Book Review/Raising Steaks
Raising Steaks By BILL DUNCAN It is refreshing to find a food writer willing to set a table with steaks as the main ingredient in this time when we are glutted with books telling us that everything we eat will kill us. Betty Fussell is no stranger to the written word about food. The 81-year-old author has previously published ten books about the subject, including her two best selling books, “The Story of Corn" and “My Kitchen Wars." In this latest book, Fussell spent three years compiling the history of beefsteaks from the cattle pens in 17th century Manhattan to the corporate mega ranches and small family cattle ranches in Oregon. She not only did her research in the fields, but also gave us a steer’s eye view but also the entire industry. She even wears coveralls to go inside the slaughterhouse to participate in the grading and weighing cuts of meat. She gives us another view of the neatly wrapped in cellophane supermarket meat department to explore America’s love affair with beef. Fussell criss-crosses America from ranches deep in the Florida piney woods to the dry acres of New Mexico searching for the story of this iconic food. She is convinced that corn plays an important role in the cattle industry and sees corn wars in the ethanol use explosion. Her story begins as she was growing up during the Depression era in Riverside, Calif. when her family could not afford expensive meat cuts. "Steak was a luxury for the rich," she said. She tasted her first steak at age 17 and admits, "I didn’t even know how to cut it. I had never before had to cut meat with a knife in order to get a bite-size piece, nor did I know how to chew it." In "Raising Steaks," she puts a human face on beef production in the United States in an easy to read, entertaining book that ends the romantic myths about the cowboy era, Her anecdotes are sparkling, interesting and humorous. She makes the dull dry statistics become palatable. Fussell is an unapologetic carnivore who skillfully tells why beef, steaks in particular, is more American than apple-pie. While she certainly does a thorough job of firsthand reporting on the beef industry from the ranch to the dining room table. $he surprises the reader by filling the back pages with recipes comprising a cookbook that will certainly be shelved in many kitchens. Some of the recipes come from her own Western background and the Spanish influence on foods of the West, including recipes for Carne Asada, Fajitas and Pico del Gallo con Aguacate. As a reader, I would give Fussell extra credit for the detailed endnotes about her research for "Raising Steak" and for her list of suggested reading for Inquiring minds. Fussell, as a food writer, is a contributing editor to The New York Times, The New Yorker magazine, Saveur magazine and Food & Wine magazine and is a much sought after lecturer on the food industry, She lives in New York. Her book is a celebration of a uniquely American food – the beefsteak. (Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470) 
The Life and Times of American Beef
By Betty Fussell
Harcourt Books
Hardcover $26.00
The News-Review