__________
The Bison Business
About
500,000 American buffaloes are being raised,
most of them on ranches like this one south of
Rapid City, S.D. Their meat is finding new fans
among diners and chefs.
(Photo right by
Dick Kettlewell for The New York
Times.)I’ve always felt sorry for food purveyors who want their products to shine at a conference but are at the mercy of the kitchen where the meeting is being held. Woe to the organization trying to promote any red meat under these circumstances, especially bison, which is a goner once it has been overcooked.
Even in the best kitchen its impossible to serve medium-rare burgers to 500 people after they’ve been stewing at the steam table. The burgers, not the people.
To report my story on the buffalo’s coming of age on the American dinner table, I went to Rapid City, S.D. last month for the International Bison Conference. There was plenty of buffalo to go around, none of it improved by steaming.
Even when some of the conferees were whisked off one evening to see the impressive though unfinished Crazy Horse monument up in the Black Hills, the special dinner there featured tough roasted buffalo, not only cut too thick, but cut the wrong way.
All, however, is not lost in Rapid City. A trip to the Corn Exchange, a small, charming restaurant down town had perfectly cooked buffalo rib eye steaks, empanadas filled with ground buffalo, buffalo meat balls in tomato sauce. M.J. Adams, the owner, really knows how to cook a steak to medium-rare perfection.