Santa Carota beef is raised on a ranch near Bakersfield, Calif. The name of both the meat and the ranch comes from the carrots used by the Pettit family as feed for the animals, which are grass-fed in open pastures but finished on a diet of carrots. The ranch started adding carrots from local farms to the finishing feed in 1989; now it’s all carrots because it liked the results. Chefs, including Wolfgang Puck and Gordon Ramsay, did too, and became regular customers. The beef — available in New York strip, rib-eye, filet mignon, tomahawk and hibachi strips, with other cuts coming soon — is now being sold retail for the first time through Holy Grail Steak Company. Each cut is shipped frozen and is available in a regular grade or prestige, the equivalent of prime. I did not find much difference between the two grades, though the prestige rib-eye was slightly silkier than the regular. All had good beefy flavor.
Santa Carota beef, $19 to $99 per piece (weight varies), holygrailsteak.com.
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