Raising Steaks: The Life and Times of American Beef
Betty Fussell
Reviewed by MM Pack, Fri., Oct. 31, 2008
Raising Steaks: The Life and Times of American Beef
by Betty FussellHarcourt, 402 pp., $26
It's hard to live in Texas without an inkling of the role cattle have played in history and economics. And in the early 21st century, our collective consciousness has been raised regarding modern industrialized beef, its ethical and environmental implications, and its relationship to health and nutrition. However, it's a big task to make sense of it all – how it was, how it is, where it's going, and why.
As she did with her prize-winning The Story of Corn, Betty Fussell competently wraps her arms around the daunting topic of American beef. With meticulous research, she takes us from the 1598 arrival in Texas of the first breeding herd to the post-World War II relationship of corn, petroleum, and cattle to the current movement toward humanely raised grass-fed livestock. Traveling the country, visiting ranches and slaughterhouses, Fussell explains the intertwined cattle legacies from Spain and Britain and deconstructs the American romances of the cowboy and the machine that together spawned today's beef culture.
Sunday, 3:30-4:30pm, Cooking Tent
