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By Root 367 0

that are black and hornless, and so sleek in summer as to appear brushed with pomade. These animals were not raised to pull plows or carts or to turn the grass they grazed into butter and cheese that could be sold. They were raised to be eaten. Local Scots gave them endearing names, some calling them doddies—“dodded” meaning that they had no horns—while farther north, they were known as hummlies. Since Roman times, the cattle have been grazed on the marginal pastures that grow on the thin layer of soil draped over the immovable Highland rock. They were raised by herders who, like the American cowboys their descendants would become, drove big herds to better pastures where they became fat, then herded them south to market. Centuries before the railways laid their web of parallel iron over Britain, sleek black cattle born on the North Sea were eaten as far away as London.

In time, Bakewell’s breeding techniques made it to Scotland. Farmers began picking out the fattest doddies and breeding them and inbreeding them. Eventually, they found themselves with cattle that were walking monuments to beefiness, with thick shoulders, ample rumps, and meaty loins. They came from the neighboring shires of Aberdeen and Angus, and they became known as the Aberdeen-Angus breed.

The cattle formerly known as doddies are today Scotland’s most famous export. More than any Scottish export—haggis, bagpipes, tartan, shortbread—the world loves Angus steak. Only Scotch whisky has achieved a similar level of transcultural penetration, though it is not consumed in the same quantity—most of the time, anyway—or by as many people. Steak bearing the Angus brand is for sale in more than sixty countries, including Egypt, Singapore, Thailand, Peru, Panama, Lebanon, Haiti, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Oman, Spain, the Marshall Islands, Guam, Russia, and China, and there is at least one brand of dog food that contains Angus beef: Alpo Chop House Filet Mignon Flavor. Angus steak is, by reputation, the best going. The worldwide faith in a single true breed sprang from the green and rain-soaked earth of Scotland. In the world of steak, Scotland is Jerusalem.

There I was, standing in a barn in steak’s Jerusalem, watching as semen was collected from a pedigree bull, noting to self that the locals indeed take their cattle seriously. Jim Cameron’s intimacy with cattle is not merely a professional occupation. His favorite food is steak, and he reckons he eats beef once a day, at the very least. When he goes out for dinner with his wife, he orders steak without so much as looking at the menu. He used to eat more steak than he does now, but Cameron, like other Scottish steak lovers, feels the quality isn’t what it used to be.

Cameron has crouched under an aroused bull to intercept semen more than sixty thousand times, which amounts to more than ninety-five gallons of bull semen—enough to fill two claw-foot bathtubs. Each batch is put on ice and sent by Royal Mail special delivery to a sperm bank in Devon, where it is stored in liquid nitrogen for up to forty years inside tiny glass straws. The straws are sent all over the world to customers who inject the contents into the uteruses of cows in heat. Cameron’s first-ever semen collection took place in 1974 on a bull named Horoscope of Upsall—a shorthorn. Since then, he has amassed twenty-five artificial vaginas. Some he pumps up with air, to create a tighter and, presumably, more pleasurable fit. Others have soft sides, allowing him to modulate tightness with his grip. Some artificial vaginas are made in Britain, but Cameron says the best come from France, and if a Scot says this, it must be true. The very first artificial vagina he bought was French, and it is still in rotation.

It was still morning when Roundhill Cramses and Haltcliffe Braveheart had given up all the semen they would that day, an amount exceeding 20 milliliters. Cameron and I stepped outside the office and chatted. I asked him if he could remember the best steak of his life. Cameron, whose Scottish pride is more durable than Highland granite, wishes he