Why Doesn't Anyone Use Steak Sauce Anymore?
Meat quality has improved dramatically, says meat guy
Naturally the folks from Certified Angus Beef have an interest in claiming that today's beef is of higher quality than yesteryear, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. When chatting with corporate chef Michael Ollier, he stressed that what was on the table at steakhouses in the '70s doesn't hold a romantic votive candle to what's being served today.
“More ranchers are raising higher-quality beef, which we can tell because Certified Angus Beef has a much higher acceptance rate of cattle today.”
When CAB launched in 1978, it was the first branded beef company in the world, but it's now joined by over 100 others who all set distinct quality benchmarks on their products that simply didn't exist for older generations of cattle. He thinks that the more heavily marbled meat has shifted diners' tastes.
“Before, you were masking something that was inferior, but as people gain a palate for higher-quality beef, they're more hands off and letting the flavors of the beef sing,” says Michael. “Or, they're finding more adventurous ways to balance a fatty cut like a ribeye,” he says, citing the popularity of sauces like chimichurri.
It's even out of fashion at chain steakhouses
As a child I was a picky eater, but loved dangerously rare steaks. At Outback, my dad would jokingly ask the waiter to just wave the steak over the flames, then I'd make a little puddle of A.1. in the corner of my plate and dunk the barely cooked filet into that sickly sour well. To find out if the mainstream had really turned on A.1., I hit up a local chain steakhouse to relive my youth with a filet mignon lunch special.
When I arrived there was no steak sauce on the table, but with the type of hospitality that only comes from people who serve overpriced tenderloins to businessmen, my waiter happily obliged my request. He even brought out a gallon-sized container for photo purposes. But despite all the accommodating, he quickly threw A.1. under the bus. In his two months at the restaurant, only one other customer had asked for it, and even that was more than he'd seen at his previous steakhouse gig.
Just asking for steak sauce was already embarrassing, and using it was even more so. I felt like everyone was watching me, as I ruined 6oz of presumably Select beef by dunking bites into a ramekin of sauce that black-holed all the beef flavor and replaced it with an encompassing sourness that actually made me physically pucker.
The manager, who'd obviously been alerted to my mission, did a polite table-touch to ask me how I liked the steak. I thanked him and said that everything was great. He smiled and smugly added, “Even without the sauce?”
(Thrillist.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment