I've Got Friends in Low Places

[karam]

Take filet mignon verses a tough cut of beef shank. There's a reason one is more expensive than the other. Sure, sure, some people have never even tried filet mignon, so shank is ok with them.

I really don't understand why one is more expensive than the other, other than tradition coming from the time nobles (in Europe) wanted to eat the "cleaner" meats without fat and connective tissues (the bits that provide taste and mouthfeel). Beef fillet is objectively pretty soft, but also mild. All the parts which move a lot and support weight have a lot of fatty padding and connective tissue (ligaments, tendons) which need long and slow cooking to be edible, but pack all the meaty flavour. There's a joke going around in old Greek butchers that God blessed the poor by making the cheaper cuts tastier

The comparison is not really fair though. They are very different cuts and need different preparation. If you try to eat shank cooked like fillet it'll be a raw, stringy, tough mess. If you try to cook fillet like shank it will probably turn into a brown stone :P

Personally I find filet mignon, chateaubriand, beef Wellington and the like very boring. Pork chops and tenderloin too. There's no fat or pronounced flavour in this meat. Fat can be added with the knob of butter they (used to) put on the meat in restaurants, and flavour with the tons of pepper - something has to help that poor bland thing! A beef shank on the other hand makes a phenomenal stew, and the gelatin adds lip-sticking/smacking mouthfeel.

Give me shanks and ham hocks, briskets, butts, cheeks and neck instead of veal and piglets, all the offal including tripe ("if your lips don't stick to the plate when you're slurping it, it's not cooked right", a old Greek cook told me once) and blood sausage - that's where the taste is (in my opinion). Mutton and old goat - preferably uncastrated male - instead of lamb. A well-aged leg of mutton is a thing of beauty.

Ohhh I recall about 30 years ago, in a family friend's house in a mountain in Greece they cooked an old stud billy goat. They had garlic goat sausages and chops, they also had goat stew, goat risotto mixed with copious amounts of goat butter (lines the stomach nicely so they can drink buckets of moonshine while eating - definitely NOT for the faint of heart, and a low brow taste!). Probably some bats died from the aroma coming out of that meat. My mother who doesn't appreciate meat - she eats bland stuff like fillet and chicken breast - or garlic was close to suicide. It was an ode to the goat, an offering to Pan. @Christos D. Tsatsaronis pinging you for appreciating the Greekness, this was in Pelion in the 90s.

 

[FLDRD]

I voluntarily moved to Arkansas.......................................

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I really don't understand why one is more expensive than the other, other than tradition coming from the time nobles (in Europe) wanted to eat the "cleaner" meats without fat and connective tissues (the bits that provide taste and mouthfeel). Beef fillet is objectively pretty soft, but also mild. All the parts which move a lot and support weight have a lot of fatty padding and connective tissue (ligaments, tendons) which need long and slow cooking to be edible, but pack all the meaty flavour. There's a joke going around in old Greek butchers that God blessed the poor by making the cheaper cuts tastier

The comparison is not really fair though. They are very different cuts and need different preparation. If you try to eat shank cooked like fillet it'll be a raw, stringy, tough mess. If you try to cook fillet like shank it will probably turn into a brown stone :P

Personally I find filet mignon, chateaubriand, beef Wellington and the like very boring. Pork chops and tenderloin too. There's no fat or pronounced flavour in this meat. Fat can be added with the knob of butter they (used to) put on the meat in restaurants, and flavour with the tons of pepper - something has to help that poor bland thing! A beef shank on the other hand makes a phenomenal stew, and the gelatin adds lip-sticking/smacking mouthfeel.

Give me shanks and ham hocks, briskets, butts, cheeks and neck instead of veal and piglets, all the offal including tripe ("if your lips don't stick to the plate when you're slurping it, it's not cooked right", a old Greek cook told me once) and blood sausage - that's where the taste is (in my opinion). Mutton and old goat - preferably uncastrated male - instead of lamb. A well-aged leg of mutton is a thing of beauty.

Ohhh I recall about 30 years ago, in a family friend's house in a mountain in Greece they cooked an old stud billy goat. They had garlic goat sausages and chops, they also had goat stew, goat risotto mixed with copious amounts of goat butter (lines the stomach nicely so they can drink buckets of moonshine while eating - definitely NOT for the faint of heart, and a low brow taste!). Probably some bats died from the aroma coming out of that meat. My mother who doesn't appreciate meat - she eats bland stuff like fillet and chicken breast - or garlic was close to suicide. It was an ode to the goat, an offering to Pan. @Christos D. Tsatsaronis pinging you for appreciating the Greekness, this was in Pelion in the 90s.

I don't think I've ever seen shank meat at the grocers, except in hamburger and sausage.

