conceived and pushed during an
agricultural recession in the early 1920s by
cattlemen in the Midwest and East, who
wanted to boost demand for their purebred,
fat, corn-fed animals at the expense of lean
dairy and “scrub” cattle. The chief
propagandist was Alvin H. Sanders, editor
of the Breeder’s Gazette, who colorfully
denigrated the slow cooking of economical
cuts as “the same old continental European
story of how to make a banquet out of a
few bones and a dash of ‘cat-meat.’”
Sanders and his colleagues set out to
convince the country that “the muscular
tissues of animals are made tender and
fully flavored only by the presence of
plenty of fat.” In the summer of 1926, a
well-placed breeder and New York
financier named Oakleigh Thorne
personally tutored the Secretary of
Agriculture, who soon offered to begin free
quality grading — based on the amount of
barry
(Barry)
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