Zhou Fangyuan made an appointment with Arnault almost a month ago, and it happened that Arnault was in France these days, and he had a few days of free time, so he made an appointment to visit today. Originally, I planned to go to the hotel first after landing, but Yuanfang Group did not have a branch here, and he Zhou Fangyuan was not a giant baby, so he did not arrange an assistant, but flew over by himself. As a result, he didn't expect that Arnault would come to pick up the plane in person, so he came directly to someone's house with a lot of salutes.

However, Arno apparently made a lot of preparations in advance, specifically killing the cow, and keeping the best pieces of meat on the cow.

Westerners who eat beef generally prefer to eat steak, which is mainly fried and grilled. Some people may have the illusion that foreigners support steak supplements, which is wrong, although the living standards of foreigners may be a little better than those in China, but it is not enough to say that they can waste beef. The meat in a specific position is made into a steak. The leftover meat can be stewed or straightened in other ways. First of all, the beaked gull may be thought of by everyone as a beef burger, and the patty in the beef burger is made of ground beef. There are also beef sausages, large meatloaf, etc., in addition, some countries also have tons of cattle people's habits.

For example, German vinegar stewed beef, and French red wine beef stew and so on.

Of course, compared to these dishes, in the recipes of Westerners, the most particular way to eat beef may really be steak.

According to the habits of Europeans and Americans, steaks are roughly divided into four types.

Filet mignon, also known as tender beef tenderloin, beef tenderloin, is the most tender meat on the beef loin, with little to no fat. Because of the tender meat, it is very popular with friends who love lean meat. It is the most adaptable position, and it can be fried into 3 ripe, 5 ripe and 7 ripe.

Rib-eye steak, also known as rib-eye steak, is the meat on the ribs, lean meat and fatty meat, because it contains a certain amount of fat, this kind of meat fried and grilled taste is more fragrant. This steak should not be overcooked, 3 ripe is best.

Then there's sirloin steak, also known as sirloin steak, which is what we call beef tenderloin. It contains a certain amount of fat, a circle of white tendons in the epitaxial belt of the meat, the overall taste is tough, the meat is hard, chewy, and suitable for young people and people with good teeth.

Eating tips: When cutting the meat, cut the meat with the tendons and meat, and don't overcook.

FINALLY, THERE IS THE T-BONE, T-BONE STEAK, ALSO KNOWN AS T-BONE. It is T-shaped and is the backbone of the cow's back. On both sides of the T-shape, there is more sirloin and less on the other, the more is sirloin, and the smaller is filet, which is separated by ribs. This type of steak is more common in American restaurants, and due to the delicate preparation of French cuisine, it is less commonly used for larger and coarser T-bone steaks.

There is also a type of dry-aged steak, which is usually stored for at least 7 to 24 days in the prime rib-eye steak, which darkens the color of the beef, softens the stem tissue of the beef, and at the same time makes the meat taste more mellow due to the evaporation of some of the water. The climate chamber is designed with an inclined plane, and when it is air-dried, the oily part is placed on top, and when the fat melts, it flows down the slope to the beef, ensuring that all the valuable gravy is sealed in the beef. The beef used to make the steak is grain-fed beef for about 120-140 days, and only the ribeye, sirloin, and filet are selected, and the portion of these parts is usually less than one-tenth of the size of a cow. It's often a favorite delicacy for politicians around the world, such as Warren Buffett's love of dry-aged steaks at a New York restaurant. He once joked during a meal: "If I don't eat it on Friday, maybe I can't predict the direction of the economy in the future." ”

It can be seen that foreigners really like steak, except for steak, other parts of meat are relatively unattractive to them. Waste is not wasteful, like it was said above, just eat it in other ways.

Chinese people are different, for Chinese people, beef is really a treasure all over the body. There are more than a dozen kinds of beef meat pieces alone, such as beef tongue, snowflake, spoon kernel, hanging dragon, hanging dragon companion, tender meat, leg meat, pork toe, breast oil, spoon handle, beef brisket, three-flower toe, tendon meat...... Each one has a different way to eat, and for beef, a type of meat, there are many ways to use it.

Stir-frying, frying, stewing, stewing, only you can't think of it, there is no chef can't do it.

It's not enough to just eat meat, you also have to eat your muscles and brains, and you don't even let go of the water, and beef offal is a very delicious dish!

In fact, to put it mildly, Chinese people and foreigners are really different.

Although we have a long history of eating beef, the large-scale consumption of beef, I think about it, should be after the founding of the People's Republic of China. With the development of the country and the take-off of the economy, many things that could not be eaten or even seen before have been put on the tables of the people of the whole country. If you put this in ancient times, what was a cow? It was an important labor force.