 

[karam]

I don't think I've ever seen shank meat at the grocers, except in hamburger and sausage.

Really? It's very well-liked in Europe. Ossobuco and boeuf bourguignon are classic dishes with it. In fact when my kids were born our paediatrician recommended we make and then blend beef shank stews to help with their bones and joints development, my kids had a lot of that!

 

[Hillcrest]

Living here in SoCal, I view Low Brow as a culture that embraces Hot Rods

This thread needs a theme song:

 

[sablebrush52]

Give me shanks and ham hocks, briskets, butts, cheeks and neck instead of veal and piglets, all the offal including tripe ("if your lips don't stick to the plate when you're slurping it, it's not cooked right", a old Greek cook told me once) and blood sausage - that's where the taste is (in my opinion). Mutton and old goat - preferably uncastrated male - instead of lamb. A well-aged leg of mutton is a thing of beauty.

Absolutely yes to some of this and nope to some of this. I like lamb much more than I like goat. As for why certain cuts are so sought after and expensive? Do a little research into the history of food and you find that certain cuts were promoted not because they were better, but because they cost less. Start a campaign and sell to a gullible status seeking public.
Once upon a time, darker breads were considered the inferior product for the poor, and white bread was to be preferred. Turns out, those darker breads pack far more flavor and nutrition. Now it's reversed, with whole grain being more valued than refined white bread. Once in a while sanity does prevail. It's just not the norm.

 

[sablebrush52]

I don't think I've ever seen shank meat at the grocers, except in hamburger and sausage.

Really? I love a good lamb shank. In L.A. you find everything, one of the things I miss about the move.

 

[FLDRD]

I don't think I've ever seen shank meat at the grocers, except in hamburger and sausage.

I find these types of cuts at "farmers" markets, or on the ethnic side of town. They seem much more common in the non-white areas. For me it would be Mexican and various Asian options where they can be found.

 

[Simmerdown☕️]

I really don't understand why one is more expensive than the other, other than tradition coming from the time nobles (in Europe) wanted to eat the "cleaner" meats without fat and connective tissues (the bits that provide taste and mouthfeel). Beef fillet is objectively pretty soft, but also mild. All the parts which move a lot and support weight have a lot of fatty padding and connective tissue (ligaments, tendons) which need long and slow cooking to be edible, but pack all the meaty flavour. There's a joke going around in old Greek butchers that God blessed the poor by making the cheaper cuts tastier

The comparison is not really fair though. They are very different cuts and need different preparation. If you try to eat shank cooked like fillet it'll be a raw, stringy, tough mess. If you try to cook fillet like shank it will probably turn into a brown stone :P

Personally I find filet mignon, chateaubriand, beef Wellington and the like very boring. Pork chops and tenderloin too. There's no fat or pronounced flavour in this meat. Fat can be added with the knob of butter they (used to) put on the meat in restaurants, and flavour with the tons of pepper - something has to help that poor bland thing! A beef shank on the other hand makes a phenomenal stew, and the gelatin adds lip-sticking/smacking mouthfeel.

Give me shanks and ham hocks, briskets, butts, cheeks and neck instead of veal and piglets, all the offal including tripe ("if your lips don't stick to the plate when you're slurping it, it's not cooked right", a old Greek cook told me once) and blood sausage - that's where the taste is (in my opinion). Mutton and old goat - preferably uncastrated male - instead of lamb. A well-aged leg of mutton is a thing of beauty.

Ohhh I recall about 30 years ago, in a family friend's house in a mountain in Greece they cooked an old stud billy goat. They had garlic goat sausages and chops, they also had goat stew, goat risotto mixed with copious amounts of goat butter (lines the stomach nicely so they can drink buckets of moonshine while eating - definitely NOT for the faint of heart, and a low brow taste!). Probably some bats died from the aroma coming out of that meat. My mother who doesn't appreciate meat - she eats bland stuff like fillet and chicken breast - or garlic was close to suicide. It was an ode to the goat, an offering to Pan. @Christos D. Tsatsaronis pinging you for appreciating the Greekness, this was in Pelion in the 90s.

Gonna have to follow suit here with @karam …best cuts of to me have fat & bone attached. Fat & bone are flavor. Rib-eye definitely over Filet any day. And, better yet…it’s typically a cheaper cut of meat which should satisfy low & highbrow alike. ️

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Really? I love a good lamb shank. In L.A. you find everything, one of the things I miss about the move.

Well, me too, but I was talking about cuts of meat within a cow.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Ok ok ok, ha ha, leave it to this forum to put grissly shank meat above filet minon or prime rib, ha ha.

 

[karam]

Once upon a time, darker breads were considered the inferior product for the poor, and white bread was to be preferred. Turns out, those darker breads pack far more flavor and nutrition. Now it's reversed, with whole grain being more valued than refined white bread. Once in a while sanity does prevail. It's just not the norm.

