On Food and Cooking

sometimes moldy surface. Most meat is now
butchered into retail cuts at the packing plant
shortly after slaughter, wrapped in plastic, and
shipped to market immediately, with an
average of 4 to 10 days between slaughter and
sale. Such meat is sometimes wet-aged, or
kept in its plastic wrap for some days or
weeks, where it’s shielded from oxygen and
retains moisture while its enzymes work.
Wet-aged meat can develop some of the
flavor and tenderness of dry-aged meat, but
not the same concentration of flavor.
Cooks can age meat in the kitchen. Simply
buying meat several days before it’s needed
will mean some informal aging in the
refrigerator, where it can be kept tightly
wrapped, or uncovered to allow some
evaporation and concentration. (Loose or no
wrapping may cause dry spots, the absorption
of undesirable odors, and the necessity of
some trimming; this works best with large
roasts, not steaks and chops.) And as we’ve