Steak - Mark Schatzker [50]
Gray-haired Scots can remember a time when every main street in every Scottish city and village had its own butcher shop. The butchers knew their customers by name, and they knew quality meat. Those days are gone. Scottish foodies now speak of the few remaining butchers as if they were a species on the verge of extinction. A good butcher does not flog meat on Styrofoam trays. A good butcher, McHattie told me, will explain that an Angus cow will give you marbled flesh and a thick layer of back fat—the same fat surrounding that legendary strip loin Jim Cameron ate in Wales—which insulates the steak inside from bacteria-ridden air and allows it to hang in a cold room and dry-age for a month, maybe longer, which makes the meat more tender and more delicious. (Supermarket steaks in Scotland age for as few as four days.) But if you run the meat department at a big British supermarket and want bright red four-day-old steaks to sell on Styrofoam trays to fat-phobic customers—customers who will nevertheless consume raging numbers of calories in the form of French fries, potato chips, chocolate bars, and soft drinks—you do not want steaks from an Aberdeen-Angus cow. You want anything but. Not surprisingly, though it sure struck me as a surprise, Angus cattle now make up a mere 14 percent of the Scottish herd.
Even that number represents an improvement. Back in the 1960s, cattle from France, Germany, and Italy—which are bigger, leaner, and grow faster than British cattle—became trendy with Scottish farmers. In no time, these “continentals” dominated the Scottish beef herd, and the Angus breed entered a long, lean winter, its popularity declining so precipitously that it nearly qualified as a rare breed. The society’s walnut bookcase tells the sad story. From the end of the nineteenth century, the herd books get progressively fatter, but then abruptly begin to grow thin until they reach the point of emaciation, as though stricken by some exotic disease.
Today, the most popular cattle breed in Scotland hails from the same country as the most popular artificial vaginas in Scotland: France. The breed is Limousin, and they are big and brown and have rear ends so plump that from behind you could mistake one for a hippopotamus. Roundhill Cramses, it so happens, is a Limousin, as are Haltcliffe Braveheart and Big Al. Despite numerous phone calls, during the week I spent in Scotland I wasn’t able to find anyone who was harvesting semen from an Angus bull.
I left Pedigree House full of questions. What did a real, 100 percent Angus steak taste like? Was it even possible to find such a steak any lo nger in Scotland? And if not, would the airline be willing to refund my ticket?
Then again, what was I actually missing? McHattie handed me a stack of brochures to read along with a journal called the Aberdeen-Angus Review. The cover featured a big Angus bull exhaling smoke and a cover line that said, “The King of Cattle Continues to Reign Supreme” (best said in that slow ultra-deep voice that announces motorcycle shows and pro wrestling matches on classic rock radio stations). Between its glossy covers, I expected to find story after story proclaiming the superior deliciousness of the breed, backed by scientific proof, celebrity chef testimonials, and maybe a quote or two from Prince Charles, who has his own herd of doddies.
Not a one. There were stories of prizewinning bulls and heifers, updates on the breed’s economic progress (“Angus Females in Demand”; “Bavarians Keen to Buy Aberdeen-Angus”; “New DVD Will Drive Home the Aberdeen-Angus Message to Suckler Herd Owners”), and a lot of ads, a high percentage of which promoted semen from bulls who have shown unsurpassed growth rates. One raved about a bull that was among the heaviest ever at four hundred days. The brochures extolled this “low-cost” breed that “demands a premium.” So far as I could tell, there wasn’t so much as a word about flavor or tenderness or juiciness.
McHattie suggested I contact an organization called Quality Meat Scotland. When I did, the woman who answered