Expensive Steak Dinners Start with Wagyu

by Anton Friant (RSS feed)
Nov 6th 2006 at 6:03PM

With a mere 24 hours until all we United Statesians (right?) exercise our civic duty and vote our collective conscience in the midterm elections, what could be more downright Red White and Blue than energizing our lever-pulling (or button-pushing) muscles with an outrageously lavish steak dinner? These $33 per ounce (and up) cuts – that's over $250 for an 8-ouncer – come from a breed of cattle that are traditionally called "Wagyu", but have been dubbed "American Kobe" after a few herds have been imported to Idaho from rural Japan. These ultra-marbled cuts, which Chef de Cuisine David Varley refers to as having "an ungodly amount of fat", attain their lofty price from the lengthy raising period (up to four times longer than American Angus), special diets and, as legend suggests, a daily full-body message from their human handlers.