China has been an agricultural civilization since ancient times, and cattle have always been a very important production material. During the Spring and Autumn Period, slaughtering and stealing cattle were capital crimes, and even the emperor did not dare to eat beef as he wanted. This is why "Little Er, cut me two taels of beef" is often used in "Water Margin" to describe the heroes of Liangshan, which is also a metaphor for his rebellious spirit.

On the contrary, the most common foods eaten by Chinese people since ancient times are pork and chicken. Of course, in ancient times, the common people in the dynasties with a better economy could still eat meat, but if the economy was poorer, it would be difficult to eat meat.

The main reason for saying this here is to express the difference in meat-eating habits between Chinesemen and foreigners. Again, since ancient times, our country has been dominated by agriculture, not grazing or fishing.

The focus of agriculture has always been to ensure that rice, wheat and such grains are intensively cultivated, so livestock such as cattle and sheep cannot be carefully fed at the same time. Pigs and chickens can eat people's leftovers, so they have become the main source of meat in the history of our country, and the habit of eating pork has been perpetuated for many years. Even to this day, China's agricultural planting is still not as fully mechanized as in Europe, the United States and Western countries, in the countryside, cattle have been the main helpers of cultivated land for a long time, and no one will be willing to kill cattle casually. The second reason is that although our country has a vast territory, the area that can be cultivated is actually very small, and it is even more impossible to achieve large-scale grazing.

Of course, there is another reason, and that is that the price of beef is really much higher than pork.

Nowadays, the standard of living has improved, but it has not yet reached the level of European and American countries, the production cost of beef is high, and the meat increase rate is indeed a little low, far from being compared with pigs. With such a large population in our country, the first thing to satisfy should be the question of everyone being able to eat meat, and then the question of what kind of meat to eat. Pork is cheap, and the common people are more accustomed to eating pork, and the price of beef is high, so it is impossible to eat it in a meal. This is not the case in Europe and the United States, even if there is a difference in the price of pork and beef, it will not be as big as the difference in China, and considering the parity purchasing power of money, beef is relatively cheap for crooked nuts, and it can meet their demand for eating beef regularly.

All in all, historical reasons, practical reasons, these together lead to the Chinese people eating beef, eating less. But this does not prevent us from liking beef, and no matter what, we are also a civilization that has lasted for thousands of years, and naturally has many unique opinions on how to eat beef.

At this point, there is still a gap between the East and the West.

The East pays attention to eating fully cooked beef, well, especially in our country, stewed beef, potato stewed beef, and many other beef dishes, basically, are based on fully cooked beef.

But Westerners are not, they eat steak, usually not cooked until fully cooked, because fully cooked steak is the most test of the chef's skill, if it is not done well, it will be very old, making it difficult to swallow, so they will adjust the degree of raw cooking according to personal preference.

The degree of raw and cooked is distinguished by an odd number, which is mainly divided into:

Whole raw steak: Raw beef that is completely uncooked, and is only used in certain dishes such as beef tartare, kitifer or raw beef salad.

Near-raw steak: The front and back sides are heated on a high-temperature iron plate for 30 to 60 seconds each, the purpose is to lock the moisture inside the steak, so that the external meat quality and the internal raw meat mouth produce a poor taste, the outer layer is convenient for hanging juice, and the inner layer of raw meat maintains the original meat taste, and the visual effect will not be as unacceptable as eating raw meat

Medium Rare Steak: The inside of the steak is blood red and kept at a certain temperature throughout the inside, and there are raw and cooked parts.

Medium-rare steak: Most of the meat receives heat penetration and transmits to the center, but there is no major change, after cutting, the cooked meat on the top and bottom sides is brown, turning pink to the center and then fresh meat in the center, with blood oozing out with the knife. As a side note, this is only noticeable with fresh beef and thicker steaks, and it is difficult to achieve this effect with frozen beef and thin steaks.

Medium-rare steak: The inside of the steak is a light gray and brown color mixed with cooked meat, and the whole steak has a well-balanced temperature.

Medium-rare steak: The inside of the steak is mainly light gray-brown with a small amount of pink, and the texture is heavy and chewy.

Fully Cooked Steak: The steak is brown in cooked meat throughout, and the beef is cooked as a whole with a thick texture.

Arnault specifically asked Zhou Fangyuan, and Zhou Fangyuan chose a medium-rare steak. So he didn't trust Arno's craftsmanship either, compared to the fully cooked steak he was more used to, he still chose seven ripe, and when the time came, if Arno accidentally shook his hand and was overcooked, it was just fully cooked, even if it was slightly raw, it could reach five medium-rare. Otherwise, it will be fully ripe directly, and if it is overripe, it will really become a cowhide band.

