Perhaps it is as foolish to refer to the British as beef-eaters as it is to call the Italians macaroni-eaters and the Japanese rice-eaters, for the humbler classes in England cannot afford beef any oftener than the poorer Italians and Japanese can afford to eat macaroni or rice.
Time was when even the wealthy Britons could not often eat beef or other butcher's meat, especially in winter. Up to the eighteenth century sheep and cattle were killed and salted at the beginning of cold weather and "during several months of the year even the gentry tasted scarcely any fresh animal food, except game and river fish. As to the common people, an old chapbook of the period, entitled 'The Misfortunes of Simple Simon' uses the expression 'roast-meat cloaths' as an equivalent for holiday clothes."[15]
The systematic growing of turnips for the winter keep of cattle made it possible to have fresh meat in winter, too; and at the same time, thanks largely to the efforts of the agriculturist, Robert Bakewell, cattle and sheep breeding began to be done on scientific principles.
Bakewell's aim was to fatten the animals more quickly and to secure a greater proportion and a better quality of meat. The result of such improvements was that, whereas in 1710 the average net weight of cattle sold in London was 370 lbs., by the time of Bakewell's death (1795) it had increased to 800 lbs., while the average weight of sheep had increased from 28 pounds to 80.
In the last quarter of the eighteenth century the Collins brothers still further improved cattle by breeding for special points, reducing the size of the head and legs and enlarging the useful parts. The shorthorns gradually extended their domain not only throughout the British Isles but to France and other countries. Improvement continued steadily until English beef became the standard for the whole world.
With the rapid increase of population and a decrease in the area of pasture land the time came when Great Britain had to begin to import meats from Australia and South America. At the end of the first decade of this century London alone needed 420,000 long tons of meat a year. Of this, over 122,000 tons came from South America, nearly 106,000 tons from Australasia, about 97,000 tons from continental Europe and North America, and less than 95,000 tons from the United Kingdom itself.
For a very good reason there was for years a prejudice against all imported meats, their use being confined exclusively to the poorer classes who could not afford to pay the higher prices—from three to twelve cents a pound more—asked for the meat from the home-grown or home-killed cattle.
The very good reason for this preference for the home product was that imported meat was frozen, and the public promptly discovered that meat which had been frozen had little or no Flavor.
That freezing spoils the Flavor of meat was known generations ago. Eugen Baron Vaerst, e. g., in his "Gastrosophie," Vol. I, p. 214, calls attention to this fact and explains why the meat should be preserved by chilling it; that is, by hanging it in an icy atmosphere which is constantly kept moving and which kills all germs of putrefaction without actually freezing the meat.