Beef: The Untold Story of How Milk, Meat, and Muscle Shaped the World

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Product Description

The cow. The most industrious animal in the world. A beast central to human existence since time began, it has played a vital role in our history not only as a source of food, but also as a means of labor, an economic resource, an inspiration for art, and even as a religious icon. Prehistoric people painted it on cave walls; explorers, merchants, and landowners traded it as currency; many cultures worshipped it as a god. So how did it come to occupy the sorry state it does today—more factory product than animal?

In Beef, Andrew Rimas and Evan D. G. Fraser answer that question, telling the story of cattle in its entirety. From the powerful auroch, a now extinct beast once revered as a mystical totem, to the dairy cows of seventeenth-century Holland to the frozen meat patties and growth hormones of today, the authors deliver an engaging panoramic view of the cow's long and colorful history.

Peppered with lively anecdotes, recipes, and culinary tidbits, Beef tells a story that spans the globe, from ancient Mediterranean bullfighting rings to the rugged grazing grounds of eighteenth-century England, from the quiet farms of Japan's Kobe beef cows to crowded American stockyards to remote villages in East Africa, home of the Masai, a society to which cattle mean everything. Leaving no stone unturned in its exploration of the cow's legacy, the narrative serves not only as a compelling story but as a call to arms, offering practical solutions for confronting the current condition of the wasteful beef and dairy industries.

Beef is a captivating history of an animal whose relationship with humanity has shaped the world as we know it, and readers will never look at steak the same way again.

Customer Reviews: Read 35 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

An offal good time September 25, 2008
12 out of 14 found this review helpful

The sub-title of `Beef` hints of an "untold story". Actually, it turns out, there is not a single story, but many stories, each from 1 paragraph to a few pages long. These wide ranging mini stories, encyclopedic snippets really, are categorized into chapters along chronological order, from pre-history to the present. Such a presentation, without a central narrative, would not hold many readers attention, so the authors also took some trips to exotic locations and weave in travel tales related to beefy places and people. This is a standard creative non-fiction technique commonly found in books like Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History although the overall effect here is muted because there is no "mystery" to create tension. However we do get a few recipes, including how to make cheddar cheese.

The last chapter of the book is the best, from the 20th century to the present. It suggests the current industrialized methods of raising beef are unsustainable and the future will see changes. The earlier chapters about the history of beef are interesting, but prior to the 19th century, I found it somewhat meandering. It's not a scholarly or definitive treatment. I noticed a few mistakes; the authors use the term "Dark Ages", which has been largely deprecated by medieval historians; and they mistakenly use "sweetmeat" to refer to offal.(*)

Sort of like how a cow is made up of many cuts of beef, `Beef` is a a number of styles and techniques weaved together. History, travel, journalism, recipes. Some parts are more interesting than others, and it will largely depend on what the reader already knows and is interested in. It's a short book that can be read easily in a day (or cross USA plane trip).

(*) Sweetmeat is bread, sweetbread is meat. Strange as it sounds, the Oxford English Dictionary confirms it. Since I am reading an Advanced Readers Copy, this may be corrected in the final edition.

5 out of 5 stars

Beef- It's What's For Dinner September 23, 2008
7 out of 10 found this review helpful

"Imagine our world without cattle, and you're not imagining our world." Great start to a book about beef!

Throughout the ages the cow has been an incredible bargain for the bit of grass it consumes, "They pulled loads, they made milk, and when they could do no more, they gave up their bones to the stew pot."

This book is a great history of beef and the cow/bull it came from. Andrew Rimas and Evan D.G.Fraser take you on an historical trip including Spain and their love of the bullfights, the Masai and their hunt for the animal, "A Masai would die to take a cow." and then on to Mexico and Holland. And the cow in mythology, Io, Europa, Odysseus.

The Dutch had the clever idea of clover farming and selective breeding which led to the best milk cows ever. And in the 18th century Robert Bakewell bred the perfect beef cow in England.

A really nice pause in the book is the "culinary interludes" where you find recipes from all over the world from all periods of time, Mithraic Dinner with Meatballs, Prophecy Broth, Steak Tartare, even the All American hamburger.

The one thing I did not like was the first 29 pages of evolution and the supposition of what may or may not have happened. That little bit is easily skipped and on to the real and substantiated history of beef!

3 out of 5 stars

Mostly Gristle September 30, 2008
7 out of 10 found this review helpful

This is a rambling essay based, sometimes loosely, on cows. It tells us of their evolution, of their influence on human history, religion, and culture, and of their modern uses (and, in the authors' view, abuses), with recipes thrown in. But at heart it is not a book about cows; it is, as its Introduction signals, a lecture on the evils of industry, chemicals, greedy businessmen, and other usual suspects. Those who share the authors' attitudes will find it satisfying.

