Real beef
posted on 28 Aug 2009 by maki ::
15 comments
As opposed to the previous post, this is about real meat.
First, I got an email from one Tony McNicol, a Tokyo based photographer and journalist (he’s originally from the UK). On his site, he has several fascinating photo essays depicting some off-the-beaten-track slices of Japanese life. One of them is about Kobe beef, which is a very special (and expensive) kind of beef.
[Kobe Beef, June 2009 - Images by Tony McNicol. Used with permission.]
Kobe beef is (as Tony says) not just wagyuu, and it doesn’t mean beef from the city of Kobe. It is beef from a particular kind of cow, in a particular place, in a special way. Only about 2000 of these specially raised cows are slaughtered every year, and it it sold at retail (if you can get a hold of it) for $500 a kilo.
Read more about Kobe beef on his blog, and check out his portfolio here.
Now, it is quite obvious that Kobe beef is not some kind of happy accident of nature. It is a manmade product in all senses of the word. The cows were bred to be a certain way, and they are raised with plenty of human intervention. It is really agriculture - which is, after all, the process of growing food for human consumption - taken to its extreme.
This reminded me of another manmade meat product, which for various reasons has been the center of controversy, especially in the U.S., for a few years: fois gras. A few people object to the method of producing a duck or goose with a fatty liver, called gavage, which involved force feeding food into the bird’s gullet with a tube. These few people have been very vocal, and in some places successful. The anti-gavage movement has even spread in a small way to Europe, though most people here (from my very unscientific observations and conversations - though some EU countries have started the procedure to ban gavage) shake their heads at the very notion of the government trying to ban its consumption.
The best observations on the fois gras conflict in the U.S. that I have read is in from Incanto, an Italian restaurant in San Francisco (via Elise’s Twitter). Note that I think it’s the best partly because I wholly agree with the opinions expressed there. (It’s also quite well written, as are their past newsletters, which you can also read on their site. It’s the first time the quality of writing on their web site or newsletter has made me want to visit a restaurant!)
The point made there that I agree with the most is this: I think there is far too much preaching and pushing of ones opinion on other people going on in the food world. It is one thing to decide for yourself, and possibly for your family, how and what you eat. It’s quite another to try to force others to do so, particularly through government legislation. I tend to be sort of left of center when it comes to politics, but some of the tactics used by people and organizations who have a particular food agenda makes me want to shy away from them - even if I actually share their particular stance on a food issue.
As humans, we have to eat to survive, and except for a very few people, we rely on other people to grow or make the food for us. It is good to keep a vigilant eye on the process by which food reaches our tables, but “your way” is not always the “right way” for everyone. We all have to make our own decisions, and hopefully we can continue to do so.
Don't miss any more recipes and articles! Subscribe to Just Hungry via your newsreader or by email (more about subscriptions).
15 comments so far...
Related links
Recently commented articles
- Chicken: what's your choice? (24 comments)
- More on the new theme (13 comments)
- Japanese beef curry (Curry Rice) (46 comments)
- Sweet and spicy roasted kabocha squash (21 comments)
- Per Se: Jackets required, huh? (33 comments)
- Japanese grocery stores in Europe (26 comments)
Recommended
- 100 Japanese Foods To Try
- The essential Japanese ingredients
- Onigiri 2.0 (an easier way for beginners)
- Looking at different types of rice
- How to prepare and cook Japanese rice and sushi rice
- How to make fool-proof mayonnaise
- Tamagoyaki or Atsuyaki tamago (Japanese sweet omelette)
- How to make tofu
- The anatomy of a Japanese meal
- A Food Lover's Way of Exploring Provence
Popular Articles
Today's:
All time:
- Onigiri (Omusubi) revisited: An easier way to make Japanese rice balls, step by step
- Homemade mayonnaise without tears (Basics)
- Onigiri (rice balls)
- Basics: Cold soba noodles with dipping sauce
- How to make tofu (Milking the Soy Bean, Part 2)
- Japanese Basics: How to make Japanese-style plain rice and sushi rice
- Japanese grocery stores in the United States and territories
- Basics: Tamagoyaki or Atsuyaki Tamago, Japanese sweet omelette
- Japanese grocery store list
- Japanese beef curry (Curry Rice)
Just Hungry is a site about food. There are 
Foie gras
Whilst I don't like the idea of gavage at all, I don't try and push my views on others.
Unfortunately, the courtesy isn't always returned.
