Muscle fibers are individual meat cells—long, thin threads—something like the long

fibers of a celery stalk but less regular in arrangement. When you cut into a beef brisket, which

has an unusually coarse texture, you can actually see the individual fibers. In most cuts of meat

they are not that obvious.

The individual fibers are not strong enough by themselves to do the work they were

designed for, so many are bound together to form a solid bundle. Like a rope, each strand has

limited strength, but when many are woven into these bundles, they form a strong body.

A thin but strong sheath of connective tissue holds each bundle of muscle together, like a

shrink wrap, adding even more strength. The connective tissue helps prevent tears and injuries

while the muscle performs its daily work in the body. Similar tough string-like connective tissues

tie muscles to bones. When you eat improperly-cooked or poor-quality meat, it is the tough

connective tissue that gives your jaw a workout.

Muscles split readily along the length of the fibers, like a piece of wood, but they are not

easy to rip across. Think of a thick slice of tender roast pork on your dinner plate. You can cut it

along the grain with your fork. But you need a sharp knife to cut across the grain, (i.e. across the

fibers), no matter how tender the pork is. Yet when you carve meat, you always carve it across

the grain. Why? The reason is that the slices on your plate rest so the fibers run up and down.

Now cutting the meat on the plate you are cutting down along the fiber. It is easy to cut and easy

to chew. Your knife and your teeth perceive this as tenderness.

Some muscles do a great deal of work in the living animal, for example, those in the leg

and thigh. These muscles need greater strength, they have coarser and thicker fibers. An example

is beef brisket.

Others muscles get little workout. Take loin muscles in the back. These muscles are

there mainly to protect the backbone but are not often called on for any strenuous exertion. Loin

muscles remain fine-textured with soft, thin fibers, as in a T-bone steak. We perceive soft, thin

fibers as tenderness. The visual aspect of the meat also effects our perceived tenderness. The

fine-textured surface of a porterhouse steak looks much more tender than the rough surface of a

flank steak.

Hard-working muscles make flavorful meats. So we have tough, coarse-fibered meat with

a lot of flavor and tender meat with much less flavor. A pork tenderloin, for instance, has a mild,

subtle flavor compared to a pork chop. A good cook chooses a cooking technique that enhances

what flavor there is and at the same time tenderizes the muscle, if needed, so eating it isn't a

chore.

Fat

In our low-fat and no-fat world, people tend to forget that fat is not just a foul three-letter

word. Our bodies could not function without fat and good cooking would also come to a halt.

The enemy is not fat but too much fat.

From the cook’s point of view fat is an essential part of meat. It is the only carrier of fat-

soluble flavor ingredients, and they are a significant part of total flavor. Those flavoring

chemicals that only fat can dissolve are nowhere else. Get rid of all the fat and you discard all

those flavor chemicals, too. That’s why lean meat is blander and flat-tasting. In fact, it is the fat

that gives a meat its characteristic flavor. The composition of fats varies from one species of

animal to another. Without fat, we wouldn't be able to distinguish veal from pork or lamb from

beef. They would all taste the same. Prove this for yourself. Mix pork fat into ground lean beef

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