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According to an Ipsos Reid and Dietitians of Canada survey, which polled 2201 Canadians, local food preferences vary across the country.

British Columbia: fresh vegetables
Alberta: beef
Saskatchewan & Manitoba: corn
Ontario: apples
Quebec: cheese
Atlantic Region: lobster

Although I’m an Ontarian and do like apples, for me Niagara peaches are the local food that makes me weak in the knees. Ditto for wonderful Fifth Town and Monforte cheeses. What local food do you love most?

With so many regional variations in the names we use to call for similar cuts of steak, it’s hard for people who travel frequently or use international cookbooks and food magazines to know what the heck they need to buy. Usually a little sleuthing on the internet or a call to the Beef Information Centre can answer such questions quickly. However, I’ve been seeing California Cut Strip Loin steaks on menus lately (including my husband’s!) and this term is not well documented. In fact, I had no luck finding a proper description myself last week.

So, since I live with someone who is cutting and selling these steaks, let me be the first to describe them for you: While a traditional strip loin steak is shaped a bit like a diamond and is the result of cutting a whole strip loin crosswise into steaks, for Califomia cut strip loin the whole piece of strip  loin is cut first lengthwise to make two halves; then, thicker steaks are cut crosswise from each of these pieces.

The result is a piece of meat that is almost equal in height, length and width. Why bother? Since these steaks are so very thick (usually over 2-inches/5 cm) they can be well caramelized and encrusted with salt and pepper on the outside without becoming over cooked in the middle. Something you just can’t do easily with a thinner piece of meat.

Have you seen California cut strip loin in your local stores?  If so, let me know where you shop so I can keep up with where this emerging steak trend is taking hold. Thanks!

Let’s make today “hug a butcher day” – and I don’t mean that high school dropout kid who works at the local grocery store wrapping up the meat that arrives pre-cut and ready to hit the shelf. I mean a real butcher. Someone who knows how to cut meat and age meat and make a well-raised animal taste as good as it deserves to taste after sacrificing its life to be your dinner.

I recently met chef-turned-butcher Peter Bochna of Absolutely Fine Foods in Toronto’s west end. Not only does he dry age beef and lamb on premises in his store, he cuts it expertly as well.

“No one is teaching the younger generation how to be true butchers,” notes Bochna. “In chef school, butchery class is about cutting meat up; aging techniques are generally ignored. And, most meat processing plants are organized like factories where each person repeats one aspect of the overall process over and over all day long.

“I’m trying to teach my staff how to coax the best flavour and texture from meat at every stage after it comes from the abattoirs and to teach them how to understand how the breed and feed each animal ate while it was alive affects the decisions you make later at our stage of preparing it for people to eat.”

Sigh. People like Peter deserve our business and admiration. I just wish his shop was closer to my house so I could buy all my meat from him.

Do you have access to a ‘real’ butcher?

To say that it’s a bull market for grass fed beef would be true but it would also be a cheap pun so I won’t do it. Oh, wait… too late.

Moving on to the meat of the matter, just what is grass-finished beef? Most beef cattle eat a combo of grass and hay for part of their lives; however, they are generally moved in from pasture to a dry lot to be finished on an all-grain diet that consists mostly of corn. This diet change allows the cattle to gain weight quickly and produces a yellowy-coloured marbled and leaf fat that adds succulence and flavour to the meat – two things most consumers praise in a good steak or rib roast.

Grass-finished cattle aren’t put on a finishing diet. Instead, they stay on pasture until just before they’re slaughtered. The end result is leaner meat with higher Omega 3 content; however, the taste is different, too. While some people call it “beefier,” other people find grass-finished beef tougher and not as juicy as grain-finished meat.

But, even some of these folks are switching to grass finished beef because the farming methods used to raise it pose fewer health and environmental risks; likewise it has appeal because this is the natural diet cattle would eat if they roamed free.

Have you tried grass-finished beef? If so, did you miss the taste that a grain diet lends to the meat? Or, did you prefer its clean, beefy taste?

Although not currently available to consumers, the theoretical idea that beef can be grown in a lab from a single bovine cell is capturing mainstream attention. Most often sneered at or satirized (recently the sitcom Better off Ted did a brilliant job of the latter), supporters of this idea (including PETA) do exist.

Their argument is that lab-grown (officially called in vitro meat) beef and pork shows potential for being more environmentally friendly than farm raised meat. There are also arguments that because such proteins are produced under controlled conditions, they will be safer food sources, more nutritious and more humane than conventional meat.

Sound like science fiction? Guess again. Apparently small amounts of edible fish can already be produced in a lab environment.

How do you feel about this idea? Does it freak you out or inspire you? If in vitro meat became our only meat supply would you become a vegetarian? I think I would.