So, for one of the few occasions where I was able to fly to Japan in Business class (CDG-NGO), instead of eating the sort of delicious meal JAL is famous for I got this:
http://bp2.blogger.com/_n1sjt7SfiAw/SFuFkYKQ97I/AAAAAAAAAI0/Wd1wbo_Wezo/...
It was the only way I could avoid being served foie gras.
I really felt 'punished' for sticking to my principles
(seriously - the rice was atringent and vile, thankfully I was able to request a bowl of udon later and some Japanese white rice with furikake - the only decent food I ate on board)
Re: Foie gras
Hmm, why didn't you just ask for the fois gras to be removed from your tray? It works for me (not with fois gras, but other stuff) (though I disagree about JAL's food being that good, there are others that are much better)
Re: Foie gras
I had my conscience wrestle with that one, but having something be removed to then be thrown away is no different (and in my eyes worse) than eating it.
There was no route that allowed me to order a meal without foie gras being ordered and prepared on my behalf so I bailed out.
Thanks for consoling me about what I didn't get to have. I'll assume it's not that different from ANA's business class offering - very pretty, but not a patch on what even a 1,500yen ($15) kaiseki style lunch menu in Tokyo would provide.
Re: Foie gras
I really don't know why airlines continue to try to come up with hot meals. Why not just stick to foods that are always good at room temperature, like sandwiches or bentos? It's a mystery to me. The best meal I ever had on a plane was on Air France, and it was a selection of cheese served with crusty bread and a good wine. So simple, guaranteed to be good. I would not mind bringing my own bento or even onigiri, but I never seen to have the time before a trip...
Re: Real beef
I think part of the problem is that it's a very thin line between preaching and pushing your beliefs on others and simply trying to educate people on what they're actually eating (e.g. I'm not going to tell most people they can't eat veal - I do though feel that a lot of people would not want to eat veal if they knew how it was made) or vocally expressing your displeasure to a producer in order to supplement economic pressure. I think a lot of people with good motives slip into the 'bad' category unbeknownst to themselves.
My other comment is that though Kobe beef is very much a product affected by man, it seems that it came about through man working with and around nature, by selectively breeding cows, and relying on the soil content, which effects the grazing, and thereby the eventual meat product. (Which is very different from, say, roundup ready soybeans, which were created by man with nature in absentia.)
Re: Real beef
I completely agree with your comment about there being a fine line. One person's innocent zeal could easily be offensively aggressive to another.
On the other hand, I think discussing whether man works "with" or "without" nature in the production of food is a moot point. Genetic modification is also man working with and around nature. We borrow genes that already exist; we are far from designing genes entirely from scratch (although even that is still, in a sense, working within the limits of nature). In the extreme, everything is natural; some things are just more modified by man than others. Where you draw the line for such modification is a personal issue.
Incanto
Coincidentally, I used to live three blocks away from Incanto, and would often pass by it on my strolls around the neighborhood. I ate there once -- for a birthday dinner -- and the food was amazing. (I probably would have eaten there more often, but living in Noe Valley meant that I was on a pretty strict food budget.) But despite having lived right next door, I never knew that they had such a brilliant series of articles. Thanks for posting the link to their fois gras article -- I really enjoyed reading it and their other letters.
Re: Real beef
"It is one thing to decide for yourself, and possibly for your family, how and what you eat. It’s quite another to try to force others to do so, particularly through government legislation."
I view the matter from a different perspective I guess. To me forbidding something like fois gras wouldn't be forbidding people from eating something they like. Legislation would simply be preventing cruelty to animals. As a side effect of course this food would be unavailable. In my opinion that is not really the same as forbidding someone from eating it, since it affects the availability of the food. It's not like telling a kid they can't have cookies, when there's a jar full of them right there.
I think even if you try to look at it from a completely unbiased point of view and with the utmost objectiveness, the way of producing fois gras really is cruelty to animals.
The way these Kobe cows are treated on the other hand is much different I think and the price paid for the meat reflects that. I know I would eat Kobe beef if offered, but I wouldn't eat fois gras if offered (I've never had it anyway, it's just not popular where I live).
Re: Real beef
Well you know, to be blunt and all, both the ducks/geese and the cows end up dead for our benefit. And I would disagree with the notion that gavage is necessarily horrendously cruel to the birds (see the Village Voice article linked to from the Incanto newsletter for example). But I respect anyone's right to avoid eating fois gras for their own beliefs, or for people who keep kosher to avoid eating pork and shellfish.
