Salt? Pepper?
Don't bring me table salt,
- Can I take it? - No, wait,
Wait!
I brought you peanut oil,
And the shallots?
What's going on, Loulou?
Where is the goddamn Top Chef guy?
Pay attention to what you do!
- Wait! - Oh, I forgot the oil,
It makes all the difference,
Look at this juice,
Table 7 is still waiting!
Yes, but what I just made will change their experience,
My family raised French Charolais in Central France,
We always thought French meat was the best in the world,
Which cinemas will show this?
Where will we see it?
I told you to forget about the camera,
But you're shooting?
Daddy?
How is the meat, Safine?
So good!
She really loves meat,
Once in New York, I ate a highly unusual steak,
It's crazy,
I just ate the best steak in the world here,
No question about it,
It's tender,
it's tasty, it looks good,
It's so easy to cut,
This Black Angus had a very easy taste,
The meat was very tender,
because the animal was very young,
But it has nothing to do with real Angus,
This one was raised in an industrial model
where animals are killed very young,
They are 18 months old, That's why the meat is so tender,
And it's fatty,
because the food the animals eat is full of protein,
The American system involves raising animals very quickly
with hormones for extra muscles and protein-heavy food for fat
to please market demand for tenderness and taste,
But instead of being tender and tasteful, it is flabby and fatty,
But if you've been eating only tasteless French Blonde,
or hard Charolais,
the flabby and fatty Black Angus seems to be wonderful,
France is behind others,
I asked passionate people why, ate unforgettable steaks
and witnessed a revolution,
- Sorry I'm all wet, - That's okay,
- Nice to meet you, - Likewise,
In France, we don't produce red meat,
Limousine, Charolais and Blonde d'Aquitaine
are raised to give birth to male veals for Italy,
In France we eat old cows,
Under the Anglo-American influence,
Europe stopped eating boiled meat
and started grilling the meat in the '50s,
That is when the problem with our breeds began,
Our heavy animals were not adapted to the grill,
Which should we taste first?
In France, we have a problem,
We need to stop raising muscled animals -
But we're not,
Charolais, Limousine and Maine-Anjou cattle have two major problems,
They become adult very late,
So they produce a lot of collagen, Collagen is the enemy of tenderness,
Boiled collagen turns to jelly, that's okay,
But grilled, it's a problem,
The male produces a lot more collagen than the female,
In the 1950s, when a male calf was born,
we knocked it out and dumped it,
These animals are athletes,
Athletes have no fat, They have muscles,
These animals are heavy but produce no fat,
So, we're back to the same issue,
In order to grill meat, it needs some fat,
The obsession with getting animals looking like bodybuilders is over,
But it is still an obsession for French butchers,
Because the yield's better,
We also need to explain to consumers what good meat is,
They need to understand intramuscular fat melts away during cooking
and you don't eat the fat left in your plate,
You end up with a piece of meat with only five to eight percent of fat,
The French have had a phobia of fat,
Nutritionists are largely to blame,
Looking for the best steak in the world
Argentinean history regarding meat,,,
started with the arrival of the first Spaniards,
The first animals were Spanish breeds
and they were destined for the leather trade with Europe,
But when they started extracting salt,
they learned how to preserve and store meat with salt,
That is when Argentina started exporting meat to Europe,
When this business expanded, Europeans sought to improve
the quality of the meat,
They looked for breeds more compatible with our environment,
And that's when they imported British breeds here,
An Argentinean eats 60 kilos of red meat per year
whereas a European eats on average around 18 kilos per year
and an American 25 to 30,
Over the last 10 years, Argentina has changed the way it raises cattle,
We created intensive feedlots like in Europe or in the USA,
Europe buys from us meat coming from open field farms,
from cattle raised traditionally,
Our production from big intensive feedlots
is sold on our domestic market or to South American countries,
At home, my mother handles the barbecue,
She taught me a lot,
It is very important to use cooking salt,
Table salt does not penetrate the meat,
Table salt stays like a film on the meat,
These are ribs,
Ribs are from the central part of the animal,
Argentineans eat a lot of ribs,
They eat these more than rib eyes or sirloins,
If you're invited to an Argentinean family,
you will eat this or a bavette,
Here is a bavette,
We eat a lot of it in Argentina,
For all events, Sunday lunches, birthdays, first Communions,
we always eat bavette or ribs,
In this cut, you have a rib eye and a chop,
American customers love it because it's big,
They take pictures with it and eat it with their fingers,
They're amazed by it,
Hello, I am Marcos Bassi,
Brazilians love meat,
Brazilians gather with family and friends
and eat a lot of meat on these occasions,
They don't like fat meat,
- Do you plunge the meat in brine? - Yes,
It's water and salt,
Why is Brazil breeding Nellore
instead of high quality beef?
