Eating High on the Cow

Dig around under and behind the seat of just about any hunter’s pickup for a while, and you’re likely to find a can of Beanie Weenies. The can will probably be buried beneath a tangle of combination wrenches and camo string, which will be stuck to a roll of duct tape, which will be mashed into an oblong shape against a jack, some pipe wrenches, and a small propane bottle. The can will be dented and scraped, smeared with grease and dirt, and the label will probably be torn, maybe unreadable.

That can of Beanie Weenies may have been there for years, emergency rations for when the pickup decides not to start on the other side of the pasture, or the fish end up biting longer than expected, or a buddy doesn’t show up from his hunting stand when expected, or at all. There won’t be a spoon handy, or, if there is, it will be pretty nasty; but, if you wipe the can off with whatever rag is under the seat and carefully open the pop top, the lid can be folded into a makeshift spoon. Careful not to cut your lips on it. That stings.

Above Photo Courtesy of Wide Open Country

There is such a can, or three, under the seat of my current pickup, along with a package of what started out as crackers, but are now pretty much cracklets, due to wear and tear. The Beanie Weenies have been moved from pickup to pickup over the years, and were probably purchased during the Bush (‘41) administration. Beanie Weenies are the second most essential piece of outdoor equipment, after a roll of Charmin 2-ply.

But not everyone likes Beanie Weenies. Some people are persnicketty like that. If you happen to be one of those, I have another option for you.

A friend sent me an email containing a link to a story on Wide Open Country about a fellow who sells aged beef. I don’t mean aged beef like you think I mean when I say aged beef. This beef is seriously aged. Like, when you eat this beef, it’s been dead for fifteen years. And it hasn’t been refrigerated, exactly.

Above Photo Courtesy of Wide Open Country

The guy’s name is Alexandre Polmard, and as you have probably surmised already, he’s French. No one does weird stuff like this except the French. The Brits have staved off any attempt to add flavor to their food for centuries, and the Germans are too busy building stuff to worry about what their steaks taste like. Americans are all on a diet except me, and, as mentioned above, I eat Beanie Weenies. If you eat Beanie Weenies, you’ve pretty much given up.

So it’s left to the French to inflict cuisine on the world, and they take this charge very seriously—more seriously than they have taken anything since they banished Napoleon to that little island and sent all their hunters to Canada. The French know food like Michael Moore knows fat.

Alex is a sixth generation French butler. I guess butlering is the family business, dating back to 1846. His dad and grandfather had this idea, a long time ago, about producing over-the-top aged beef, and Alex has made it a reality—a very lucrative reality.

Alex has a herd of Blonde Aquitaine cattle, which he runs on a luxury ranch in northeast France. They have what Alex calls ‘five-star accommodations,’ such as forests and parkland and running water and shelters for when it gets cold. You know, basically a small ranch.

But once Alex butchers these blessed cattle, he blasts the steaks with very cold, very fast air. The air is going at 75 miles per hour, and it’s -43 degrees Celsius. If I remember my conversion tables correctly, that’s either -187 degrees Fahrenheit or 3 degrees Retrograde.

And then he waits. Alex lets the steaks sit around for fifteen years before he sells them. I assume his closets are all full, and I’d look before I sat on the couch, if you go visit him.

You would think such a steak would be cheap, as old as it is, but no. Only certain restaurants run the kind of clientele interested in beef that old, but they’re evidently a pretty well-heeled lot. Prices for Alex’s ‘hibernated’ steaks start at $700 a plate and run up to $3200, not including drinks, dessert, or gratuity.

The funny thing is that there’s a waiting list several months long to pay that kind of jack for ancient meat. Whoda thunk it?

Anyway, I’m thinking if you don’t like Beanie Weenies, you could always call ol’ Alex up and have him send you a box of steaks that have been dead since the Clinton administration, and throw them behind the seat of your pickup. I have no idea what they taste like, but I assume they’ll keep a while yet.

Me, I think I’ll stick with Beanie Weenies. It’s not the money. I just like the way the lid makes a little spoon . . .

Kendal Hemphill is an outdoor humor columnist and public speaker who never eats meat older than his boots. Write to him at [email protected]