Elements of the theory and practice of cookery

302. How beef is cut up for sale.^ — Let us see first in what shape the butcher receives his stock-in-trade. The beef-creature is sent to market split into halves called ''sides of beef." These the butcher divides, first into forequarter and hindquarter, then into pieces (see Dia- gram I, p. 188), and these into cuts to suit customers. The weight of a side of beef as it hangs by the hind leg throws the shoulder-bone forward and the thigh-bone backward, reversing the angles which, in the living animal, they make with the back-bone, and altering the position of the muscles attached to them. 303. Description of the cuts of beef. — Upon severing the forequarter from hindquarter just back of the ribs, we recognize on the latter the small end of the loin. The first few steaks cut here are short in the flank and have little tenderloin ; they are called short, club, or Delmonico steaks. Porter-house cuts lie between these and the junction of the hip-bone with the spine, and the sirloin between this joint and the thigh-bone. In the hollow of the loin lie the kidneys, surrounded by hard fat, the suet. A solid chunk of flesh below the sirloin is known, queerly enough, as top sirloin; the round, of 1 Customs with regard to cutting up meat vary somewhat in different parts of the country. Diagrams and descriptions in this text-book follow New York City customs. 174 THEORY AND PRACTICE OF COOKERY which top sirloin is really part, consists of the mass of flesh back of the hip-bone. A streak of gristle running down through this portion divides it into '' top " and " bottom " round, properly inside and outside round, but called otherwise because the round is always laid on the block inner side up. (Plate IX.) The leg severed from the round at the lower end of the thigh-bone furnishes upper and lower shin. The rump, a wedge- shaped piece of coarse meat containing the lower vertebrae and the end of the hip-bone, comes out between the sirloin and round. 304. The most notable feature of the forequarter is the chest with its arch of ribs, the first six of which, counting forward from the loin, are, both from quality and from position, termed prime ribs. Over the seven chuck ribs lies the shoulder-blade, which appears at the seventh rib as a streak of yellow gristle, and grows bonier and thicker from there forward. Across the ribs lies the cross-rib, a boneless piece of flesh, corre- sponding to the top sirloin in the hindquarter. The diaphragm inside the ribs forms the thin, coarse strip called skirt steak. The brisket, adjacent to chuck, neck, and fore leg, includes the breast-bone and part of the four forward ribs. The muscular wall covering and supporting the crea- ture's belly is sold in sections (Diag. I) as plate, navel, and flank. The floating ribs end in the navel. The flank includes the flank steak, a thin strip of lean em- bedded in fat. PLATE IX. a, chuck ; h, prime ribs. «, round of beef with slices of top round taken off. h «at-bone sirloin steak, trimmed : trimmings shown. THE FLESH OF ANIMALS 175