Beef

Last night we had the Mexican students over for tacos and guacamole. We had chicken fajitas a few weeks ago and had found Mexican spice at the grocery store. This time we decided to try beef tacos with the Mexican spice that had been shipped from home. We made all the food and put the spice on, but when we were tasting the meat, we just couldn't get it to taste like home. That is when we decided that the problem was the meat. It wasn't bad or old or anything like that, there is just a different quailty of meat here. Yes, being from the part of the country we are from, we are used to some really good beef, but it is interesting to me that the beef would be so different here. Apparently it is what the cows are fed that completely changes the taste of the meat, but on a more general level, the French cook their beef very differently than in the States. If I would go out to a restaurant here and order a steak I would expect for it to be brown on the outside and mooing in the middle. The French firmly believe that if you cook the steak any longer than that it is a total waste of the meat. I know some people back home that eat their steaks with no pink in the middle, and I would consider that ruining the meat, but I'd rather not having it still mooing at me. A little pink would be nice, but here that would be a travesty and an insult to the cook. This is possibly the reason that I haven't eaten beef in a restaurant since I got here.