“vaca vieja”—Spanish for “old cow”

[zedd]

The New Trend in Steak: Old Beef
Steakhouses looking for the next big thing are hoping to lure diners with dishes made from older cows; ‘a little bit of a tougher bite’

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-trend-in-steak-old-beef-11564997401

We raise grass-finished beef and can say from experience that a black Angus steer harvested before it's second year is well marbled, tender and has good flavor. An older animal will also be well marbled, not as tender but will have great flavor.
It's a trade-off.

But an eight year old?! No that's silly. That's a hamburger cow. Same thing for dairy breeds.

 

[timo2]

8 years does seem old. Yikes!

 

[marko]

Wait a minute!

Steak comes from the super market. What's cows have to do with it?

 

[audreyh1]

There is a Cuban beef dish called Ropa Vieja = old clothes. It's a long simmered stew, and the beef usually end up being pretty stringy - thus it looks like old clothes. I've had better versions of stew.

I guess that would an appropriate use for vaca vieja.

I suppose grass fed - no worries about mad cow disease if it is only pastured raised and finished, but I thought most conventionally raised beef for food was butchered at 2 years to avoid mad cow disease?

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

We visited the Camargue, the Rhone River Delta, in France some years ago. They have a breed of semi-feral cattle down there that they use for a variety of bullfighting (the bulls don't die in this version). However, some bulls are turned into beef and cooked with a wine marinade -- the dish is called gardiane de taureau. Here's the recipe.

 

[Bluegrass]

I clicked on this expecting it to be about the bull market.

 

[timo2]

I suppose grass fed - no worries about mad cow disease if it is only pastured raised and finished, but I thought most conventionally raised beef for food was butchered at 2 years to avoid mad cow disease?

Great point about the Mad Cow Disease. IIRC correctly the only cases in North America were in older dairy cows. So yes, the younger cows would not have developed BSE yet.

 

[Amethyst]

I was afraid this was going to be about foreign insults for retired women.

 

[MichaelB]

The New Trend in Steak: Old Beef
Steakhouses looking for the next big thing are hoping to lure diners with dishes made from older cows; ‘a little bit of a tougher bite’

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-trend-in-steak-old-beef-11564997401

We raise grass-finished beef and can say from experience that a black Angus steer harvested before it's second year is well marbled, tender and has good flavor. An older animal will also be well marbled, not as tender but will have great flavor.
It's a trade-off.

But an eight year old?! No that's silly. That's a hamburger cow. Same thing for dairy breeds.

Thanks for the link. This sounds like some good old American marketing ingenuity, branding and salesmanship. Have they learned to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ears?

 

[kcowan]

I was afraid this was going to be about foreign insults for retired women.

You mean Gorda Gringas?

 

[BoodaGazelle]

I don’t know about the “vieja” part, but around Tampa some Latin restaurants have a dish called “vaca frita”, or fried cow. It is pretty good, though I don’t know how old it is.