The Other Red Meat;  With Less Fat Than Beef, Bison Is On The Move

When the Buffalo Club dines in the banquet room at Tragara restaurant in Bethesda, waiters don't serve butter with the bread. Chef Michel Laudier uses no cream, egg yolks or shrimp in the passed hors d'oeuvres, first and main course. Baby vegetables are dressed with chicken stock and olive oil. For dessert, for example, Laudier tops roasted pineapple with a small scoop of low-fat pineapple yogurt. 

"They want nothing with bad fat to raise the cholesterol, only heart-healthy," says Laudier, whose kitchen career resume includes the Plaza Athenee in Paris and the former Rive Gauche in Georgetown. 

The Buffalo Club, a dining support group, is composed of patients from Suburban Hospital's Cardiac Rehab Program. They exercise together. The group, led by founder Ira Raskin, 59, of Bethesda, assembles for bimonthly dinners. The menu focus is the main course -a thick, tender, medium-rare slab of bison sirloin -guilt-free red meat they can eat. 

"I can flash back to dinner at Peter Luger's [the Brooklyn steakhouse] to a big, big steak," says Raskin between bites of bison. "But I'm satisfied. I eat my dreams. Here we eat reality." Compare the numbers. A 3.5-ounce serving of raw bison rib-eye steak, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has 2.4 grams of fat and 116 calories. A similar size portion of raw beef rib-eye weighs in with 8.3 grams of fat and 161 calories. 

Federal guidelines for dietary cholesterol were recently revised by the National Institutes of Health. For those who need to watch their intake of foods high in saturated fat, replacing beef with bison is an option. 

North American bison is the proper, scientific name for the shaggy, homed, humpbacked animal that most Americans refer to as a buffalo. Yes, coin collectors, it should be the bison nickel. Howdy Doody's pal? That would be Bison Bob. Scientists save the name buffalo for the Asian Water and African Cape Buffalo. 

Once, they were everywhere. In the early 1800s some 60 million or more bison freely roamed the prairies and woodlands of this continent feasting on tall grasses. Native Americans used nearly every part of the animal for food, shelter and clothing. 

European settlers, in a push for rapid Western expansion, hunted bison to near extinction. Prairies were plowed and fenced. By 1900, by some estimates, fewer than 1,500 animals survived. But that was then. No longer endangered, bison are back, some 350,000 animals strong. Herds wander across Yellowstone Park, the National Bison Refuge in Montana and private ranches. 

The nation's largest herd, more than 25,000 head, roam ranches in Montana, Nebraska and New Mexico owned by media mogul and philanthropist Ted Turner. Still, according to the National Bison Association, the demand for both meat and breeding stock exceeds the supply. In our own back yard, about 90 miles southwest of Washington, more than 250 bison can be observed against a backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

Just past the exit for Madison, on Virginia Route 29 South, watch for a highway sign that reads: "Whoa. You just missed the turn for Buffalo Hill." 

Through the trees travelers may catch sight of the bison grazing in a nearby pasture or see bison in single file lumbering up a foothill of the 250-acre Buffalo Hill Farm. 

Opened in 1998, Buffalo Hill is the USDA-inspected slaughter facility and butcher shop for Georgetown Farm, the 2,200-acre weekend estate of 71-year-old former Seagram CEO Edgar Bronfman. Georgetown Farm is farther south in Free Union, near Charlottesville. That's where most of the herd, more than 2,000 head, is pastured. Together, Buffalo Hill and Georgetown Farm are the largest bison operation east of the Mississippi River. Rare in the commercial, red meat world, the bison are bred, raised, processed and marketed by a single, small company, Bronfman's Georgetown Farm. 

Bison watching is best done at a safe distance. Unlike domestic cattle, bison are temperamental. Under that shaggy fur is a sleek animal that can travel 40 mph, jump fences and outrun and outmaneuver a horse. Muscular bulls stand six feet high. 

"When confined they can be very aggressive and territorial," says David Hoyt, director of marketing for Georgetown Farm. "We give them plenty of space and leave them alone." Fortunately for Georgetown farmhands, bison don't require as much handling as beef cattle, according to Hoyt. Bison are naturally disease resistant. Georgetown Farm's animals are not given antibiotics, hormones or steroids. 

They forage, free range, until they are between 22 and 30 months of age. At Buffalo Hill they are fed grain for 90 days to enhance the flavor and texture of the meat. The oats, alfalfa, as well as corn that is not genetically modified, are grown on site or purchased from nearby farms. 

Each week 20,000 pounds of lean bison from Georgetown Farm is delivered to Washington area restaurants and stores and sold direct by mail. At the Buffalo Hill butcher shop from 75 to 100 regular customers stop by each week for bison sausage, short ribs, ground meat, steaks -even bison ravioli. 

Once considered an exotic meat in the company of ostrich and emu, bison, America's original red meat, has become increasingly mainstream. Sales of Georgetown Farm bison have doubled in the past year. More people are looking for leaner alternatives to beef. When cooked properly, the meat is tender. The taste is neither wild nor gamy. "It sells out every night because it's a flavorfulpiece of meat," says Robert Wiedmaier, chef and owner of Marcel's in the West End. 

Bison has been a daily special on the Marcel's menu since the day the restaurant opened in March 1998. Wiedmaier's seared bison New York strip steak, served with sliced fingerling potatoes and sauteed baby spinach and sauced with a port/red wine reduction is $27. 

Martin Saylor, executive chef of Butterfield 9 in downtown Washington, calls bison 'Americana on a plate." Still, he gives braised short ribs of bison ($25) an Asian influence, stacking tender chunks of succulent meat atop soba noodles, bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, mango slices and fermented black bean sauce. 

Bison is best when cooked rare to medium rare. That fact is made clear to customers at many restaurants serving bison. "It's right on the menu. We tell them we won't serve it medium or well done because it becomes tough," says Billy Martin, owner of Billy Martin's Tavern in Georgetown. On the menu at Martin's is a 14-ounce bison rib-eye steak for $29.95 and a bison burger for $7.95. 

Price is bison's one shortcoming. The retail cost of ground bison is $5 to $6 per pound. Bison rib-eye steak goes for about $16 per pound. Not everyone will pay the price "There is price resistance. Absolutely," says Hoyt of Georgetown Farm. "But once people taste it, price is not an objection. They realize that it's worth the money for the flavor and nutritional value.

" Chef Ann Cashion, co-owner of Cashion's Eat Place in Adams Morgan, agrees with Hoyt. From a restaurateur's perspective, the numbers work. "Whatever weight I buy, it's 100 percent usable. No fat. No trimming at all. That offsets the price right there," she says. A typical Cashion bison entree is the tender, grilled, hangar steak-cut with wild mushrooms, sauteed dandelion greens tossed with cannellini beans for $23. Says Cashion: "I feel you're getting a high-quality product from people that take incredibly good care of their herd. For that, the price is right."

Source:  Walter Nicholls, Smoke Signals, December 2001