Buffalo Versus Beef

Buffalo Versus Beef

You know how hunters are always bragging about how great their elk or venison meat is, or how tasty moose is or how much better than beef buffalo is? I have to admit that I don’t mind some good venison, and I do enjoy elk, and I do believe that moose is even better than either of them, even though I’ve never tried it, but I just can’t buy the argument that Buffalo is better than beef.

If buffalo was better than beef we would be eating buffalo instead of beef, right? I mean this is America and if we want something we get it. We want the best. It’s our nature. So how come we are eating beef instead of buffalo if buffalo is really better?

The other day at work I was given the opportunity to find out for myself what all this fuss about buffalo is. I was able to purchase 4 pounds of fresh ground buffalo at a ridiculous price because the packages were poofy, giving the appearance of age. Normally I wouldn’t go near a package of ground buffalo priced at $6.99 a pound, but this was my lucky day.

I took home that ground buffalo and made patties as soon as I got home while the wife scurried to the store to get some suitable buns for the occasion. Normally she would whip up a batch of homemade but she thought that buffalo deserved something a little nicer. I don’t know what she’s talking about. I think her buns are great. Oh Well.

Anyhow I fired up our griddle and slapped the ground buffalo patties onto it. I seasoned each patty with a generous dose of soy sauce. I just love soy sauce on hamburgers and steaks. It gives the meat a caramelized flavor that can’t be beat. Then I sloshed more than a generous dose of Worcestershire sauce onto each patty.

Whatever happened to the Worcestershire sauce that only took a tiny drop to over season something? Now I can pour the whole bottle over my hamburger patty and can just barely taste it.

Anyway I found that if you cook the Worcestershire and the soy sauce onto your meat it will taste much better than if you use it like a condiment at the end of the cooking process or mix it into the meat. Have you noticed how barbecue sauce gets a mellower, and I think, much better flavor if allowed to cook onto the meat instead of just lathered onto it just before serving?

Well I cooked up the patties and everyone got their large, beautiful store bought sesame seed buns ready as I was taking them off the grill. We love hamburgers here at the Smith plantation and as usual the kids were drooling in anticipation. After saying grace, (ever notice how quick the prayer over the food goes when there is something yummy on the table), they all tore into their burgers. I was running behind so I had to hurry and fix my bun with condiments, cheese, pickles, tomatoes, onions and lettuce and get to chomping. Sometimes in our house if you snooze you loose, especially with our three boys getting bigger and bigger all the time.

The buffalo burgers were delicious. In fact they were so tasty I didn’t realize until I had eaten almost all of my first burger that I had forgotten the ketchup. That’s not like me. I have to have ketchup on my burgers. The meat was very flavorful and moist. Everybody was very happy with the buffalo.

Is buffalo better than beef? It just might be. It’s at the very least just as good as beef. The ground buffalo was like some of the very highest quality ground beef you can buy. So why as Americans are we not eating buffalo as our main source of meat instead of beef? That’s a good question. Probably the buffalo steaks aren’t as good as the beef steaks, and the buffalo roasts are probably not as good as the beef roasts. If they were we would be eating the buffalo instead of the beef right? I guess this argument will continue at least until I get a deal on some more buffalo.