Because it's adapted to the Brazilian climate,
We know that people don't like Nellore meat because it's hard,
We have tried the intensive feedlot system,,,
and crossbreeding with European Angus or Simmental
in order to improve Brazilian meat quality,
But in Brazil, the crossbred animals or pure Angus,
have a lower resistance to Lyme disease,
They contract diseases easily, They're not suited to our climate,
They suffer from the heat, they need more care,
and they need more worming powder,
Talking about one chef,,,
doesn't mean you forget the other chefs,
Each chef has his specialty,
Every chef I met did wonderful things for me,
All the ones who came to Brazil, I welcomed them here,
They cooked exceptional dishes for me, It was great with all of them,
I can't think of one dish that would be the best,
I haven't forgotten any of them, I'm not saying this to please them,
I was just a kid who did not have this culinary culture,
That's why for me, everything was amazing and delicious,
Too many emotions,
A few months after this interview, Marcos Bassi passed away,
But the best meat I ever had,,,
regarding restaurants,
was 30 years ago at Peter Luger,
I had a porterhouse steak there and discovered prime beef,
It was the first time I ate meat with a lot of fat,
I went back to Peter Luger several times,
They have a secret to make sure their steak is unforgettable,
It's cooked twice,
The American steak (r)evolution
We are in November,
How do you get such tall grass?
To have green grass like that,
cattle stopped grazing here mid-August,
But if you want dried grass,
the cattle need to stop grazing here around July 15
so that your field lasts,
If I'd stopped using the field in May, the grass would push up the snow,
It would be even easier for the cattle to eat,
Fred Morin, Joe Beef, Montreal,
David McMillan, Joe Beef, Montreal,
Some customers order only fries,
If you pay $75 for a steak, it must have everything,
For me, quality means something,
but it may mean something else for the customers,
Quality means two different things for beef,
For me, a good piece of red meat comes from a small farm,
It is a carcass we buy ourselves and let mature
and we both enjoy eating the steak,
But the other measure for quality is tenderness,
But if it's not tender, make sure you enjoy it anyway,
Ask for mustard and a big knife,
eat slowly,
Give your steak a chance,
What happened in North America with wine
is that people used to drink new world wines with 15% of alcohol,
full of oak and lots of sun, Very strong wines,
Now the trend is for natural wines,
But we're very far from making people do the same with beef,
The three giant beef producers,
Brazil, Argentina and the USA,
are using British breeds,
We also find British breeds in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand,
even in Japan,
Japanese Wagyu has some Angus genetics,
British breeds have the advantage of transforming grass into fat,
Back to the roots
English breeds like Angus or Hereford
are smaller,
The British selected them in the 19th century
for their ability to get fat,
English breeds have an early maturity and grow fat quickly,
British people have known how to roast meat since the 16th century,
They built a business model around it,
The world's best cattle breeders are the British,
When we say that in France, it's shocking!
