It’s the great Kobe beef contretemps of 2016. Can “Kobe” mean beef from somewhere other than Japan’s Kobe region? Does it even matter?
In his new book, “Real Food/Fake Food,” Larry Olmsted purports to expose rampant fraud in food labeling — including at a top city steakhouse.
A chapter on mislabeled beef singles out famed Meatpacking District steakhouse Old Homestead’s “Kobe burger.” Olmsted has a point: The burger is really “American Wagyu,” a cheaper, Idaho-raised cross-blend of American cattle and Japan’s uniquely fatty Wagyu breeds similar to those used in beef from Kobe.
But, in numerous interviews to promote the book, Olmsted went on to allege that none of the meat that Old Homestead sells, including its famous steaks, is Kobe. That’s true — but not in a meaningful sense.
Old Homestead steaks are Kobe as the term is understood by New York diners: a pure, top-grade (A5+) Wagyu steak, a delicacy that’s both singularly tasty and off-puttingly oily. The A5 grade is awarded by the Japanese government for the finest Wagyu blend based on marbling, texture, fat content and muscle characteristics, and commands a restaurant price of $25 to $30 per ounce — whether the cattle hailed from Kobe or elsewhere in Japan.
Leading chefs and beef experts say that the finest Wagyu from other parts of the country is just as good, if not better, though the Kobe geographic area has rigid technical rules for cattle-raising — which do not include those mythical massages and beer diets — and slaughterhouse procedures.
“Beef from other parts of Japan can be better,” says 3-Michelin-star chef Eric Ripert. His Le Bernardin offers A5 Wagyu from Kagoshima and Miyazaki, while Old Homestead buys from Gunma.
So Olmsted is wrong to portray Old Homestead’s steaks as on par with a Milli Vanilli bait-and-switch. At restaurants around the city, Japanese “Kobe” isn’t usually from Kobe, a fact known to just about any beef lover who gets out of the house.
“I don’t know why we have this peculiar fixation with Kobe beef,” says Mark Schatzker, author of “Steak: One Man’s Search for the World’s Tastiest Piece of Beef” (Penguin 2011). “In Japan, they say, ‘What’s the big deal? We have great beef from many regions’ ” — just as American pinot noir from Washington, Oregon and even New York can rival those from California. Schatzker said he once did a side-by-side tasting of Wagyu from Kobe and Matsusaka, in central Japan, and found only “subtle differences,” which he couldn’t specify.
Olmsted’s books claim that pure Japanese Wagyu is rare in the US, but it has the run of New York. You can find it at Porter House, BLT Steak, Uncle Jack’s and Charlie Palmer Steak, among others. The only local place that sells Kobe from Kobe is 212 Steakhouse, where it’s $25 an ounce — the same price as your typical non-Kobe Wagyu.
So let Kobe be “Kobe” — as long as it tastes as good.