Meat

Chicago is a meat town. Everybody knows that, but in Chicago, people actually talk about meat. Back home in Berkeley, no one discusses the pleasures of carnivorism. We all are too intimidated by the super hipness of vegetarianism.

I don’t like to think of myself as some stupid sheep who follows trends instead of setting my own style, but I avoid those pariah “what-are-you-doinghere” looks. I’ve always eaten meat, but I’ve never talked about it. If I did, I might be ostracized, and if I don’t belong to a group, who am I? Here in Chicago, they write articles about butchers, guides on how to buy the best meat, poems to rare lamb chops. None of that could be written in California. Because western meat isn’t very special, no one rhapsodizes about it. More to the point, though, it is simply unhip to like meat in California.

Now I can have my life both ways. I have all those years of Berkeley iconoclasm and pioneering to shore me up. Although it is unpleasant to be stared at by the neighbors, it is very pleasant to incorporate my Berkeley styles with such Chicago institutions as looking at interesting buildings and eating good meat.

The meat in Chicago is good. Last week, I splurged and bought steak for us. In Berkeley, I wouldn’t even have bothered. Here, when I buy meat, I buy the best. Since the best costs more, I’m actually buying less meat than I did in Berkeley. See? I’m making excuses for myself again.

Meat is graded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture: prime, choice, good, standard, commercial, utility, cutter, and canner for beef; prime, choice, good, standard, utility, and cull for veal; prime, choice, good, utility, and cull for lamb. Pork is graded numbers one, two and three.

Whatever grade the meat is graded, it is stamped in a shield on the non-red parts of the carcasses in purple ink. The meat also has circular federal inspection stamps, which show that the meat has been inspected for wholesomeness.

Although federal grades are called “quality” grades, they refer to tenderness of the meat, not to the quality of its protein — that is to say its healthfulness. All inspected meat is potentially equally nourishing, so tenderness is a luxury.

The different grades of beef have their own special uses. As far as I know, only the first four grades are sold retail. (I’ve only found standard beef in one supermarket, but I’ll bet that it is easy to find standard meat in butchers in poor neighborhoods.)

Despite what butchers boost, I use prime beef only for broiling, roasting and sauteeing. I don’t see any reason to buy a prime piece of meat to pot roast. Proper pot roasting tenderizes anything. Because I’m fairly affluent and shop at middle class markets, I buy only prime and choice meats. There is nothing wrong with “good” beef for pot roasting, but there is no way to get a good “good” steak. “Good” steaks are tough. Standard beef has a texture that disturbs me, but when it is chopped or ground, the texture doesn’t show anyway.

If you decide that you want to try exceptional meat at least once this year, get out the phone book and find a butcher that sells prime beef. When you go there, ask him again if his beef is really prime beef. If you have any doubt at all, ask him to show you the prime seal on the cut of meat you want. If he can’t do it, don’t spend your money there. There may be some legitimate reason for his reluctance to show you the prime seal, but at the prices you will be paying, you can’t afford to take chances.

Ask the butcher how long they hang or age their beef. Ideally, they should age beef from four to six weeks. Some people like the flavor of meat which is much fresher — aged only a week — but I like the flavor of aged beef, and find that it is tenderer. (By the way, kosher beef is never aged.)

Now that you know the beef is prime, look carefully at it. The meat should be red — not dark red, not pink, just red. Any fat should be cream colored. The bones should be reddish. If the bones are very white or yellow, the steer was old and tough when it was killed. The cut of meat should be marbled throughout with a fine cobweb of fat. Thick marbling also means an older animal.

Prime beef is from young steers. The lower grades are from older animals. As the grades go down the scale, there is less marbling, or the marbling is in very thick streaks through the meat. The color of the meat is darker in the lower grades, the grain of the beef is coarse, and the fat may have a yellow or grayish color.

If the meat has even a small puddle of liquid around it, don’t buy it, Red liquid probably means that the meat has been frozen and thawed. That is a no-no. (The exception is organ meats, expecially liver, which always lie in a pool of blood.) If there is a puddle of any other color around the meat, assume that the meat is spoiled.

Unless you live in the Midwest or East, your chances of buying exceptional meat are small. If you are very rich, you can order steaks sent to you from Chicago butchers. Pfaelzer, 4501 West District Blvd., Chicago, and The Stockyards Packing Company, 340 North Oakley Blvd., Chicago are the only mail order beef houses I know, but I’ve never eaten their meat. They do have good reputations. Other mail order butchers are advertised in magazines which cater to people With extra money. (Try Gourmet and The New Yorker:) Just be sure that they sell prime meats and that they guarantee perfect delivery.

Since prime beef is an occasional splurge for me, I cook it plainly so that I can taste it. That means I broil it or roast it without any sauces, although I may serve a sauce separately to make the presentation look more elaborate. If I ate prime beef more often, I suppose I would be less respectful with it.

I roast beef at 350 until it registers rare or medium rare on a meat thermometer. I always use a meat thermometer. How else can I know what’s happening inside the roast? And it is because I like rare juicy beef that I buy prime. Only the highest grades are chewable at the rare stage.

When I am broiling steaks, I make sure that they are at least an inch thick. Thinner steaks dry out too easily. I put the steaks on a preheated broiling rack in a preheated broiler about two or three inches from the heat, and I broil them until they are browned at the edges but the insides are still pink. There must be a more elegant way to test steaks, but I just cut into one to see how it’s doing.

Thin steaks and small pieces of meat are sauteed. Sauteeing keeps the pieces juicy and provides a simple sauce. I use a cast-iron pan, a cast aluminum, or an enameled cast-iron pan because these are heavy enough to take very high heat without melting or warping.

I usually coat the pan lightly with a mixture of half olive oil and half butter, and then heat the pan until the fat is very hot and very liquidy. Fat gets thinner the hotter it gets. If the fat starts to smoke, it is breaking down, losing some of its coating capacity, and becoming unhealthy.

When the fat ripples when it is stirred, I throw in the meat and cook it lightly on all sides. If the heat is high enough, the outside will be nicely browned while the inside of the meat is still pink. The only trick is to make sure that the meat isn’t crowded in the pan or it will steam and stew in its own juices.

If I want a sauce for the meat, all I have to do is remove the meat and the cooking fat from the pan, pour in a little wine, brandy, whiskey or clear soup stock, and simmer the liquid until it is syrupy, scraping up the coagulated juices and pieces of meat from the bottom of the pan. This is called deglazing. If I feel like it, I may add a pinch or two of tarragon or some other dried herb, but usually 1 just grind in some pepper. Because the sauce is so concentrated, it rarely needs salt. Then, depending on my mood, I either stir in just enough cream to make a translucent whitish-brown sauce, or I stir in a lump of butter about the size of a stunted walnut. The whole sauce takes less than five minutes.

That is the end of the cooking lesson for today. While you are splashing cognac sauce over your fillet, practice saying “I am an omnivore. Meat eating is a primal instinct. I’ve got my rights.” Tell it to a friend. $8^*