All winter I dream about sun-drenched summer evenings and eating a juicy char-grilled burger fresh off the grill. Bliss! As it happens I’m not alone. According to a study conducted by Weber Barbecues, 98% of Canadians like to grill burgers of one kind or another in the summer. Although it wasn’t super warm last night, it was sun drenched so Oliver and I did indeed grill burgers and the results were stellar!

So fellow burger lovers follow these suggestions for making terrific tasting burgers from pantry ingredients. I’ve tried to give you a summer’s worth of tips so I hope you’ll bookmark this page.

The Basic Burger

1 small onion, grated
1 clove garlic, minced
1 egg, beaten
3 tbsp (45 mL) barbecue sauce
1/2 tsp (2 mL) salt
1/4 tsp (1 mL) pepper
1/4 cup (50 mL) fresh bread crumbs
1 lb (500 g) ground beef

Preheat grill to medium-high. Mix onion, garlic, egg, barbecue sauce, salt, and pepper until well combined in a large bowl. Stir in breadcrumbs. Crumble beef into bowl and toss gently until evenly combined.

Divide mixture into four. Use your hands to shape meat into 4 patties, each about 4-inches (10-cm) wide. Lightly grease grill and add patties. Grill, covered and turning just once, for about 10 minutes or until the internal temperature of the patties is 71°C (160°F). Makes 4 burgers.

10 Beyond Basic Burgers

1. Ginger-scallion: Substitute 1/2 cup (125 mL) finely chopped green onions (also called scallions) for grated onion. Omit barbecue sauce and add 1 tbsp (15 mL) minced fresh ginger and 3 tbsp (45 mL) soy sauce to meat mixture. Ideal for ground beef or pork.
2. Texas: Omit barbecue sauce and add 2 tbsp (30 mL) grated Parmesan cheese, 1 tbsp (15 mL) chili powder and 1 tsp (5 mL) oregano leaves. Ideal with ground beef.
3. Moroccan: Omit barbecue sauce and add 1 tsp (5 mL) dried mint, 1/4 tsp (1 mL) each cinnamon, cumin and coriander seed and 1/2 tsp (2 mL) hot pepper sauce. Excellent with ground lamb, pork or chicken.
4. Lemon-dill: Omit barbecue sauce and add 11/2 tsp (7 mL) dried dillweed and 2 tsp (10 mL) finely grated lemon zest. Ideal with ground veal or chicken.
5. Greek: Omit barbecue sauce and increase garlic to 2 cloves. Add 1 tsp (5 mL) each dried mint, oregano and dill, 1/2 tsp (2 mL) cinnamon and cumin and finely grated lemon peel. Good with lamb or pork.
6. Caesar: Replace barbecue sauce with 1/4 cup (50 mL) creamy Caesar salad dressing and bread crumbs with grated Parmesan cheese.
7. Peking: Omit salt and replace barbecue sauce with hoisin sauce and substitute 1/2 cup (125 mL) finely chopped green onions for grated onion. Increase garlic to 2 cloves. Good with ground beef or chicken.
8. Thai: Replace barbecue sauce with 1 tbsp (30 mL) each fish sauce, soy sauce and lime juice. Add 1 tsp (5 mL) finely grated lime peel and 3 tbsp (45 mL) chopped fresh coriander. Increase breadcrumbs to 1/2 cup (125 mL). Press 1 tbsp (15 mL) sesame seeds into patties as they are being shaped. Good for ground chicken.
9. Pesto: Replace barbecue sauce with 3 tbsp (45 mL) basil pesto and 1 tbsp (15 mL) finely grated lemon peel. Good for beef or veal.
10. Pizza: Replace barbecue sauce with tomato sauce. Add 1/4 cup (50 mL) chopped black olives, 1 tsp (5 mL) each dried basil and oregano and 1/2 cup (125 mL) shredded Italian blend cheese.

Dana’s Hot Tips for super sizzling burgers:

• For homemade club pack convenience, make double or triple batches of patties. Layer them between pieces of waxed paper and freeze. Be sure to make patties no more than 1/2-in (1-cm) thick so that they will grill quickly and evenly from their frozen state.
• To grill 1/2-in (1 cm) thick frozen burgers, reduce heat to medium and grill for 15 to 18 minutes, turning once.
• Although choosing extra lean ground meat for burgers has health appeal, burgers made with lean and medium ground meats will be juicier and freeze better.
• For tender burgers, form patties by pressing the ingredients together lightly so that the mixture doesn’t become too compacted.
• If making cheeseburgers, drape cheese over patties and cover for the last 60 seconds cooking time.
• For optimum safety, choose meat at the grocers with today’s packaging date, then prepare and cook or freeze patties on the same day.
• No matter how you like your steak, always cook burgers to well-done to ensure that any bacteria the meat may have come in contact with while being ground is eliminated.

Get more burger grilling tips from the experts at Health Canada.