farm system and also where pigs might be stressed. The condition is also associated with the use of feed supplements such as Paylean but that is another article already discussed in this blog. Here is an article by Dr. Temple Grandin's on the subject  http://www.grandin.com/meat/pse.html

examples of pH values and related water loss

  So why were Michael's pigs, which are fat and happy, living in wallows and eating a varied diet basically free from stress, getting this condition? My suspicion is heat. Currently in the Northeast we are experiencing a heat wave caused by a blocking pattern known as a Bermuda High. Temperatures have been in the nineties everyday but that is only part of it. It is very humid as well. This can put a strain on the pigs but if they have cooling wallows, such as those found where these Mangalitsa are raised, they will be just fine. But the hot weather also puts a strain on refrigeration and this could result in the thickly fatted sides not getting chilled fast enough. I'm not sure of the temps at the slaughter house where Mike is taking his hogs but I do know that my days of owning a restaurant and dealing with walk-ins in summer were always challenging. If pork is not chilled rapidly, PSE can be the result.
  Another issue might be the conditions for the pigs while waiting in a holding pen. Most large hog plants have a sprinkler system that cools the pigs and keeps them from being agitated, which is another cause of PSE. Stress before slaughter is a major problem with pork quality. But Mangalitsa are not normally prone towards stress and the people handling them were all experienced. So maybe the walk-in is having trouble chilling rapidly due to the humidity, maybe the hogs are just a lot warmer before and during slaughter, but whatever the cause the real question is what to do with the lower quality meat.
 The large processors deal with PSE on a regular basis. About 10 to 40% of large farm hogs will result in various levels of PSE depending on the season and genetic background of the herd. So what do they do with all that lower quality pork? Here is a web site that gives ideas of what can be done. http://www.pork.org/filelibrary/Factsheets/PorkScience/Q-UTILIZATION%20OF%20PSE04671.pdf  This article discusses how processors can utilize PSE with some success. The use of phosphates to make the meat more palatable has been done to pork products for many years but for a small niche market high end producer like Michael, this is probably not an acceptable alternative. But the article also explains how if salted correctly PSE pork can be successfully aged and dried. It doesn't go into specifics and I think it would be up to the processor to figure out the subtle differences in recipe or drying techniques that would lead to a quality dry cured product.
  Another option is to make sausage. As long as the pork is not being used in a fragile dry cured sausage where water content is crucial, it can be used for most fresh or cooked sausage recipes, especially if mixed with non-PSE pork trimmings.