My colleagues and I in meat science at the University of Florida have developed a consumer-focused meat grilling/cookery program similar to our friends at several other meat science programs across the country. We have titled ours Gator Grillmasters.
Our attendees learn a lot, eat a lot and have a big time. We discuss and use different grills, show them a carcass and where the pieces we cook come from, discuss food safety, marinades, spices and rubs, and invite a consumer issues meat mythbuster to talk prior to the attendees cooking their own steaks.
As one of the instructors, the most eye-opening moment for me was the pork chop cooking demonstration. Attendees gather around grills where we we show them how to use a meat thermometer, discuss the meat cooking “touch test,” and cook boneless pork chops from the sirloin end, center and blade end of the loin to either 160 or 145°F. The attendees generally like them all, but consistently are most impressed with the taste of the blade end chops.
Except for ice cream, there is nothing I would rather eat in the world than a thick blade end pork chop cooked on the grill to 145°F. Chops toward the blade end will not only have the loin eye but will also have the cap muscle called the spinalis dorsi. Muscle profiling work from the University of Nebraska says the spinalis will generally be redder, have a higher pH, will be juicier and potentially more flavorful and tender than the loineye.
We have very solid demand for this same system of muscles when the blade end of the loin extends into the shoulder/ Boston butt, which is then called the cellar trimmed, boneless butt or CT Butt (NAMP # 407). This part of the Boston butt is sometime called pork collar or in barbeque circles, it’s the “money muscle.”
On a beef carcass, that same muscle toward the blade end of the ribeye roll is called the chuck roll. Checkoff-funded research has increased its value resulting in Denver steaks and chuck eye steaks being available at some national retailers.
The Boston butt holds its own relative value and ribeyes are the driver of value of the beef carcass, yet pork loins continue to be a loss leader, even despite efforts to market the blade end as pork ribeyes.
Beef steaks have the corner on special occasions while chicken breast and ground beef are chosen for versatility and cooking ease. However, the pork loin seems stuck in obscurity.
Few of our Gator Grillmaster attendees would have felt comfortable cooking pork chops, or even considered purchasing pork chops, prior to attending the program. But they all left feeling confident they could cook a great blade end pork chop as an awesome value proposition to make tasty, beautifully presented meals.
Give a man a fish and he eats once, but teach a man to fish and he sustains himself. We need to develop better high-tech science communication to meet people where they are to achieve the high-touch successes needed to improve pork loin demand and relevance.
Chad Carr is a meat scientist at the University of Florida.
