Mike Lenz is an effective maître d’ for this beef-centric audiobook. His manner is easygoing, and his style unhurried. This is a story of the search for the world’s best steak. Lenz’s inquisitive tone and straightforward storytelling benefit this planet-spanning journey to identify both the finest meat and cattle. Author Schatzker has put in the work: travelled 60,000 miles, visited 7 countries, devoured 100 pounds of steak and even bought, raised, finished, and ate his own Canadian cow, Florence. After he dismisses corn-fed American prime as commodified, he finds near grass-fed perfection in the Scottish Highlands, in Italy, in Japan, and closer to home in Idaho’s remote Pahsimeroi Valley. There he rides the range, sleeps alongside the cattle, and dines on a superb Alderspring Ranch organic, grass-fed rib eye. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Slate columnist Schatzker's journey through more than 100 pounds of steak begins with a single, fondly remembered bite from his past and takes him, years later, to eight countries on four continents in pursuit of flavorful beef. Chapter by Dionysian chapter he probes the myths and minutiae of tasty beef. Does marbling (the small white dots and curls of fat spread throughout a steak's red flesh) matter more than breed? Is a stressed animal less tasty? Can words accurately describe the flavor of beef? In Texas, Schatzker compares corn-fed to grass-fed rib-eyes; Scotland is mostly about the Angus bulls, while Japan provides the lure of its famed kobe and Wagyu beef. Lessons from each new location build upon those from the last, underscoring his major concern: do modern practices of commercial breeding and production sacrifice quality for quantity? Schatzker writes with a discerning eye, an inquisitive mind, and a comedic sense of timing that keeps both shop talk (reading cow pies), and the esoteric (the mysteries of umami) from numbing readers' minds. On the way to a unifying theory of steak, Schatzker even raises his own cows for slaughter, leading him to the Zen-like revelation that “the secret to great steak is great steak.” No matter. Steak is easily one of the most entertaining and informative noncookbooks about beef. (June)

Mike Lenz is an effective maître d’ for this beef-centric audiobook. His manner is easygoing, and his style unhurried. This is a story of the search for the world’s best steak. Lenz’s inquisitive tone and straightforward storytelling benefit this planet-spanning journey to identify both the finest meat and cattle. Author Schatzker has put in the work: travelled 60,000 miles, visited 7 countries, devoured 100 pounds of steak and even bought, raised, finished, and ate his own Canadian cow, Florence. After he dismisses corn-fed American prime as commodified, he finds near grass-fed perfection in the Scottish Highlands, in Italy, in Japan, and closer to home in Idaho’s remote Pahsimeroi Valley. There he rides the range, sleeps alongside the cattle, and dines on a superb Alderspring Ranch organic, grass-fed rib eye. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine