The Jerkyssance

It turns out that Dat Nguyen is not the only Aggie who knows what to do with a longhorn:

Recently, however, beef jerky has earned a shred of respectability. In Texas, where all things beef find their meaning, researchers have been applying actual science to make better jerky at the E. M. “Manny” Rosenthal Meat Science and Technology Center, at Texas A & M University. The resulting Aggie jerky is apparently a breakthrough. As the Web site thrillist.com put it, it’s “a Unified Theory of Meat available by the  ½-pound bag.”

Unlike the standard truck-stop variety, the A & M jerky is pulled off the muscle, not ground up and reconstituted. Like most jerky, it’s from a lean cut — top round — because the fat that gives a buttery richness to cooked meats makes dried meat too tough. Sliced with the grain for a good chew, it is then marinated in a salty brine for a week before being peppered and smoked for three days with hickory sawdust smoke.

I look forward to trying this jerky, but I also hope it is a sign of greater integration between land grant or otherwise agriculturally oriented universities and the world of artisanal foods. Based at my own anecdotal experience of working at a land grant university, the relationship between such institutions and Big Ag is pretty close -- the folks who go run the large scale beef, poultry, or pork operations like those Pollan condemns in Omnivore's Dilemma have to learn how to do that somewhere.* I don't mean to suggest that the future of American agriculture lies in selling bags of jerky at $21.00/lb, but it is good to see an outfit like the Rosenthal Meat Science and Technology Center focus on flavor, rather than volume. And good to see some Aggies kicking the Ferry Terminal types right in the slats in a blind taste test.

*There are silver linings -- Tyson and Hormel are both major recruiters at career fairs where I work, so I have a collection of Tyson logoed foam chickens, cows, and pigs. Cute.

Comments

[New Orleans Survivor]

This could be the start of something big. Maybe someone can start a business making and selling artisanal and flavored beef jerky. Seems to be working for pickles.