File:The Cuba review (1907-1931.) (20803591785).jpg

Title: The Cuba review
Identifier: cubarevie19muns (find matches)
Year: 1907-1931. (1900s)
Authors: Munson Steamship Line
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Publisher: New York : Munson Steamship Line
Contributing Library: New York Botanical Garden, LuEsther T. Mertz Library
Digitizing Sponsor: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden

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THE CUBA REVIEW 25
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Cattle Train into the refrigerators and ice boxes of the shops and is disposed of thereafter as second grade meat. How this prejudice has arisen in this semi-tropical country, where it would seem that refrigeration is absolutely essential to the proper preparation and preservation of meats, is difficult to imagine, but the prejudice is so deeply rooted as to have caused an absolute failure of a complete plant established a number of years ago in Camagiiey, in which was installed the very finest of machinery and in connection with which were built the most up-to-date refrigerating plants. It was thought by those promoting this enterprise that the heavy loss of weight which occurred in shipping cattle from Camagiiey to Cuba's principal market, Havana, could be avoided by the killing of the animals in Camagiiey and their shipment in refrigerator cars to Havana, to be there stored and delivered as required from the refrigerators of the Company established here in this City. As a part of the equipment of the Company, fine refrigerated auto trucks were employed for making city deliveries here, but the promotors had not taken into con- sideration the popular prejudice referred to. Moreover, they soon realized that the loss of weight in shipment of cattle from Camagiiey to Havana is caused, not through loss of the weight of meat obtainable after killing, but through loss of weight of stomach contents. The result was a complete failure and the definite closing down some time ago of this plant. Another result, of course, of the prejucide we have mentioned is that except for consumption by the foreign element in Cuba, very little refrigerated meat is imported, competition with the native meats being impossible. To one familiar with the various cuts offered by the butcher of the United States, the appearance of a meat shop in Cuba causes surprise. There is no such thing here as a definite system of cutting up the animal. Meats are classed as first, second and third, the first being practically all boneless meat, except that of the neck which is considered second class, while the third class consists of bones on which is found a small percentage of meat. This gives the keynote to the method of cutting up the animal after butchering, as the idea is simply to remove the bone and the fat from the meat, the latter then being cut up in any manner whatever so as to furnish to each customer the number of pounds of meat he requires. We know of only one part of the animal that is always kept sepa- rate, this being the tenderloin.

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