Remember the hamburger?
When I was a kid, I adored the taste of a hamburger. It was simply awesome. Over the years I lost my love for the hamburger. How did this happen? Were my taste buds changing, or has the hamburger changed? For years I believed that I had aged and my food preferences had matured.Then in the 1980's I found myself living on a farm and running a small beef cow/calf operation. I had 2 Angus, 1 Hereford and 2 Charolais cows. I would go to livestock auctions to see what was going through the ring and one day an incredible Angus cow was brought out with her fat little bull calf. The cow was not for sale but the calf was and the cow was brought out to show the lineage. I was the winning bidder for the calf which kind of surprised me to be so lucky. I concluded none of the big buyers present needed a bull calf that day. The truth was elsewhere. When I got the calf home I put him in the barn (it's good practice to keep a new animal separated from your herd in case he has cooties) he began eating hay immediately. This was odd because he was too young to be eating hay already. He also seemed to be coughing quite a bit. Not wanting to take any chances with infecting my herd I hauled him to a large animal vet in my Chevy van. He was found to have pneumonia and was infested with worms which was what gave him his nice round appearance, he was also about 6 months old, not a month old like I thought. This explained the hay eating. Thinking back I remembered something I observed in the auction ring but disregarded at the time. The mother cow was avoiding the calf totally. Apparently she had never even seen this calf prior to being brought into the ring with him. The other, far more experienced buyers didn't miss this fact and withheld bidding. They could see the scam the auction was perpetrating by offing this runt on some shmuck (me) and I couldn't. WTH, I grew up in midtown Manhattan I had a lot to learn about cattle farming, apparently I needed educating about livestock auctions too.
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me." I silently moved my hand to the side and his head followed. I did this a couple of times with like results. At this point it was time to send this animal to market. There was no more to gain by keeping him, he wasn't gaining any more weight and I just grained him out. Putting him back on grass would be a waste of time. All in all, this whole venture was an excersize in losing money. I decided to haul him to a finished beef auction. All the livestock sold here were going to slaughter. They've all been either grained out to produce prime beef or were right off the grass aimed at the lower commercial market (think MacDonalds, Hardies, & Burger King).
Well, I got rid of the worms and treated the pneumonia with anti-biotics and banded the little bull (turned him into a steer) and after the quarantine period, turned him out onto the grass to grow to 1500 lbs or so. $250.00 poorer for my ignorance. About 2 years later my steer got to the incredible weight of about 600 lbs and refused to get any bigger. Then he went blind. I put the steer in the barn and fed him grain & hay and treated his severe case of Pink Eye with the old timey salt treatment. Don't ask! Farming is not always pleasant. I was learning that in farming you don't run to the Vet for every little thing like when your dog has a runny nose, you learn to treat it yourself, farming is a business after all. After about 3 weeks I was working in the barn and noticed the steer was following my movements with his head. I said "You SOB I bet you can see me." I silently moved my hand to the side and his head followed. I did this a couple of times with like results. At this point it was time to send this animal to market. There was no more to gain by keeping him, he wasn't gaining any more weight and I just grained him out. Putting him back on grass would be a waste of time. All in all, this whole venture was an exercise in losing money. I decided to haul him to a finished beef auction. All the livestock sold here were going to slaughter. They've all been either grained out to produce prime beef or were right off the grass aimed at the lower commercial market (think MacDonalds, Hardees, & Burger King).
Boy, do eYe know what you mean...
Lane's Charcoal, 1966, corner of Camp Wisdom & Library Ln......Dallas TX my first very well made hamburger
Haven't really had anything like it since.