Discover: Artisanal Meats: An Interview with Carrie Oliver of Oliver Ranch Company

An introduction on Twitter was how I met Carrie Oliver, an expert on Artisanal meats and the CEO of The Oliver Ranch Company. She is a wealth of information about Beef. Knowledge and awareness about where our food comes from and the effects of industrialization of our food was experienced elevated attention after the release of movies like Food Inc. Where beef is concerned, you can carry on where they left off and be in good hands with Carrie and The Oliver Ranch Company Beef Institute. They offer an incredible place to learn and experience even more about beef in a unique way that lends a sophistication and refinement to beef, its production, taste and quality. It states on The Oliver Ranch Company website :

The beef that you serve can be as interesting – and rewarding – as the finest wines at your table. It begins with knowing and learning more about what’s on your plate and discovering that, like a fine wine, a lot goes into raising better cattle. From the selection of the breed to the grasslands and the feed, today’s artisanal ranchers are producing the finest offerings ever.

I was served a generous portion of information by Carrie in this pleasant, perspective shifting interview giving me insight into the world of Artisanal Beef.

What is Artisan Beef?

Artisan Beef is a community of ranchers, truckers, slaughterhouses, and butchers working together as a team to create a signature style flavor and texture of beef. Artisan Ranchers, Slaughterhouses, and Butchers are in the food industry, not the commodity protein industry. They raise and process beef not just to make a particular label claim, such as Choice, grass-fed, or naturally raised. They carefully choose a breed or crossbreed to fit their growing region and a diet, harvest date, and aging technique that will make the beef flavorful and tender. They use superior husbandry and land management techniques along with low-stress handling because they make for better meat. Their end goal and passion is to create fabulous tasting steaks, burgers and roasts that their customers will love to eat.

Artisan Beef focuses on what IS in the meat, which is a delightful bounty of flavors and textures from one farm or producer group to another, and also the powerful emotions and sense of community you feel when you know exactly what’s on your plate, who raised it and how. We help people understand that low stress handling, including avoiding the use of growth promoters, has a positive influence on flavor and texture, it’s not just about doing the right thing. This is one reason we are very supportive of pasture raised and finished beef, in particular grass-fed beef. Artisan Beef starts where the “naturally raised” beef label stops. We begin with ranchers who raise livestock without the use of growth promoters and preventative antibiotics but go on to consider other factors that can significantly influence the flavor and texture of meat, including the priorities of the producers.

Artisan Beef also takes a different, although complimentary, approach than the natural, organic, and grass-fed beef industries, which have focused largely on nutritional benefits, husbandry practices, or what I call “what’s NOT in the meat,” such as added growth hormones, preventative antibiotics, grain, or confined housing. A growing number of consumers are interested in buying meat based on these factors but again, these labels do not take into account many other factors that influence the flavor and texture of beef.

What is Marbling and does it really effect flavor?

Despite conventional wisdom, marbling – the primary metric considered in the USDA grading system – plays a limited role in predicting the flavor and tenderness of beef. Few people know that USDA grade (Prime, Choice, and Select) is based on a visual inspection only; no one actually tastes the beef. In my view, looking at the amount of marbling in beef is like asking wine expert Robert Parker to rate a wine based on its appearance alone. It’s a good start, but too simplistic.

What are the keys to Artisanal Beef?

The first key to Artisan Beef is we recognize and celebrate the fact beef is like wine: flavor, texture, and quality naturally vary by breed, region, diet, husbandry, aging techniques and, importantly, the relative talents of the rancher, trucker, and butcher. This is the opposite of the commodity beef industry, which has focused its efforts on creating uniformity in beef and promoting beef on just one criteria, its USDA grade.

The second key difference is that we evaluate the motivations of the producers. The commodity beef industry looks at cattle and beef as protein to be placed at the center of your plate. Its large feed yards, slaughterhouses, and processing facilities seek to stamp out beef on an assembly line as quickly as possible. Any differences in the cattle such as breed, diet, and growing region get lost as cattle walk up to the slaughterhouse door and come out the other end as Choice.

