How Britain’s Appetite for Beef Influenced American Taste

Attention, American carnivores: the next time you pick up your fork and knife at your favorite steakhouse and dig into that perfectly marbled meat, say a little thank you to England’s “Beef-Eaters.”

Few of us realize the role that England played in the development of America’s beef trade. As “the great beef-eaters of Europe” in centuries past, the English (at least the middle and upper classes) consumed far more beef than their continental neighbors. Meat, and particularly beef, was believed to ensure great strength and virility.