Jumbo Veal

Keen-eyed correspondent Rose's Lime sends along some interesting news out of Tufts:

Dr. George Saperstein, a large-animal vet from Tufts Veterinary School, partnered with Dole & Bailey, a family owned Massachusetts wholesale-food supplier. Together, they’ve created a line of veal that diners can feel good about eating. The meat is pinkish rather than stark white, because the animals are permitted to frolic in the sunlight, sipping milk, eating grass and corn, and doing other fun things that keep their blood circulating. The brand name of the new veal is Azuluna, and while you can’t yet buy it yourself at the market, the product is starting to become available to restaurant chefs in our area.

Azuluna veal is raised on local farms, it’s delicious, and if the concept flies, it will offer struggling family dairy farms a revenue stream for what used to be considered a waste product. Sorry, boys, but dairy farmers have always considered male calves “waste products.” Why? Male dairy cows don’t get pregnant (duh) and therefore they don’t produce milk (double duh) — and milk, after all, is the primary revenue source for a dairy farmer. Secondly, given the natural profligacy (or efficiency) of males, one dairy bull can easily service many females. From the dairy farmer’s perspective, extra males are annoyances — expensive boy toys with big appetites who are a distraction to the girls. Traditionally, farmers have separated the surplus male calves from their moms and shipped them off to veal Valhalla just days after taking their first wobbly steps.

Stuff @ Night -- junior sibiling to Newbury St.'s paper of record, is not the be all and end all of food writing in the middle oughts -- generally life on a dairy farm is described  less like a circuit party than as seen above. But it will be interesting to track the fortunes of Azuluna:

The verdict was positive and powerful. “It’s exactly the kind of product my Cambridge customers would love,” Chez Henri’s Paul O’Connell says. Everyone agreed that the flavor was wonderful yet unique — without the blandness of traditional veal that is a foil for any sauce, but not strong enough to fight with any classic recipe."

I am always about repping the 02140, but "exactly the kind of product my Cambridge customers would love," may actually earn Paul O'Connell an award for damning with faint praise -- does he mean "this is the kind of product that  my customers, who frequent my Cambridge-based restaurant, will enjoy"? Or does he mean "among my customers, only the indigenous trustafarians with cowrie shells braided into their armpit hair will order the pink veal, while my core constituency of Harvard Law School  students continues to pound down the eight dollar periodistas at the bar"? And would you want something you cooked described as  "wonderful yet unique"? It's the kind of verbal jujitsu you'd expect from a Junior Leaguer at a potluck in Augusta, GA.

The stuffness of the article aside, this sounds like a positive development.* Veal tastes good, and I'm a fan of things that taste good being rasied conscionably.  I'm eager to hear tasting notes from anyone who has tried the Azuluna veal.

*Confidential to the copy crew: "Call off the PC police"? Do you still have a VCR and listen to Soundgarden on your Walkman, or is this some kind of early 90s nostalgia thing?

Comments

[Rose's Lime]

Will take a walk past Ana Sortun's this afternoon to see if its made its way onto the menu yet.

[Eater]

Traditionally, farmers have separated the surplus male calves from their moms and shipped them off to veal Valhalla just days after taking their first wobbly steps.

Dangle that participle!

"Rosé veal" is popular in the UK, where crate veal is practically illegal.

[pyewacket]

That's funny - I read that article and had the same thought about his "Cambridge customers." To me, it meant, "this is for people who will spend a lot of money to assuage their guilt about eating baby cow!" Which, you know, I hate to admit, I would. Because I don't mind eating a dead animal, as long as it wasn't tortured first. 02140, indeed.

[Blanche]

You might want to stop parsing people’s words long enough to sample Azuluna veal. I attended the August 24 tasting at Oleana, which featured veal carpaccio, grilled veal chops, and veal timbales. The Azuluna carpaccio was pink and buttery soft, yet pushed back ever so gently to the bite. And it had FLAVOR, real flavor the way veal, I imagine, is truly supposed to taste but never has before – at least not in my mouth. The same was true of the Azuluna veal chop: the flavor was like nothing I’d ever tasted. And this poses a real challenge in trying to find the words to describe it (hence the fallback of so many people on the less-than-satisfactory ‘unique’). Some people around me described it as a bit “beefy” for lack of a better word. That’s much too strong a word to characterize it. It was, well, vealy. Delicate yet distinctive. It was acoustic guitar, with an ever-so-slight hint of flamenco. It was rosy Renoir, with a hint of Gauguin. It was moist, tender, and with that same gentle push-back to the chew. And now for the Azuluna timbales. All anyone at the table could say was, “Oh my gosh.” Ana Sortun’s exquisite approach to a braising cut brought out the most indescribably mouth-filling flavor of veal I’ve ever tasted. She typically uses this cut in an Azuluna veal tajine. I can’t wait to go back and try it. (Oh, and did I mention the deviled Azuluna eggs?)