Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T L Y M O N T A N A M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G 2 0 2 2 58 shoulder, they found a strip of rarely used muscle that, if sep- arated correctly from the surrounding tissue, proved to be both flavorful and tender. In other words, the art of the steak, admittedly still not so removed from troglodytes slapping gristly mammoth steaks on hot rocks, continues to make a marching advance. It's enough to put a tear in your eye. Perhaps one of the last steps toward the steak as we know it today came in 1973 when grocery stores around the coun- try adopted the naming standards set by the Uniform Retail Meat Identity Standards (or URMIS) program. URMIS aimed to tame an often bewildering array of meat cuts available to Americans across the country, sometimes offered under the same name. You might think that identifying something as basic as the sirloin, for instance, should have been easy back then, but consider this: even today, sirloin refers to a differ- ent piece of beef in the United Kingdom than it does here in America. Consider as well that there are once-popular cuts of meat, just like once-popular dishes, that are now lost to time, like the "spaud," a shoulder cut mentioned in a food science textbook from 1876. But URMIS leaves a bit of gray area, too. Every grocery store in America agrees what top sirloin or ribeye are, but a New Yorker and a Montanan might disagree what consti- tutes a chip steak, or a club steak. Staring lasciviously into the glass case at Excelsior Meats, my local Butte butcher, I found one such "unstandardized" cut: a thick, marbled slab they called the Delmonico's. I bought one, of course. Well, actually, I bought two. And ate them both. ••• I think that we Montanans have a lot of nostalgia for a lost past. But in at least one (not insignificant) respect, we're liv- ing in a golden age—steaks have never been thicker, tastier, or better prepared than they are now. So I'll see you at the steakhouse. I'll be the guy sobbing with joy as I cut into something medium-rare. 7 M I N E R A L P O O L S T A P R O O M & G R I L L P O O L S I D E S E R V I C E B R O A D W A T E R M T . C O M I THINK THAT WE MONTANANS HAVE A LOT OF NOSTALGIA FOR A LOST PAST. BUT IN AT LEAST ONE (NOT INSIGNIFICANT) RESPECT, WE'RE LIVING IN A GOLDEN AGE— STEAKS HAVE NEVER BEEN THICKER, TASTIER, OR BETTER PREPARED THAN THEY ARE NOW.

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