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Today is: 23/02/2012
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"We're all working together; that's the secret". Sam Walton |
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| Searching for a beefsteak... |
Searching for a beefsteak...
Author: Maciej Stasik
Poland is a country where it is practically impossible to buy a culinary beef of high quality. It is a niche product, occuring sporadically and promoted very meagrely. Going to shop, we usually face a sort of quality lottery.
Perhaps to start with, we should explain what we understand as culinary beef:
- a non-processed meat
- repeatable (guaranteeing the same product quality every time)
- originating from purebred meat cattle or good crossing
- labelled (enabling intentional selection of the given culinary element and breed of the animal from which the meat comes)
- fit for consumption raw or semi-raw
In Poland, most beef we eat comes from faulty dairy cows and Holstein Friesian bulls. This is merely production accompanying production of milk, not one guaranteeing culinary beef of high quality. Cows of the Holstein Friesian breed have flat muscle profile, much faster metabolism and thick muscle fibre.
Already in 2002, the European Union contended with excessive production of beef, reaching 12-18 % per year. Currently, beef shortage in the UE is about 6 % per year. Thus, a gap emerges, which should be used by a country such as Poland, with great potential for developing this branch of production.
We have to fill the still-fledging Polish market of high quality beef, as well as significant export opportunities for this product. These are the factors which, in combination with the on-going tendency to reduce dairy cattle herds, should guarantee significantly higher interest in meat cattle within the years to come.
Beef consumption in Poland is 3,9 kg per capita per annum, in France or Italy it is about 24 kg, in Denmark, Austria or Germany this is about 18 kg. The difference is significant. If we want to eliminate it, we face many years of work in order to promote this type of meat. This should be the goal of organizations such as Polish Association of Breeders and producers of Meat Cattle, or Polish Association of Meat Cattle Producers. The Poles should get learn the taste and health-promoting properties of beef, and see that in order to eat a piece of beef we do not necessarily need to cook it for two hours beforehand.
I wish all admirers of beef steak luck in searching for a product to make this culinary delight and wholeheartedly encourage those who have not tasted it yet to try...
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Posted by Lukasz_Stechnij
on 17/04/2011
453 Reads ·
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