I'm not sure if I've ever had it before. I've certainly heard of older dairy cattle being sold as meat, but I thought it was generally at an extreme discount where they're slaughtered quickly and not necessarily finished in any way. Apparently in some parts of the world, retired dairy cattle are well fed to provide a different kind of beef than has a different flavor and texture that some consider better than typical beef cattle that are raised to be slaughtered at a younger age. Apparently it may not be as tender and some of the cuts traditionally used as steak are too tough, but then they might have those ground or for stewing.
www.sfchronicle.com
California chefs want to serve old cows at their high-end restaurants. Here’s why
Old, “retired” dairy and breeder cows are in-demand for flavor and sustainability.
About five years ago, Oliver Woolley, who runs the farm Peads & Barnetts near Yosemite, ate a steak that blew his mind.
He was back visiting friends in his native England, dining at a celebrated restaurant in Cornwall. The steak came from an old dairy cow that had been raised in Galicia, Spain, where it’s become a known culinary pursuit for farmers to take dairy cows who are done producing milk, feed them really well, slaughter them, then age and deliver the beef to chefs at acclaimed restaurants.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” Woolley said, recalling the intense, buttery flavor. “It was completely different from any beef that I had in the U.S.”
Now, it’s a flavor Woolley and a handful of other Californians are trying to recreate, grazing “retired” dairy and old beef cows and selling steaks to high-end restaurants including the Progress and Birdsong in San Francisco. Considering all the dairies in California, said Woolley, “I just thought, why can’t we have that here? Where does all of that beef go?”
Paul Chung, the culinary director at Saison Hospitality, which runs the restaurants Saison and Angler in S.F. and Los Angeles, has served pasture-raised retired dairy cow beef for five years. He believes the quality of fat in an older cow is much higher than that of Wagyu or USDA Prime beef. “The first thing you notice is the cap on the (beef’s) fat is darker yellow from being on a grass-fed diet for their entire lifetime,” he said. Yet he acknowledges that the American beef industry — and therefore American consumers — still valorize younger cows with excessive fat marbling.