What makes the meats at the supermarket so red?

I’ll let Dr. Chris Raines answer this. You can see a blog post he wrote about the subject here: http://meatisneat.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/color-of-fresh-meat/

What is ‘aged meat’ and why is this a good thing?

Aging beef serves two critical purposes: it helps tenderize beef and enhances the natural flavors in the meat. There are two commonly used aging techniques. The traditional method is to “dry-age” beef. Whole “sides” of beef (ideally) or certain large portions, such as the New York Strip Loin section, are hung or racked in a very cold, humidity controlled room for anywhere from 7 days to 8 weeks. The beef is exposed to the air and as such loses moisture, concentrating flavors as it tenderizes the meat. This is similar to what happens when you thicken a sauce. At the end of the aging period, the butcher will trim off the exterior meat and fat, which is discarded.

Describe ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ aging

A newer technique is to “wet-age” beef. Large portions of beef are vacuum-sealed in plastic and racked in a cold, humidity controlled room. Because this meat is not exposed to the air, it does not lose moisture during the aging process. As a result, flavors do not concentrate as the meat is tenderized.

Dry-aged beef is often more expensive because the meat weighs less at the end of the period than at the beginning due to moisture loss and trim. There is literally less meat to sell.

We believe there is no single “best” aging time or method but Artisan Beef should be aged a minimum of 10 days. There may be exceptions for particularly lean beef, which can be over-aged if not carefully monitored. A rancher or end consumer should look to an Artisan Butcher to provide advice on what technique to use and how long to age the beef. It’s worth noting that most supermarket beef is not aged or is aged incidentally as the meat moves through the distribution system to store shelves.

How would you describe the taste of Artisan Beef?

On average, I’ve found that Artisan Beef (and Pork, Lamb, Poultry, and Goat) has more flavor and has a nicer texture and than commodity meat. But this is a hard question to answer for two reasons. The taste of beef from one Artisan Rancher & Butcher team will be different than that from another, as I’ve noted above. This is particularly true for 100% grass-fed beef, which is delightfully full of flavor variety across the country and even within smaller growing regions.

In addition, until now, we simply have not had a vocabulary for meat. That’s why I created an Artisan Beef (and other meat) tasting process and guide, to help people describe what they taste and discover which styles they like best.

What are you looking for in a good cut of meat?

A good cut of meat should be attractive to look at. If it’s a steak, it should be trimmed well (usually to ¼” fat trim) and be uniformly thick. It drives me crazy when I see steaks that are cut like a wedge, thicker at one end than at the other, as this makes it very hard to cook them evenly. The aroma of the meat should be pleasant, too. The meat shouldn’t look ratty, as if it were cut sloppily, and it should not be a blackish purple, as this indicates stress in the meat and stress can ruin both the flavor and texture of beef.

Tell us more about your Tasting Guide

What I am really looking for is beef that has a unique Texture, Personality, and Impression. I want it to tell a story and evoke an emotional reaction in me or other tasters.

As with wine lovers, I start by recognizing that not all beef lovers share the same palate, preferences, or values regarding meat. From that reality, I have developed “tasting notes,” a unique, three-part system that any meat lover can use to evaluate the taste of meat.

Texture: Artisan Beef starts with Texture, which can range from very soft to very chewy. Individuals have different preferences, so there’s no worst to best scale. One should instead consider whether the Texture of one steak or burger appeals to you more and why.

Personality: If you sat next to this beef at a dinner party, what kind of Personality would he or she have? Is he reserved and shy, by the end of the night you realize he’s really just about beef, there are no other flavor notes than just “beefy”? Or is he very adventurous, the life of the party, do you taste many distinct flavor notes in the beef such as parmesan cheese, maple syrup, toasted nuts, or even lamb? Do you prefer Adventurous Personalities, Reserved Personalities, or somewhere in between?

