Wagyu Beef - Fact or Fiction?
Quite a bit has been written of late about the fabulous meat from Wagyu Cattle. Some of it centres around its unique taste and all of it talks of the fantastic prices charged for this delicacy. I won't bore you with the details except to say that a whole carcass can cost as much as £10,000! That's about 10x more than that of farm reared beef.
I'm normally a bit of a tart when it comes to new foody things but I can't quite square this one. The price is a deterent for sure, but, I also like to think of my beef having lived a long happy life roaming freely and getting down to lots of sex etc....Not having been massaged, pampered and listening to classical music all in a temperature controlled environment. It just doesn't seem right to me. There's also the wine angle to consider. A great rib eye from an Angus Bull demands a big ballsy Shiraz. Wagyu seems a bit mincing and possibly requires something girly like a pink Prosecco............Yuk, no thank you!
Anyway, I found some great bullshit here which gives a bit more detail:
For several years now Japanese Wagyu meat, also known as 'Kobe'-style beef, has been enjoying increasing popularity.
Experts and gourmets who have recently discovered Wagyu meat consider it to be the most tender, most succulent and tastiest meat in the world.
Wagyu is now finally available in Europe.
There are all kinds of stories about these imperial cattle from Japan that are massaged, fed on beer and then sold at astronomical prices in Tokyo's top restaurants.
These are not just folkloric. The Japanese have devoted extraordinary care and attention to the rearing of this unusual breed of cattle, focusing on the quality rather than the quantity of their beef. The result is the “caviar of beef”.
Wagyu meat has taken the US by storm, with New Yorkers queuing for Wagyu burgers. New York's famous steak-house, Old Homestead in Manhatten now serves Wagyu burgers at a whopping price of $41.
Wagyu meat is striking because of its wonderful marbling which results in a never-before-experienced succulence that sends the taste buds reeling. The fat in the meat has more monounsaturated fats and melts at room temperature which makes Wagyu beef suitable as part of a lower-cholesterol diet.
The high degree of marbling adds an extraordinary depth of flavour which makes Wagyu beef a culinary delicacy.
Wagyu meat is suitable as part of a low-cholesterol diet.
Make of it what you will. We'd love to hear from you one way or the other and I'm sure that we'll return to the subject.