Everybody thinks about mad cow disease
and the age-old rivalry between France and Great Britain,
It's impossible for a French butcher to say
that British breeders are the best,
I said it and I was fired from the French Butchery Union,
Out of the French Butchery Union! Because I dared to say that,
Welcome,
Regarding beef, the big difference in Japan
is that we eat it as a side order,
Japanese people use it as a condiment for rice,
For a good combination with rice,
Japanese beef has been developed for tenderness
rather than texture,
Well, since around 1900,
breeders have been putting great effort into developing tender beef,
And then in the year 1944,
a new breed called Japanese Black was raised
with the main objective of tenderness,
They are showing only 10 different cuts, There isn't a large choice,
In France, there are more products on display,
We try to make customers hungry,
It's funny to see how fat is perceived differently here,
In Japan, the fat is displayed, In France, we hide it,
Compared to the West, rather than steak
we like meat that goes well with rice,
for yakiniku, sukiyaki, shabu-shabu or gyundon,
We like thinly-sliced beef more than thick pieces
and also minced beef,
Those types of beef sell much more,
That's our market,
The butcher dresses the piece of meat in front of the customer,
In France, we would do it before putting it on display,
We may even present it as a roast beef,
We would never show fat like that,
Or we would cut it in steaks,
Their way of doing things is very interesting,
French consumers aren't used to that,
Welcome,
The fat in the Tajima sirloin
is classified in 12 categories,
Only grades 6 to 12 are classified as Kobe beef,
Five and under are called Tajima beef,
We call it Kobe beef when the fat marbling
is exceptional within the Tajima breed,
The flavor in the fat gives meat a wonderful taste
and compared to other breeds, the amount of flavorful fat is high,
Kobe beef contains this flavorful marbled fat,
which is why it tastes so good,
And when people actually eat it, they say, "It's delicious!"
Kobe beef cows have short, thin legs,
All the work is done on the back of the animal,
Actually the animal is turned into a barrel with legs,
The Japanese want big curves,
They don't care about the legs,
I play Mozart all day and night for the cows,
I am sure classical music calms the animals and helps them sleep,
A relaxing environment produces better meat,
So I leave it on,
Sake, Japanese rice wine,,,
is also said to be effective,
So I massage the animals with it,
Beer is good for digestion,
But I don't give it to my animals,
We do occasionally massage the cows, but there are too many of them,
So you don't use beer?
Do you know farmers who give beer to their animals?
I know some farmers who say they do, but I think they drink it!
I tried, But the animals were getting drunk too fast,
The food comes from up there,
We can control the output,
All of this is Tajima beef,
Depending on the quality and quantity of the marbling,
it'll be classified as Kobe beef or not,
The layout of the marbling is the most important factor,
We assign up to A5, based on specific standards,
This is the finest one in the market today,
Very nice marbling, Well balanced, This is the champion,
The fat is well spread in the muscle,
I'm eager to know its price,
$20,000,
I need to take a picture, It's so beautiful,
In France, this one would be really cheap,
The huge amount of fat would make its price go down,
But Kobe beef is not the best Japanese beef,
It's incredible,
It's crazy,
It melts yet is crispy on the outside,
But it really melts! It disappears in your mouth,
It's amazing,
Magnificent,
It's moving,
I forgot what I was supposed to say,
We are Shinishi and Mutsumi Konishi,
We raise Matsusaka beef with all our love,
We are very happy to be interviewed,
The farm began operating in the Meiji Era,
And over the many years and decades,
we've continued to protect this breed with its long history,
We're grateful to our ancestors and we'll keep working hard,
You must use this sake spray and scrub them with straw,
This is how we massage,
Do you massage for aesthetic reasons?
No, it's for blood circulation and to soften the fat under the skin,
Kobe beef is only made with males or castrated males,
However, Matsusaka beef is only made from females,
They are virgin females, That's the main difference,
Basically, they are eating all day,
If they eat that all their life - This feed is very fatty,
Cows are herbivores, So this is a problem,
And growing grain in today's ecological world isn't the best idea,
The Swedish Wagyu (r)evolution
It's incredible how they let us go up to them,
There are many legends
about how Wagyu came to Europe
because the Japanese don't export Wagyu semen,
The Japanese told me
that some sperm was wrongly sent
to a lab in the Netherlands
for medical reasons,
And from there, the sperm was stolen,
And the Wagyu wave started all over the world,
Today, all over the world, people grill or roast the meat,
To cook meat that way, it has to be low in collagen with a good fat balance,
So we need fast-growing animals that get fat,
If we can get them fat without too much grain, it's even better,
I'm 22,
The hardest thing is to assert yourself in a man's world,
It's tough because it's a macho world,
As a woman, I face prejudice,
Some words really hurt,
You can raise cattle and be happy, but you need to fight,
Happiness is given to me every day by my animals,
But I also work with humans,
That's the problem,
First, I would like to save the breed,,,
and then be able to say
that although I am a young girl,
and there are numerous problems in this business in France,
there are solutions,
You have to fight at first, but in the end,
there's a certain satisfaction,
We're at the very southwest end of Sauternes,
Here you have the Ciron River which makes Sauternes wine
by creating this fog in the fall that surrounds the grapes
and generates the Sauternes's noble rot,
Tenant farmers working for large Bordeaux landowners,
who had farms in the Landes Forest,
used Bazadais cattle as working animals,
Before World War II, there were 160,000 Bazadais cattle,
Today, there are 3,000 animals left,
Stop!
