肉品質格付けガイド

肉品質を理解する

肉の品質は、霜降り、色、きめ、脂肪の質など、主要な視覚的特徴を評価して判断されます。USDAはこれらの要素に基づいて肉を品質等級に分類する基準を設けています。

これらの品質指標を理解することで、精肉店、シェフ、消費者がニーズに合った適切な部位を選ぶのに役立ちます。

Anatomy

Primal, sub-primal, retail cut

A beef carcass is divided into nine large primals. Each primal does a different job for the animal, which is why a flank steak eats nothing like a ribeye even though they both come off the same cow. Primals get broken down into sub-primals at the wholesale stage, and sub-primals are portioned into the retail cuts you see in the case.

Where a cut sits on the carcass tells you almost everything about how it eats. Muscles that did less work, like the rib and short loin, marble heavily and stay tender. Muscles that did more work, like the chuck and round, build connective tissue and reward slow cooking with deep, beefy flavor.

Names change by region. A ribeye is a scotch fillet in Australia, a cube roll in trade, an entrecôte in France, and ojo de bife in Argentina. Same anatomy, different label.