The Western food prepared by Arnault today, to put it bluntly, should actually be called French food.

The saying of Western food is named by the Chinese people for the entire Western world, but just as there is Chinese food, Japanese food and Korean food in the East, Western people also divide it, French, Italian, British, German, American and so on...... Each country has its own characteristics.

For example, French food is known as the first Western cuisine.

The French have always been known for being good at eating and being good at eating, and French cuisine is still the best Western cuisine in the world.

The characteristics of French cuisine are: a wide selection of materials, such as snails and foie gras are all delicious in French cuisine; fine processing, exquisite cooking, strong and light taste, and many varieties of colors; French cuisine also pays more attention to eating half-cooked or raw food, such as steak and leg of lamb are characterized by half-cooked and fresh tenderness, oysters of seafood can also be eaten raw, and roasted wild duck can generally be eaten at six ripe levels; French cuisine attaches importance to seasoning, and there are various kinds of seasonings. There are strict rules on what kind of dishes are used for seasoning, such as wine for clear soup, brandy for seafood, various liqueurs or brandy for desserts, and a variety of French dishes and cheeses. The French are so fond of cheese, fruit and fresh vegetables that they can't even leave it.

In the case of English, it is the so-called dark cuisine that everyone is familiar with.

In fact, it's not really dark, British food, it's about simplicity and etiquette. Therefore, British food and cooking are known as family dishes.

Specifically, it is less oil, lighter, less wine is used in seasoning, and most of the condiments are placed on the table by the guests themselves. The cooking is fresh and tender, the taste is light, the selection of ingredients pays attention to seafood and all kinds of vegetables, and the amount of dishes is small and refined. British cuisine is often steamed and boiled, roasted, smoked, and fried, so it is inevitable that it will be repeated a lot. In fact, if you want to say fried fish and potatoes, it's not unpleasant, but if you really eat it every day, even Tang monk meat will make people feel disgusting. Therefore, the darkness of British food does not refer to the darkness of cooking, but the darkness that is constantly repeated, and ordinary people really can't stand it.

Italian cuisine is the ancestor of Western cuisine.

In the era of the Roman Empire, Italy was the political, economic and cultural center of Europe, although Italy later fell behind, but in terms of Western cooking, Italy is the ancestor, comparable to France and Britain. Italian cuisine is characterized by its original flavor and is known for its strong flavor. Cooking focuses on frying, smoking, etc., and is known for frying, frying, frying, and stewing. Italians love pasta and eat it in many ways. There are at least dozens of noodles of various shapes, colors, and flavors, such as alphabet, shell, solid noodles, macaroni noodles, etc. Italians also like to eat ravioli, tortellini and so on.

American, there's not much to say.

If it sounds good, it is called nutritious and fast, and if it is bad, it is called rough and monotonous.

The American food is developed on the basis of British food, inheriting the characteristics of British food is simple and light, and the taste is salty and sweet. People in the United States are generally not interested in spicy taste, and prefer iron grilled dishes, and often use fruits as ingredients to cook with dishes, such as pineapple table ham and roast duck with vegetables and fruits. I like to eat a variety of fresh vegetables and fruits.

The people of the United States do not have high dietary requirements, as long as they are nutritious and fast, and they pay attention to the original juice and umami. However, the requirements for meat quality are very high, such as roast beef tenderloin with lobster, and beef from Angus in the United States is selected. Only half-raw beef has a wonderful beef juice. Compared to the cumbersome etiquette of traditional Western food, the food culture of Americans is much simpler. There weren't many knives, forks, plates, and plates on the dining table, just a basic knife, fork and spoon. It is said that there are more rules and procedures only when there is a very formal banquet or family dinner.

Okay, let's talk about today's meal.

In addition to the steak, Arno also prepared a lot of things, and in order to show his sincerity, he operated them all by himself.

As we all know, eating French food is not only about eating, but also has a very strong sense of ceremony, and it is not too easy to eat a meal for a few hours, so looking at Arnault's plates and bowls of preparation for this and that, Zhou Fangyuan sat and sat a little unable to sit still.

"Ahem...... Mr. Arnault, actually, I often cook for myself at home, do you see if you need my help, I can do some simple operations......"

I haven't eaten yet, I've been waiting for so long, I'm really waiting for the food to come...... The ghost knows when it will be, Zhou Fangyuan was so hungry that he couldn't stand it, so he could only speak very rudely.