I think the explanation is easy: wheat is much harder to grow than barley, oats or rye, yet produces better textured bread (softer, fluffier). Also sifting enough times to get white flour is time-consuming, hence expensive, therefore white wheat bread was only feasible to acquire for the rich, the nobility and royalty in Europe. This stayed all the way in the 20th century - my grandma who lived through WW2 would say things like "black bread for black times, never again".

 

[cosmicfolklore]

And, I may be the only one here that grew up eating brains and eggs and squirrel gravy, ha ha.

And give me ox tail tacos any day of the week.

 

[karam]

And, I may be the only one here that grew up eating brains and eggs and squirrel gravy, ha ha.

And give me ox tail tacos any day of the week.

Oxtail is amazing! Also, fried lamb brains was the jewel in the appetizer crown in Greek Easter, superior even to kokoretsi. Given we'd buy 1 lamb, and they tend to have 1 brain, I recall my uncle splitting the lamb's head with an axe, extracting the brain which was then passed on to the grandmas who carefully chilled to firm it up, then breaded and fried in garlic butter, and served with chopped parsley and lemon. As lamb brains are small there was only a tiny bite allowed per person. Good times spending Easter in a village.

 

[serpentx]

I'm really not sure where I'd fall on the "brow" scale.

I fall on the unibrow end

 

[OzPiper]

There was a short-lived meat providore at our local shopping centre touting themselves as vendors of “luxury cuts” - featuring oxtail, lamb shanks, beef cheeks and goat meat at (to me) staggering prices.
Talk about food “trends” and a reversal of values.

I love all of the above cuts, more so than fillet.
Just not at fancy prices

Some years back a branch of (USA’s) Morton’s Steakhouse opened in one of Sydney’s more upmarket hotels.
They featured only beef flown in from the States. The cuts were paraded around the tables on a trolley to be oohed and aahed over by the diners.
I had THE most expensive piece of meat I’d ever eaten
Yes it was tender. And yes it could be cut with a butter knife.
But it was pretty much flavourless.
Give me a piece of meat from a paddock-raised, grass fed animal any day

 

[MartyA]

Now that we're talking about meat, there was a time when the best beef you could buy was "marbled," that is, run through with little veins of fat. It was the best tasting steak you could even imagine... tasty, juicy, corn fed Nebraska beef. Then it became "healthy" to have low fat meat. Most steaks now are little better than well cooked tenderized shoe leather.

 

[OzPiper]

Once upon a time, darker breads were considered the inferior product for the poor, and white bread was to be preferred. Turns out, those darker breads pack far more flavor and nutrition. Now it's reversed, with whole grain being more valued than refined white bread. Once in a while sanity does prevail. It's just not the norm.

Reading this just reminded me of calling one of my sons (in his young days) the “square, white bread kid”

 

[telescopes]

Reading about steaks reminds me of something that could in fact be its own thread.

Every man I've ever met, believes that they know the secret to making a great steak.

Every man.

You go to their homes and they grill their steaks and recite their secrets. Then you sit at the table and pretend that they are so wonderful.

I think this is where Low Brow and High Brow somewhat intersect - only authentic high brow is paying someone else to cook the steak.

No one likes a poor grade of meat. Even if is knuckle meat, it best be of a certain quality.

Beef Bourguignonne is just the high brow way of making a great beef stew. But take my word, this stew doesn't have to come from a French Restaurant to be delicious.

Lamb stew, Guiness Stew, and so many more great dishes come out of humble places but the quality of the food is anything but humble.

I take pleasure in knowing that in this forum I am surrounded by many, many like minded people who know a good thing or too and know that it doesn't have to come from a gloved hand to be good.

 

[sablebrush52]

There was a short-lived meat providore at our local shopping centre touting themselves as vendors of “luxury cuts” - featuring oxtail, lamb shanks, beef cheeks and goat meat at (to me) staggering prices.
Talk about food “trends” and a reversal of values.

There are always suckers waiting to be fleeced. One of my favorite experiences with this happened when I went to a local Whole Foods to do a little shopping. At the butcher counter they were promoting something called "smart chicken". They were priced at about a buck more per pound than the supposedly stupid chickens.

Intrigued, I asked the counterman what made these chickens smart.

"Well," the counterman replied, "They're raised in a special oxygen enriched environment".

We stood, gazing at each other across the counter. I asked the counterman, "How smart could a headless chicken lying in a refrigerated case be?"

At that the counterman lost it and broke up laughing. When he recovered enough to speak he asked me if I wanted a smart chicken.

"Nah, I'll take the stupid chicken", I replied.

But, those "smart" chickens flew out of the case to trendy, well heeled, credulous customers.