FOODBYTES

So I’m doing a story on Wagyu (“Kobe”) beef and Berkshire (“Kurobuta”) pork for Beer Magazine. My cautious use of quotations and parentheses around the “designer” names for these ultra primo-meats is well warranted: There’s so much misinformation surrounding their labeling and lore, most people don’t really know what they’re getting when they order them in a restaurant.

I can’t give away the whole story, which will run in Beer Magazine’s Sept./Oct. issue. But here are a few things about Wagyu and Berkshire pork you should know:

*It’s called “Kobe” beef because this is the capital of the small Hyogo prefecture in Japan where the first Japanese Wagyu (“Japanese beef”) were used to help in rice cultivation before the natives figured out how tasty they were/started eating more meat. (There are some alternate theories as well, such as that it was raised in a cult-like manner for its meat in the mid-1800s.) Now, most Kobe, which is an amalgamation of several Japanese (not all of them native) breeds, comes from several Japanese prefectures, so the name is something of a misnomer today.

… Especially when you’re eating what might be listed on a menu as “Kobe-style,” “American Kobe,” or “grass-fed Wagyu beef,” all of which would likely be raised in America. Most Wagyu raised in America is cross-bred with Black Angus. The easiest way to tell what you’re eating? If it’s $150 or so for 6 ounces, it should be Japanese Kobe. American-raised Wagyu usually goes for about half the price.

Part of Wagyu’s lure is that it supposedly leads a very stress-free life, massaged and fed beer. This NEVER happens in America; it’s too expensive, and many of the smaller farms that raise the cattle won’t confine them the way they do in Japan, which negates the need for the appetite spur. (Japanese Wagyu importer Jim Geller says he doesn’t like the term “confined” [naturally]; he says the “corralled” Japanese Wagyu are taken for walks, and fed hand-chopped veggies.) In Japan, beer is fed to the cattle to stimulate their appetites, which can lag due to heat and lack of activity: That intramuscular marbling doesn’t happen by itself, and the snowflake-like fat lacing is what draws the big bucks for this fatty, melt-in-you-mouth beef.

*As for Kurobuta pork, it didn’t originate in Japan. “Kurobuta” simply means “black hog,” which they labeled the Berkshire pork when they got it. As for how the breed arrived in Japan: You’ll read stories on the Internet about English diplomats gifting the Japanese emperor with the pigs in the 1800s. Walsh hired a professional researcher to find a record of the gift in the National Archives at Kew (all royal gifts and receptions were documented). He turned up nothing. Still, there are only a few hundred Berkshire pigs left in England, and the ones in Japan are supposedly fanatically DNA tested to ensure their lineage.

Kurobuta is said to be fed beer and massaged with sake to make the meat tender. If it’s American-raised, you can bet this doesn’t happen. Walsh says it often doesn’t happen in Japan, either. These pigs are naturally fattier, and they taste completely different from any pork you’ve ever tasted—especially the way pork is bred to be extremely lean these days. Some places that sell American-raised Berkshire include Greenwood Farms and Snake River Farms.

Sources:

Jim Geller of Geller International is one of the very few importers of true Japanese Wagyu. Drop him a line.

Craig Walsh raises Kurobuta and Wagyu at his Lucies Farm in Worcester, England. I’ve found him to be an especially knowledgeable source, who researches the lore of his animals independently. He is one of the only producers I know that ACTUALLY feeds his pigs and cattle beer, even though the story of beer-fed pork is largely fantastical elsewhere. Check out the article he posted from University of Queensland Press on The History of Kobe here.

Some places that serve authentic Kurobuta and Wagyu include Michael Mina group restaurants, and, of course, the French Laundry. Good luck getting the latter on the horn for longer than 2 minutes. Michael Mina corporate chef Anthony Carron, however, was very helpful.

If you want to get Japanese Kurobuta pork or Kobe beef, 1-800-Kobe Beef is a good source. Notice the marbling on those steaks—it’s more “pinpoint” or ubiquitous than American Wagyu, which tends to be, in Geller’s parlance, “streaky.”