Where’s the rib-eye? Someday soon it might be grazing on a dairy farm.
Meat from dairy cows, rarely valued in American kitchens and restaurants, usually becomes dog food and fast-food burgers. The farmer gets about 60 cents a pound. But selling it for steaks could get them $6 or more a pound, allowing struggling U.S. dairy farmers to profit from an approach that’s widely practiced in Europe — and used to be in the United States.
When mature dairy cows (about six years old) are allowed to pasture longer, their fat, which normally goes into milk, returns to the muscles and makes the meat richer and more tender. This is often done in Europe, notably in Portugal, Spain and parts of France. It’s generally not the practice in the United States, where most steaks come from grain-fed cattle that are slaughtered at about two years old.
But a few farms, including Mindful Meat in Marin County, Calif., and Butter Meat Company in Pavilion, N.Y., just west of the Finger Lakes, have been selling meat from culled dairy cows and convincing skeptics. The restaurant Blue Hill, on the grounds of the Stone Barns farm in Tarrytown, N.Y., began serving the farm’s dairy-cow beef last year in its dining room and cafeteria.
At Stone Barns, dairy cattle are living out their golden years munching on Pocantico Hills grass before becoming the highlight of a tasting menu that can run more than $400 per person. Many of the beef dishes at the restaurant are made with culled dairy meat; at the Stone Barns store, frozen strip-loin steaks are $24 a pound. By fall, the chef, Dan Barber, expects to begin selling to other restaurants.
But for this to be more than a boutique experiment, Mr. Barber said a market needs to be created for it. Small dairy farmers have to be persuaded to pasture the cattle an extra six months or so before selling them, he said, an added expense but worth it for the increased return. Most important, he added, the beef should carry a name that develops cachet like Black Angus, Niman Ranch or Snake River Farms.
Tim Joseph, who in 2009 founded Maple Hill Organic, a consortium of more than 100 grass-fed dairy farms in New York, said a few farmers have been selling their culls to premium beef companies, but most do not.
