Bear steak

Your local guide to cities, towns, neighborhoods, states, counties, metro areas, zip codes, area codes, and schools in USA. Wagyu beef from the Tajima strain of Japanese Black cattle, raised in Japan’s Hyōgo Prefecture according to rules set out by the Kobe Beef Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association. Cattle were brought to Japan from China in about bear steak second century AD, in the Yayoi period.

Between 1868, the year of the Meiji Restoration, and 1887, some 2,600 foreign cattle were imported, including Braunvieh, Shorthorn, and Devon. Between about 1900 and 1910 there was extensive cross-breeding of these with native stock. From 1919, the various heterogeneous regional populations that resulted from this brief period of cross-breeding were registered and selected as “Improved Japanese Cattle”. Four separate strains were characterized, based mainly on which type of foreign cattle had most influenced the hybrids, and were recognized as breeds in 1944.

Beef consumption remained low until after World War II. Kobe beef grew in popularity and extended its global reach in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1983, the Kobe Beef Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association was formed to define and promote the Kobe trademark. It sets standards for animals to be labeled as Kobe beef. In 2009, the USDA placed a ban on the import of all Japanese beef to prevent the Japan foot-and-mouth outbreak from reaching US shores.

The ban was relaxed in August 2012 and thereafter Kobe beef was imported into the US. The cattle are fed on grain fodder and brushed sometimes for setting fur. Kobe beef is expensive, partly because only about 3,000 head of cattle may qualify as Kobe per year. In Japan, all cattle, including those approved as Kobe beef, can be tracked via a 10-digit number through every step of their entire life cycle.