You always ruin it,
The best way to grill meat
is with three-year-old branches from cabernet sauvignon vineyards,
Bazadais meat isn't the best in the world today,
It's a very good basis with interesting strengths,
But we need to improve the quality of the meat,
And for that, we need to use genetics and cross it with different breeds,
Well, the butcher wants more fat,
More marbling,
My older cattle have a better marbling,
The one we ate yesterday had marbling,
Not a lot but some,
Yes -
- It was an old cow, - Four years old,
In my shops, I sell 17 carcasses a week,
Seven come from England,
from Tim Wilson, a single breeder,
This makes up for what I can't find in France,
Yesterday I went to Charolais and organized a meat testing,
All the pro-Charolais guys
listened to me saying their meat isn't good,
Even Franck told them Charolais won't make it in his top 10,
They all showed dark faces,
but when they tasted longhorn, they all agreed,
They acknowledged the fact that Tim's meat is exceptional,
The Bazadais has some tiny imperfections that can be fixed,
And you shouldn't spend more on grain or food for that,
That doesn't make economic sense, In France, we do that,
Blonde d'Aquitaine has no fat and no taste,
How do we correct that? We give them lots of grain,
And it costs a fortune the breeder can't afford,
There's no business logic and no market price for it,
As I always say, I'm happy to help my daughter,
but there should be 10 or 20 new breeders around here every year,
Because if we want to increase demand for Bazadais meat,
but can only handle 35 mothers,
it'd be more efficient to have 10 farms with 35 mothers,
Socially, it would be smarter than helping establish one big farm with 350 mothers,
Big farms are fragile,
Unfortunately, we're stuck
with local politicians who've only seen cows on TV,
There is one good example in France and that is Aubrac,
Until the 1970s, Aubrac cattle were used only as dairy cattle
to make Laguiole cheese,
In winter, they stayed in the shed,
In summer, they went in the mountains with a shepherd,
In the '70s, it became very difficult to find shepherds
who'd spend six months in the mountains
with their cows, away from girls,
But Aubrac is a very specific land,
You can't have corn or wheat fields there,
So they had to find a new direction,
They remembered that this breed of cattle had been used
for meat in the past,
So they did some work on their gene pool
in order to improve the quality of the meat,
Today, in my opinion, Aubrac produces the best meat in France,
We banned corn, silage and corn silage,
We cook beef with clarified butter,
We take out the whey to make clarified butter,
You keep the aroma of butter without the inconvenience,
You can use higher temperatures and it doesn't burn,
You need a very hot pan?
- No! - Yes!
When you sear the meat, you create like a shell
in which the meat juice is trapped,
Look at its color,
Listen to this music,
It's soft, it's clear,
At the end, we add some normal butter,
It will bring extra aroma to the meat,
But it burns very fast,
So I turned down the heat,
You use a very good salted butter,
some black pepper and it's done,
It deserved to rest a little bit more,
It's delicious,
The taste goes deep and lasts in your mouth,
Tenderloin does not taste the same,
It has a different taste and texture,
Because it is the rump,
The rump is the best part of the animal,
If you don't have tenderloin, use a rump instead,
Like Michel said, it's very different,
For me, the rump is the tastiest,
That's what we have here,
You need to cook meat with wisdom,
You need to love it, take your time,
The best meat cooked wrong is a disaster,
The butcher needs to explain how to cook the meat,
Often customers tell me they know how to cook it,
You should shoot a short film for them,
I'll do that,
We're young, We're not just butchers in white aprons,
If we want to create new ways of working,
we need to exchange ideas with foreign butchers,
When I was young,
I was ashamed of being a butcher,
Now I'm proud to be a butcher,
I proved that being a butcher isn't just cutting meat,
You need marketing skills and the desire to do things right,
Having fun is the main thing, If you're not, you should quit,
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome!
