"Be it sweet, grassy, richly buttery, invigoratingly bloody, highly mineral, livery and gamy, tinged with a ripe and cheesy or long-hung farmyardy tang, steaks offer a full spectrum of interesting flavours. All of that wrapped up in one of life's primary savoury pleasure: a densely-charred exterior."Wouldn´t it be wonderful if the above statement described steak in Buenos Aires ...instead of London. Sorry, fans of invigoratingly bloody, highly mineral, livery and gamy with a densely-charred exterior ...there is no more of that here in the land God gifted to cows.
On the bright side, if you love a great Iowa corn-fed steak, you´ll love the steaks on offer in parrillas large and small all over town. Argentina's finest steak houses even list dry-aged steaks (unheard-of in the days of grass-fed beef) ...and if you hurry, you´ll love the price. About half the price charged in Iowa. (Better hurry in the US, as well. Prices of beef there are due to skyrocket due to two years of drought strikingly similar to what happened in Argentina in 2008.)
In fact, it's now easier to find grass-fed beef in Iowa than in Buenos Aires!
The sad news is, however, that if you are looking for "that famous Argentine beef", it is nowhere to be found.
This beautiful city and wonderful country still has a million-and-one charms ...but the famous beef which was once a reason for visiting all by itself is now merely a memory. A memory, that is, if you can remember it.
"The Famous Beef" was very different from the beef that most of the world is accustomed to. So much so, in fact, that occasionally I would meet an honest meat-eater who would admit to not liking it. La Carne Famosa lives on, however ...at least in the verbage of tourist touts, the lazy, and the confused/misinformed.
Full disclosure: My Missus and I make a very fine living supplying calves to the Argentine feedlot industry, thank you very much. It's just that we haven't had a grass-fed steak in years, either ...and we miss it. And with internal prices being competitive with export prices, we don´t fret much anymore about our beef not making it to tables around the world.
The biggest story about Argentine beef this year is one that even the disinterested may have heard: Argentina's counter-charge against the US in the WTO regarding the import restrictions we here currently are living with.
Specifically, Argentina has brought suit against the US practice of banning Argentine fresh beef and lemons (what rarely gets mentioned is that Argentina is one of the few countries on Earth to which the US exports more than it imports.)
No matter what the legitimacy of the complaint and counter-complaint, the kafkaesque thang is that the lemon crop here was devastated by weather ...and we really don´t have any beef to export.
In 2005 Argentina exported 771,400 tons of beef. In 2011 beef exports dropped to 300,000 tons ...and so far for 2012, we should come in about 30% even lower than last year.
It´s difficult to imagine how we might return to those days in which the world's greatest steak could be found on almost any block. Until then, eat grass-fed steak in the US before you leave. Then compare, contrast, and discuss.
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