The Bookwom Sez — What’s for dinner?
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 11:26 AM PST
It might be early to ask, but what’s for dinner? How about steak? Think about it: thick, tender, cooked to within an inch of perfect, topped with mushrooms, dripping with marinade that goes well with any side dish. Man, you could eat steak until ... uh, the cows come home.
So how much do you know about the critter who’ll furnish dinner, as well as milk for breakfast and a burger at lunch? Not much, huh? Well, chew on this: “Beef: The Untold Story of How Milk, Meat, and Muscle Shaped the World,” by Andrew Rimas & Evan D.G. Fraser.
Somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million years ago, an aurochs (the ancestor of modern-day cattle) lumbered out of what’s now India and spread across Africa, lower Europe and Asia. As glaciers retreated, the behemoths spread north where they survived until the mid-1600s.
Though aurochs were not very tame-able, the gentler cattle were, which eventually made them a source of wealth. As human societies became more agrarian and mobility ensured survival for both man and beast, owning cows became important because animals could walk to water and crops could not.
As much as I liked this book, there were parts of it that almost made me stop reading. It is, at times, filled with mind-numbing passages on mythology, ancient text and esoteric poetry that are better-suited for a college thesis. Yes, this book is supposed to be history of a sort, but the antiquated accounts grew wearisome.
On the other hand, the modern-day accounting of “beef” is horns-and-shoulders better, with lively stories of post-Civil War ranching and dairying, and cattling in the future. I enjoyed those parts of this book much more, and I also thought the interspersed recipes were a fun addition.
While rural readers may be amused at occasional, incorrect usages of cattle-gender words, I thought this was a pretty OK book. As long as you keep the above caveats in mind, “Beef” is worth a look-see, and that ain’t no bull.
Terri Schlichenmeyer is a freelance book reviewer. She can be contacted at bookwormsez@yahoo.com. The views and opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the Argus Observer.