Thanks for coming to the House of Steak!
First you will eat beef carpaccio,
then the famous Florentine T-bone!
And never forget:
To beef or not to beef!
I am Dario Cecchini, I'm a butcher in Panzano in Chianti,
It's a small village with 1,000 inhabitants
in the center of Tuscany,
Tuscany is the center of Italy,
And for me, Tuscany is the center of the world,
In my butcher shop, I try to continue my parents' tradition,
My father and grandfather were butchers, I'm the eighth generation,
I have been a butcher for 39 years,
I do this job because I feel responsible for killing animals,
I respect meat
and I want to use all parts of the animal,
beef and pork,
I have a butcher shop and two restaurants,
In Solociccia, you eat all of the animal, And this is the steak house,
Every day I explain to customers that the whole animal is tasty,
Not just the sirloin or the T-bone,
But in order to eat it all, you need a good butcher,
The best steak in the world comes with the best butcher,
The Chianina is a beautiful breed, elegant and tall,
It doesn't have much fat,
The breed is rare in Italy and in the world,
It gives real Florentine steak,
In this part of Italy, in the Chianti Classico,
40 years ago, in the '60s and '70s,
it was common to see Chianina cattle in farms here,
Nowadays, since 2000,
it is really uncommon in Chianti and in Tuscany as a whole,
Our farm is organic and biodynamic,
Our goal is to link all our activities,
We wanted a system which included wine, olive oil, farming and the cattle,
We grow barley here that our cattle eat,
And then we use the manure as fertilizer,
So we fertilize our land with our products,
And so, we limit our external needs,
We have a closed system,
We are convinced that this is the right solution,
It's a beautiful idea,
But it takes passion,
Our job here is to select animals
with a specific personality,
We're not looking for a specific breed of cattle,
We use genuine, old local breeds,
We're looking for specific animals with a specific character,
We believe that this specific character lets us obtain good meat
with distinctive, unique aromas,
We look for animals all over Spain,
in the whole Iberian Peninsula, in Portugal,
but also in the Carpathian Mountains and further afield,
We look for docile animals with a noble character,
This kind of character facilitates a specific marbling,
All of them are castrated bulls,
Their meat is way better,
Castration improves,,,
the quality of the meat,
People say male beef is harder, No?
Not necessarily,
Of course, if it is a working animal,
the muscles will have more fiber,
But that's even better as we need this for the dry-aging process,
Castrated beef is healthier
because males generate testosterone
that limits bad cholesterol and saturated fat,
It acts like a sort of hormonal cleansing,
It increases the unsaturated fat rate,
The fat will be tastier, more elegant and healthier,
Pezunias, come here!
- How old is he? - Ten years old,
- How much does he weigh? - 2,000 kilos,
- Are you going to kill him? - Of course,
He's reserved for customers from Saudi Arabia, America and all over,
He's very famous, He's been on TV,
Stay calm!
Be careful!
He likes to play,
Close the door!
Be careful!
You see? He's wary,
He has a bad temper,
This kind of behavior is not good,
The other one is a much quieter animal,
He will have more marbling,
The first one will only have cover fat,
It's a Barrosã, It's a Portuguese breed,
These animals are very expensive to keep,
They don't give milk or calves, I just raise them for meat,
We give him food for 11 years,
An animal like this can eat eight to 15 kilos of grain a day,
Plus 20 to 30 kilos of hay,
If you multiply that by 10 years, the cost is phenomenal,
This animal is 14 years old,
He is in perfectly good shape,
Look, I'm 1 meter 74 tall,
You're beautiful,
When the animal is too young,
the fat is too liquid and melts,
Like everything in life, fat needs time to get better,
An animal which isn't happy won't give good steak like this,
The inside of the meat has to be at 46 or 47 degrees Celsius maximum,
It has to be taken out at 48 or 49 degrees,
Once it's out, I don't let it breathe,
The temperature will go up one or two degrees until it is served,
It's a Rubia Gallega, Seven years old,
Each muscle must be cut in a specific way,
It tastes better than Wagyu,
It's better meat than Wagyu,
It's like butter, isn't it?
