The Independent has a terrific article today – Beef Encounter – Meet the master taster who can tell a cow’s age, gender and breed from one mouthful.
Best description of the way beef tastes and why it tastes differently. Laurent Vernet of the University of Bristol, is a master beef taster who describes how the cow’s breed, age, sex, location, along with amount of dry aging affects the taste of beef. He’s talking about dry aging of course not wet aging which is now the common practice in North America. Instead of being matured by microbes for 46 days, the optimum age according to British experts, wet aged beef ages in its own juice in cryovacs. Dry aged beef is more expensive, tastes infinitely better…
Laurent maintains that beef preferences depend on each individual. Young beef is juicier which some people prefer. 21-day aged beef has a malt vinish, the 46-day steak is ” firm and bitter, even like liver.”
Preferences vary worldwide. The Italians prefer mild tasting steak. Not far away diners in Bordeaux want “in your face” flavour. ”
“North America… tends to favour juiciness, sweetness and the taste of fat, which comes from being used to animals fed on grain, usually natural grain like maize. England is similarly conservative on the whole. New Zealand, for example, loves to include the flavour of apple in their meat artificially but that wouldn’t go down well here.”
At Bristol University, Vernet started discovering subtle effects on beef like, for instance, the fact that “stressed” meat (an animal suffering any sort of pain or discomfort prior to being put down) has an excessively sweet flavour and squeaks against your teeth like polystyrene.
Vernet analyzes how sex affects three different steaks. ” The first has a slight metallic taste, which I learn is due to female hormones, while saltiness in the second steak points to the animal being a bull. Both have a distinct sourness (in a good way), which is typical, apparently, of younger animals, especially in the spring when they are full of hormones.
“The third is quite different. Not only are the fibres a brighter red, but there’s a milky flavour. And when you chew, the texture is almost like the soft back of leather.” Surprise, it’s an old cow, 7 years, kept young because she’s breeding.
For more on fat in beef, cooking steak, go to Independent.co.uk./Beef Encounter