Impression: Then there is Impression. Now that you’ve met this beef, will you remember him 10 years from now or forget him the next day? Did the flavors stay on your palate briefly or for a very long time? Some prefer beefs with a brief Impression, others like flavors to linger.

After using this guide, a good cut of meat will evoke an image in your mind. Was this an Outdoor Adventure Beef™ , Easy Going Beef™ , Seductive Date Beef™ , or something else? You don’t have to have liked the beef for it to offer up an image; but Artisan Beef will be distinct.

Why is meat traceability so important?

Most people who support traceability do so for disease management and food safety reasons. If there is an outbreak, it is far easier to contain the scope of the problem if you can trace the meat back to the original ranch or processing batch.

This is very important but I value knowing who raised and aged my beef, where and how for other reasons. For one, it can tell us something about how the beef is going to taste. Further, if you happen to like that particular flavor and texture, you know where to go to buy more of it. You can also decide which farms and butchers you want to support. At the average supermarket, none of this is possible. Even within most branded beef programs, beef from multiple ranches and feed yards are jumbled together at shelf.

Let’s use wine again to illustrate the point. Imagine if all the wine grapes in Napa Valley this week were blended together in a single batch, eyeballed by an inspector and labeled “Prime.” If you loved the wine, you’d never be able to buy it again because no one could say what went into it in the first place. The winemaker would also have missed out on the opportunity to tease out several varieties and qualities of wine from that batch of grapes. Yet this is what we do with beef!

When you consider a fine wine, at minimum you expect to know the grape variety, growing region, aging technique, and winemaker. I believe we deserve to know at least as much with beef. I offer this level of transparency – and far more – through my Artisan Beef Institute and online marketplace, The Oliver Ranch Company, and I encourage others to do the same.

Where can I get Artisan Beef?

Today, it is hard to find Artisan Beef, Pork, Lamb, Goat, or Poultry, as this is a very new and unique approach to livestock rearing and meat production. I review, rate, and provide tasting notes for Artisan Beef (and other meat) producers on my site, host live tastings across the country, and offer a Discover Beef Experience Artisan Steak Tasting special for home use. I find many of ranchers on my own but often they approach me or individuals call, email, or send “tweets” with the names of their favorite producers. As a consultant, I help individuals, restaurants, and retailers find Artisan Beef. There are a few branded meat programs that might qualify, too; I just haven’t yet tasted their beef.

The most powerful thing we can do is to ask a lot of questions about the origin of various meats. We need to work together to encourage and even demand change in the meat industry. I have created easy-to-use questionnaires that can be downloaded from my site or forwarded by email.

What is your vision for Artisan Beef and other meats?

From a consumer perspective, beef today is similar to where wine was in the 1970’s. Back then we knew red or white, jug wine (from California) or fine wine (from France). Today, we know so much more! We argue over grape varieties, growing regions, vineyards, viticulture practices, aging techniques, and the concept of terroir. There is “Two Buck Chuck” and $6,000 Chateau Margaux and everything in between. The same is true for coffee. The category has grown from regular, decaf and, thanks to Juan Valdez, Columbian, to fair trade, single estate, specialized varieties and blends, and brewing choices galore. If the Rutherford region is ideal for Cabernet Sauvignon and Carneros for Pinot Noir, I ask why not appellations for beef, pork, lamb, and other meats? That is what I am setting out to do with The Artisan Beef Institute.

What can people do if they want more information?

If you are looking for greater transparency in our food system, if you’ve seen Food Inc., or Fresh and want to know where to find top quality or Artisan Beef, Pork, Lamb, Goat, or Poultry, please join me, use my questionnaire, ask questions and then vote with your wallets to support those producers, truckers, slaughterhouse workers, and butchers who are employing best practices in animal husbandry and land management. If we reward and recognize the best, we will help support humane animal husbandry, keep good people on the land, and have better tasting, more personalized meats on our plates. It’s a win – win – win – win for all. What could be better than that?

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