The "American" Beef

In the early days the principal source of "American" beef was not cattle raised to be eaten, but rather oxen--cattle used as beasts of burden. They uprooted trees, drew ploughs through stony fields and dragged loaded wagons behind them. When they were too old or too weak to pull their weight, they got the reward of being slaughtered and the flesh was eaten. Just how tough and stringy it must have been is suggested by several old recipes. One urges the housewife to make holes with an awl or screwdriver in a chunk of beef four to five inches thick, fill them with strips of pork, and steam the meat for three hours. A second- to obviate the necessity of aging the beef to tenderize it, an impossibility certainly in hot weather--recommends that a steak be soaked first in a half pint of red wine, then boiled and finally simmered until it can easily be cut with a blunt knife (Yankee Pot-Roasts)..

In those days’ even "American" beef cattle--those raised specifically for meat—could not have been much tenderer than oxen. Before there was a Wild West, America's most important source of beef was the South-- the Carolinas and Georgia. But in the absence of railroads and refrigerator cars, the only way to get Southern beef to the market was on the hoof-live. Thus cattle were walked from their grazing grass lands to Charleston, Norfolk and Baltimore, and even as far north as Philadelphia-- and the exertion could have done the animals little good as far as tenderness was concerned. After Ohio and Illinois became beef centres  cattle were driven from the Midwest to New York; making seven miles a day, the lowing beasts required 40 to 50 days to complete the journey, and lost as much as 150 lbs on route.

The most famous of cattle from the U.S.A., the, so called, "Texas longhorns” (Cattle from Mexico; and of Spanish origin), could hardly have been very tender either. Yet for their times they were nearly perfect beef animals, second only at that time, to the native bison-then later to the mostly English "Shorthorns"  .

Actually, these animals were of Spanish stock bred to withstand the heat and drought of Andalusia. The lean but sturdy longhorns thrived under the similar conditions they found in Texas and proved their adaptability many times over on the range. They were resistant to diseases that killed cattle (other than the bison); they could get along on little water and most important of all, they were capable of being driven, (bison were not) and making the long trek to the rail centres.

At the peak of the great drives, as many as 2,000 at a time might be pointed northward and herded 1,000 or more miles-- a three month journey over a trail that wandered from the Mexican border through Texas and the Indian territory to Kansas. Some even went as far as Illinois and were wintered there, before being driven the rest of the way to New York City. In the 30 years after the Civil War, an estimated 10 million head of cattle walked from Texas to Kansas for shipment, or to more northerly locations for final fattening.

In Canada, being a British colony we had the meatier breeds imported from Scotland and England- the Black Angus(still considered to be the best beef animal ) but because it is smaller, not as popular with the producer); the Short horn or Durham; and the Hereford, today America's most common beef animal.

Yet during their reign, the Longhorns did feed the American states and they helped give them one of their most colourful periods and because of them the American cowboy mentality has ever since associated them with the mostly fictional romance of the Wild West. Had there been no cattle to round up and drive north, there would have been no cowboys, and "American" folklore would have been a poor thing

But historians, in taking a closer look at the two crucial decades 1866 to 1887, when cattle country was not yet fenced in and "American" lawlessness was getting its birth, have pared away some of the "wildness".

Fire-arm experts know, the cowboy's trusted "Colt Peace Maker" revolver, until redesigned in 1871, had an effective range of no more than 25 to 30 yards, his "saddle" rifle about 100 yards and were not much more efficient than the native bows and arrows.

Those scalp-peeling Indians actually were more interested in rustling cattle--which was a lot easier than hunting bison-- or even killing a cowboy.

©Al (Alex Alexander) D.Girvan,1990. All rights reserved