What Makes Argentinian Beef So Good
Argentine republic has long been famous for its grilled beef. But that beef isn't what it was. Galina Barskaya/iStockPhoto.com hibernate caption
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Galina Barskaya/iStockPhoto.com
Argentina has long been famous for its grilled beef. But that beefiness isn't what information technology was.
Galina Barskaya/iStockPhoto.com
When I think of Argentine republic, I think of beef from cows that graze on the endless pampas, tended by watchful gauchos. That grass-fed beefiness has been the centerpiece of Argentina's near famous dish, a tedious-cooked asado on the parilla.
Simply while in Buenos Aires last calendar week, I discovered that the pampas-raised beef of my reveries is practically a thing of the past. Today, most cattle in Argentina are raised in feedlots, just like in the U.S. That transition has been driven past soaring prices in the global grain markets over the by decade, making it far more profitable to raise soybeans, wheat and corn than herd cattle.
That may be expert news for grain farmers, simply information technology'south non a welcome change for the chefs of Buenos Aires. "It's politics, not gastronomy," says Javier Urondo, chef and owner of Urondo Bar and Eating house in the Parque Chacubuco neighborhood.
Urondo would much rather buy grass-fed beef, but says it's impossible because the industry doesn't place meat by production method. "There's no manner of knowing," the amiable 54-year-old told me over a late dejeuner at Bar Seis in the Palermo Soho neighborhood. "Fifty-fifty my butcher doesn't know."
And because the change has been gradual, Urondo says, most customers don't notice the difference. (That thought was seconded in a September report on Argentina'southward beef production by the U.South. Department of Agriculture'south Foreign Agricultural Service.)
Dan Perlman, an American chef and writer living in Buenos Aires who runs his own "secret" restaurant, Casa SaltShaker, has also noticed the divergence. "When I first came to Argentina, I said, 'This is what beef is supposed to gustatory modality similar!' At present, information technology'southward just steak," Perlman says.
Chef Javier Urondo laments the passing of pampas-fed beefiness. Nancy Shute/NPR hide caption
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Nancy Shute/NPR
Chef Javier Urondo laments the passing of pampas-fed beef.
Nancy Shute/NPR
How exactly does grass-fed beef taste difference from grain-fed beefiness? As NPR's Allison Aubrey has reported, the meat from cows that dine on grass may be chewier and less fat. She also cites a recent assay from the Union of Concerned Scientists that found that grass-fed steak has about twice equally many omega-3s equally a typical grain-fed steak.
The flavor used to be a selling point for Argentina, which has a long, proud history as the world's great exporter of beef, starting way dorsum in the 1800s. Only in contempo years Argentina has ceded that crown to Brazil.
Government policies are also helping shrink the country'due south beef exports. For years, the cost of beefiness was kept artificially low to encourage domestic consumption.
But that didn't suit the cattlemen too well. "The producers take responded by saying, 'we're going to switch to producing grains'," says Michael Boland, manager of the Nutrient Industry Center at the University of Minnesota. He's been following the transformation of Argentine beefiness closely, both as a researcher and as someone who loves to eat. "The Malbec and the beef," he recalls wistfully. "That, to me, is Argentine republic."
Neighboring Uruguay, though, has not abased grass-fed beef, Boland says. There, the beef manufacture focused on getting international certification for information technology, and so it could sell to high-stop markets in Europe.
Back at Bar Seis, Javier Urondo said though he's proud to accept a hand in creating its culinary future, he can't help but regret the loss of the past. Every bit he says now: "Information technology's a long, long fashion from the gauchos."
As health and ecology issues surrounding feedlot farming offset to become coverage in Argentina, information technology is possible that more diners volition commencement to empathize with Urondo, and need the beef of the past.
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2011/12/08/143362233/farewell-to-argentinas-famed-beef
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