It is not a particularly enjoyable read. The prose is of airline-magazine quality - occasionally clever but more often labored and overwrought. The organization - despite the book's separation into three sections - is loose. The discussions - of history and religion, for example - seem intended more to demonstrate the authors' erudition (or to incorporate all the facts they discovered reading the encyclopedia) than to make a point about cows. The overall tone of the book is cynical, didactic, and self-satisfied.

"Beef" is not without interest but it can be recommended only with caution: this is not an amiable look at cows but instead a tendentious look at social issues. Whether you will like it depends on which you want.

5 out of 5 stars

What A Pleasant Surprise September 23, 2008
6 out of 9 found this review helpful

I didn't think I would like this book but once I started reading I found it fascinating and very difficult to put aside. I was pleasantly surprised. I don't what I was expecting the book to be, but the volume started out with a discussion Picasso's "Guernica" and the meaning behind the bull in that painting and much of his other work. I don't have much knowledge of cattle, but I do know a lot about Picasso and I was delighted at the discussion of his artwork. Not much further along in the book there is another excellent discussion of "The Great Hall of Bulls" in the famous French Caves of Lascaux. In one huge chamber 52 portraits, "'one of which is 18 feet long--practically thunder in the underground silence.'" All of those bulls were aurochs, a type of bull that became extinct in 1627. That particular type of very large and extremely violent bull was practically worshipped by the Paleolithic cave painters. Julius Caesar also mentions them in his Gaul Campaign memoir. He describes them as "a little below the elephant in size, and of the appearance, color and the shape of a bull. Their strength and speed are extraordiary: they spare neither man nor wild beast which they have espied."
Not too much further into the book is a rather perceptive discussion of Goya's paintings of bulls and bull fighting. One of the authors of this book knows a lot about art and that was just one of the surprises waiting to be discovered in this volume.
Most of this tome deals with the long history and importance of cattle to the development of civilization throughout the world. Packed in between the book's history lessons are "Culinary Interludes" that talk about some of the most famous steak houses in the world and some of those restaurant chef's recipes for bringing out the best flavor of beef. The volume contains numerous somewhat surprising insights into how important cattle have been to the development of civilization. Even the early agriculturists found they needed cattle to power their plows and because without fertilizer the soil used in cultivation was quickly exhausted. "The fields needed to be fertilized, and, again, cattle took on the job. Civilization, as any cynic or student of agriculture will tell you, is built on dung."
There is so much information contained in this fascinating book that I can't begin to convey it. But the book contains a wonderful time-line of history and prehistory showing that without cattle, mankind might by now be extinct. There are wonderful comparisons of ancient creation myths, folklore, and Old Testament references to the importance of cattle. Drastic changes in climate conditions simply would not have allowed more than tiny populations to survive while depending on a strictly agricultural system.
Interesting information like the fact that the Vikings brought the first cattle to North American and traded fresh cows milk to the Indians in exchange for fur pelts. Once the Vikings were driven out of Newfoundland, they took their cattle with them and North Americans had to wait five centuries before again being able to savor cow's milk and later cow cheese. Cheese was often the main source of protein that most of the serfs of the Middle Ages received. "An Egyptian tomb mural from about 2000 B.C. shows a diary operation apparently engaged in making cheese or butter and there's archaeological evidence of cheese making dating back to Sumerian times. In the Old Testament, the young David is on his way to deliver a gift of ten cheeses to the field officer in command of the Israel army when he accepts the challenge of Goliath." Both those sources, as well as many others, are footnoted for doubters. The authors also point out while the beef we eat in the USA today is much cheaper than in the past, it is not as good a quality and also doesn't taste as good as it did in earlier, recent periods. Today the industry uses too much cross-breeding, medicines, steroids, and the wrong kind of cattle feed. The authors point out that while more beef is produced per animal than at anytime in the past, it's simply not as tasty and why that has happened. The authors have some excellent advice for improving the cattle industry.
This is an excellent read.

3 out of 5 stars

sundry [semi-random] collection of essays October 2, 2008
6 out of 8 found this review helpful

The book is characterised as a sundry collection of essays about cattle. Much of it plumbs the joint history of humans and cattle. The most notable is the co-evolutionary process. Humans have bred cattle for millenia, selecting for various traits, including placidity. But another effect was that some humans, mostly in Europe, have the ability to be lactose tolerant as adults. Thus being able to drink cow milk, which is very protein rich, and conferring an evolutionary reproductive advantage.

Various cultural depictions of cattle are described. Some from contemporary societies, like Spain, and others from vanished ones.

Another aspect of the book is how it describes modern cattle raising. There is a tug between 2 practices - feedlot (grain fed) and grass fed. The latter is considered by some environmentalists to treat cattle better, and to give more flavourful meat. But the book points out that the grass fed gives a need for large ranches. Which in turn causes the chopping down of rainforests in the Amazon to be converted into those ranches. So, and somewhat ironically, on balance, the better environmental practice is to use feedlots.

The book can perhaps be best read as a collection of short episodes or essays. There is no overall narrative thread that extends from the start to the end.

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