I do live in a country (France) where fois gras is very popular and a part of life. It's not one of my top 10 foods personally, but I respect the right of people to enjoy it. As I do the custom in Spain of whole roasted suckling pigs, which in some ways is rather more off-putting to me personally. But hey, I guess I think pigs are cuter than ducks.
Re: Real beef
Hmm, I don't object to the killing of animals for food in general and I don't mind whole roasted suckling pigs at all either. I personally object to the way they are treated before they are killed. Force feeding an animal really can't be nice in any way for that animal, they wouldn't eat that much if it were left to them. The Kobe cows don't get force fed, they are also treated pretty well especially compared to most other cows raised for meat. That's the way I see it, but I respect other people's views on it as well.
Re: Real beef
Hi Maki,
My friend Sylee from Berlin Reified (http://reified.typepad.com/) pointed me to your site. Thanks for the Real beef post which segued into foie gras. I've been living on a farm in Japan for over 20 years, and also spend time in California and the Périgord on a foie gras farm (http://www.foiegras-dubois.com/). Gavage is banned in many EU countries now, including Italy and Gemany. My French friends see the ban coming to France as well. I interviewed the Dubois and their nephew who was managing Sonoma Foie Gras (before he left to go back to France this spring) and I've been toying with writing an article on the subject from a humanistic viewpoint. The Incanto piece was excellent. My friends want us to do foie gras here in Japan (can't ever see it banned here), but my free-range egg farmer husband is not so interested. Oh well.
Nancy
Re: Real beef
I just discovered your blog, and while I love the recipes, I also have to admire your willingness to comment on food ethic issues. I live in Sonoma county and have witnessed first hand the struggles in the community between the sometimes militant ecofood movement and local food producers.
Not surprisingly, I agree with your summary of the situation. I completely agree with a group or individual's right to avoid foods and and to educate/disagree with those who do not hold their view. But I have also seen the groups spread misinformation; actively recruit "thugs", for lack of a better word, to threaten or commit actual acts of vandalism and physical harm; and then refuse to condemn those acts (because under no circumstances is it right to threaten someone and their family for serving fois gras).
It also struck me as curious that the groups often target the smaller, more ethically run establishments, while completely ignoring the issues around large scale operations (not only regarding the treatment of the animals, but of the people who work there as well).
Sonoma Fois Gras is a company that is very respectful of the animals in their care. Yes, animals are force fed and slaughtered. But compared to the cruelty being perpetrated by large scale pig and chicken operations, it's a bit like holding up the litterbug as an example while excusing the double homicide. Even if they are both wrong in their actions, all the sound and fury is spent on the minor transgression while the greater wrong is ignored.
Re: Real beef
there was a thread about Kobe beef being inhumane on Seriouseats' talk section. I thought it was pretty ironic that... ahem, "making animals obese (and thus the various obesity-related conditions) is inhumane" comment was made where 30% of their people (and a lot of their pets!) are obese.
Re: Real beef
Kobe beef is great, but it's only known around the world because I think it's the only one that is exported. There are so many other and better wagyu brands, like maesawa gyu for example.
As for foie gras, what is the traditional way of making it? Did people also use gavage techniques in the past?
Re: Real beef
Apparently, even Egyptians ate the fatty livers of migrating waterfowl. Those hunters were originally just taking advantage of the bounty autumn migration afforded them as far a large numbers of birds but they noticed that their livers were extra fatty and, it seems, tasty. That's because many migratory fowl gorge themselves by choice before they migrate to maintain themselves during the journey. Other people got in on the act, including those committed poachers of the cultures of others, the Romans. It was later (but from my understanding, not much later) that humans decided to manufacture this seasonal delicacy and thus force-feeding with a tube down a duck's or goose's throat was born.
I have read a fair bit of literature on this, mostly anecdotal, as there is not nearly so much literature on the topic that is actually scientific. I think there needs to be more research into how the different anatomy of birds impacts on the situation (their oesophagi are, it seems, stronger and more rigid than a that of a mammal). All that aside, though, foie gras production isn't the only potentially cruel practice carried out to produce meat, and indeed there are plenty of methods in use (factory farming) that are more demonstrably hideous. All animals deserve protection from torture, no matter the reason behind it, from dogs to fish to humans and if that means no foie gras and no cheap hamburgers, so be it.
Post new comment