Just when you thought those wacky cattle folks couldn’t get any wackier… So, I open a menu on a recent vacation to a B&B in Vermont (1811 House) and see something I’ve never seen on a menu before: beefalo. To be more specific, it was a beefalo meat loaf. I thought about it for a second and figured that maybe it was a meat loaf made of both beef and buffalo meat. After all, I’ve tried buffalo/bison meat at my local diner in the form a nice, low-fat hamburger patty. I mean, there couldn’t possibly be such a thing as a creature that was half cow and half buffalo–could there? Surely I would have heard about such a monstrosity. Surely the crazies over at PETA would have been splashing them with paint, and the Religious Right would have denounced it as an abomination against god.
The next night we went to a nice restaurant (The Reluctant Panther) and there it is again. Only this time it’s a steak. Now that’s weird. So I ask the waiter what the heck is going on. First he looks at me as if I’m the yokel, and then he explains to me in an extremely condescending tone that it is an animal that is part cow and part buffalo. He walked away, and I ordered the flank steak.
So now we’re breeding animals that have no natural right to be breeding in order to boost a business and provide overweight Americans with yet another animal to stuff into their pieholes. What’s next?
I have a feeling this isn’t the last you’ll hear about the beefalo and its long strange trip to legitimacy. Actually, I think they’re keeping this one quiet, and testing the hybrid on those trusting Yanks before releasing it to the rest of the U.S. It may be a short time before we’re all pouring beefalo milk on our Cheerios…
Check out some great propaganda from the beefalo people:
American Beefalo Association
Northeastern Beefalo Association