What an incredible taste, Butter, yes, But not just butter,
There's thyme, there's grass, there's -
This animal was 13 years old,
Rubia meat exists thanks to dry-aging, You can't eat it if it's not dry-aged,
The best steak in the world,
Maturing beef means letting the meat hang
for a certain time, right after the animal is killed,
The fat will change its taste
depending on the type of cold room you use,
Cement or plastic cold rooms give different aromas,
That's how we get tasty meat with specific flavors,
The meat tastes like hazelnut,
It's like making cheese,
Everyone develops his own maturing method,
Some clients ask me for lean meat,
I say, "I don't have any,
We do the exact opposite!"
José Gordon's Rubia Gallega is the best meat in the world,
I finally found this passion and pleasure in France,,, in Corsica!
Christian Orsucci, my friend and the mayor,
calls me every year for the village festival,
There's the church procession and then the dinner,
It's not a ball as there's no dancing,
We started the cooking at 11:00 AM for a 9:00 PM dinner,
It needs to be cooked for nearly 10 hours,
We use wild olive trees, holm oaks and strawberry trees,
The wood needs to be cut at least six months ahead,
We use wood that was exposed to the sun, facing south
because it needs to be very dry,
It doesn't smoke much and generates lots of heat,
Usually farmers here know how to cut carcasses,
In the mountains, we learn how to do it,
Delicious as always,
Come on, Christelle, go to work,
No close-ups, please,
Don't forget to dunk the meat in the sauce,
How many animals do you raise a year?
I raise 160 animals each year
and I cook 80 of them on the spit like tonight,
Where does the Tiger breed come from?
It's not the Corsican breed,
It's one of the Corsican breeds,
It's a very old breed,
You find it here as there was little cattle migration, It's also in Sardinia,
I've registered the Tiger cow brand
so I stand out,
Once a dairy farmer came to see how I work,
He kept saying life was difficult due to rising soy prices,
"You used to grow peas yourself as additional protein for your cows,
Now you're waiting for American soy, You're insane!"
I'm totally independent,
I produce all the food I need for my cattle,
I sell my males and females,
Selling my meat is easy because people know my products
and I sell it to restaurants thanks to my butcher shop,
I don't sell to private individuals,
This is a veal chop from Mr, Jacques Abbatucci,
flambéed with rosemary,
The seasons make my meat taste different,
I don't say that my meat has the same taste all year around,
What the cattle eat changes, nature changes around them,
so the meat tastes different,
For Christmas dinner, I have animals who ate holm oak acorns,
So the meat tastes like hazelnut,
That's real common sense,
People talk about it, but only a few put it into practice,
You should do what you can with the land you have,
Don't do things you can't control,
Otherwise you are dependent on everyone
and on the fluctuations in international prices,
In Corsica, we have always cut tree branches
and the animals were eating foliage from wild olive trees, strawberry trees and oaks
so that we could keep the animals outside and feed them,
Now when I increase my pasture surface area on abandoned land,
I use freshly cut scrubland
as wood, food and fertilizer,
And what's left, I don't burn it,
I wait for the carbon in the wood to go in the soil,
Burning it would put the carbon back in the air, That's eco-citizenship,
Everybody loves the concept but nobody enforces it,
The carbon goes from plant to air to soil,
This is a very healthy organization and an exciting way of working,
Today we only think about meat, but I'm thinking about leather again,
I'll show you our tanned skins for making bags, It's great,
It's also creating a local economy,
It gives work to local craftsmen,
We need to restart our development
to take over from the industrial economy or here in Corsica, from tourism,
If we create a viable local business,
we can preserve our environment,
The point is to have farms like this,
My land faces the sea, but I made a choice with this farm,
I could sell it and have big cars and villas instead of my cows,
But I won't, They're my values,
Hats off!