broadening my culinary horizons

[cellio]

Tonight the butcher had a sign advertising fresh bison. From a species point of view bison is kosher, but you rarely find it at all, let alone slaughtered according to the laws of kashrut. I've never tasted bison, so I was curious.

I decided to have the bison and some beef concurrently, to more directly compare the tastes. Also, the bison was $14 per pound, I didn't even know if we would like it, and I wanted to hedge. So I bought one bison steak and some beef steak of comparable thickness (so I could cook them together), and we each had half of each.

Verdict: tastes like ch--... no, actually, it's similar to beef, but we both found it to be more tender and more flavorful. It did not have that gamey taste that I vaguely remember venison having back when I ate that. I would definitely enjoy eating this again, though I will shell out $14 per pound only very infrequently. Judging from availability trends, though, that's not a problem. :-)

I don't know how much of the tenderness was due to its bison-ness and how much to the cut. (It was a shoulder steak, for what that's worth. Doesn't mean anything to me.)

Comments

[nsingman.livejournal.com]

$14/lb is a very good price for kosher bison. We ordered some from Fisher Bros., a kosher butcher in Manhattan (yes, I know, I should expect it to be expensive). They, in turn, ordered the actual meat from a shochet in South Dakota, if memory serves.

It was good, but not worth the $20/lb that we paid. :-)

[cellio]

Ok, you're saying $14/pound is very good, while estherchaya is saying that's way high. Clearly we both need to go shop from her butcher. :-)

[mishtaneh.livejournal.com]

Murray Kosher has had it for at least two months, just tucked away in a corner of the freezer across from the meat counter. I've resisted the urge to try it; at $14/lb it's not all that tempting. :) (Then again, I'm still in sticker shock over meat prices in general....)

[cellio]

Ah, ok. I hadn't noticed it before; today was the first time I saw a big sign. Most of my shopping there is hit-and-run, zipping right to the stuff I'm looking for (on my way home from work), so I probably walked past it any number of times without being aware.

[goljerp]

Then again, I'm still in sticker shock over meat prices in general

I've found that the best way to deal with the price of non-kosher meat is just not to look at the prices. I can't see how kosher meat could ever be less expensive than the cheapest non-kosher meat (unless a kosher market were using the meat as a loss-leader, which would be unlikely), so just don't look.

Of course, that still doesn't help with the absolute price of Kosher meat...

[jeannegrrl.livejournal.com]

Then again, I'm still in sticker shock over meat prices in general....

This is why I eat a LOT more chicken thighs since keeping a Kosher home (they occasionally go on sale for as little as $.79/lb, though they're currently $1.09...) than I used to do.

Also, we have a friend who's a caterer and she sometimes lets us place our meat orders with her to get the bulk pricing (which is still expensive) :-)

[cellio]

I've cut down on my meat consumption since starting to keep kosher, and I buy a lot more chicken than red meat. I'm more likely than I used to be to cook fish or vegetarian meals. This is actually fine with me; I really like fish and don't mind eating it several times a week. I think Dani likes a higher proportion of meat, but we eat enough meals out that he can fulfill that desire. (I don't order meat in non-kosher restaurants, but I'll still eat meat (of kosher species) in friends' homes if they invite us for dinner.)

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

Wolfie had a buffalo burger at a sheep and wool fesitval we went to last weekend, and it was really good. It almost had a creamy texture, and didn't leave a greasy aftertaste the way beef will. Apparently it's supposed to be good for one's cholesterol levels. I'd definitely buy it to cook. I doubt it was kosher, though...

[cellio]

Bison seems to have about 75% of the cholesterol of beef. Also about 75% of the protein; I don't know if those facts are related.

I was pleasantly surprised, when I entered the data into my nutrition-tracking program, that bison has about half the calories of a like quantity of beef.

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

I don't care for the taste of bison, but Seth likes it. I can't remember what I pay for it, but it's definitely not $14 per pound. Bison is definitely more expensive than beef near us (both kosher, of course), but not THAT much more.

[dragontdc.livejournal.com]

You mentioned venison, which made me think. What's the Kosher take on animals that aren't slaughtered, but are killed when hunted? It seems that it would have to be different, because you can't be so precise when your meat is running away. Not kidding, I'm really curious. Could someone live in the wilderness and eat kosher 'from the land'?

[mishtaneh.livejournal.com]

Hunting isn't permissible; I think it would fall under the literal meaning of t'reifah ("torn").

[dragontdc.livejournal.com]

That makes survival in the wild problematic, then.

[cellio]

You can forage (plants) and you can fish. If it is truly a life-and-death matter -- you've been dropped in the middle of a jungle full of poisonous plants, no water, and huntable prey, for example -- you are allowed to eat the animals, because with three exceptions Jewish law can and must be set aside to save a life, and kashrut isn't one of the three. But that doesn't mean you're allowed to make a lifestyle choice that makes keeping the law impossible; you can't choose to go live in that jungle under those circumstances.

[dragontdc.livejournal.com]

I see. Practical. Interesting topic.

[goljerp]

What mishtaneh said, except with this caveat: fish are in a different category than "meat", so you could fish all you want (as long as you only eat the ones with fins and scales). Also, if you could do some sort of "live trap" for kosher birds (mmm, doves) then (assuming the animal didn't injure itself in the trap, and was healthy to begin with) you could probably kill it in a kosher way and eat it.

[dragontdc.livejournal.com]

So rabbit snares and cage traps... Possible.

[cellio]

Well, Thumper's not kosher for other reasons (no hooves), but cage traps and knowledge of sh'chita (slaughtering process) would work.

[goljerp]

Well, Thumper's not kosher for other reasons (no hooves), but cage traps and knowledge of sh'chita (slaughtering process) would work.

Yep. The problem with cage traps and kosher animals is that most of the non-bird species are basically large herd beasts. How do you trap a bison/deer/goat in a cage? The animal can't be injured before slaughter, so some sort of pit trap wouldn't work.

[cellio]

What they said. Kashrut requires a certain procedure for slaughter (for mammals and birds but not fish), so no hunting and no road-kill.

Bison

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

I had bison steak-tips at a local restaurant, and was disappointed. They were tougher than the beef steak-tips I usually order there. Maybe it was a one time occurrence, and I should try again, given other responses in this thread.

Re: Bison

[cellio]

Hmm. Maybe it was a fluke?

Part of the reason I got both bison and steak is that I don't cook a lot of steak, don't have the technique really down, and wanted to eliminate the "possibly-badly-cooked" variable. So I got two pieces of meat of the same thickness and cooked them in the same pan. It's possible that I'm too much of a geek. :-)