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元阪神のバース選手が、アメリカ産牛肉の日本に売り込みに熱心だ。キャンペーンのために訪日した際、少年野球の子供たちに「私が三冠王という功績を残すことができたのは、米国産牛肉を食べたからだ」と話したという。
日本の焼肉市場に米国が注目 元阪神バースも売り込みへ
広島のスーパー「フレスタ」の担当者を含む食肉バイヤー数人が先月、日本から約6000マイル離れた米国ネブラスカ空港に降り立ち、ホテルロビーから牛の飼育場、牛小屋を歩き回っていた。
彼らの目的は、完璧な牛タンを見つけることだ。
【牛タンを求めてネブラスカへ】
バイヤーたちを受け入れたネブラスカ州の牧場主は、彼らがこれまでのバイヤーに比べ、質問が非常に細かい内容にまで及んだことに驚いた、とオマハ・ドットコムが報じている。牧場主は、「餌の量、飼育法、体重。また牛だけでなく飼料のとうもろこしのことまで、尋ねられた」と話す。
米国の牛肉市場は、非常に不安定だ。また、現在国全体の牛の飼育頭数は8900万頭と1952年以来最も少ない。需要は一貫してあるのに、供給が減っているため、価格は値上がりしている。
しかし、牧場主たちは、日本が欲しがるのは、米国であまり好まれない、舌や心臓などの部位なので、日本への輸出が米国内の価格上昇に関係しないだろう、と考えているようだ。
【日本独特の牛タン食文化】
牛の舌を食べることは、最古の料理本にも調理法が掲載されているように、長い歴史がある。最近でも、ある料理本では4時間煮るように指導していたり、シャルル・ド・ゴール元仏大統領の料理人であったジャック・ペパン氏は、塩漬けにした舌を使い、5日間に及ぶ処理が必要だと説明していたりする。
ところが、日本人バイヤーはそんな調理法で食べるために、はるばるネブラスカ州まで肉を買い付けに来たのではない、と同メディアが、日本独特の食べ方を紹介している。
それによると、日本では伝統的に、牛肉は、とても薄く切りわけられる。牛タンは、レストランで食されることが多く、大人数が集って、コンロ付きのテーブルを囲み、テーブルに取り付けられた鉄板で、それぞれが生の牛タンを焼いて食べる。自分が食べる分は自分で焼き、より多くの肉を食べようと押し合いへし合いの競争になる、と焼肉の様子を伝えている。
【拡大する日本の牛肉需要】
米国の食肉ビジネスを伝えるメディア、キャトル・ネットワークによると、日本は今年7月までに、米国から142875トン（約8億5580万ドル）の牛肉を購入しているという。2012年と比較すると、量にして57％の増加だ。
米国食肉輸出連合会（USMEF）は最近、米国産牛肉を日本へさらに売り込むため、オクラホマ州現上院議員で阪神タイガース元選手、ランディー・バース氏を巻き込んだキャンペーンを日本国内で展開した。そして、非常に好評を得たようだ、と同メディアが報じている。
キャンペーンでは、USMEFが日本の焼肉店と手を組み、焼肉店で、「ランディー・バース・コース」を注文すると、バース氏のサインが当たるなどの様々な催しを行った。
日本での現役時代に三冠王を2度も獲得したバース氏は、このキャンペーンのために訪日した際、少年野球の子供たちに会い「私が三冠王という功績を残すことができたのは、（栄養豊富な）米国産牛肉を食べたからだ。」と、子供たちに米国産牛肉を食べることを勧めたという。
【関連記事】
関連記事
15 Best Restaurants in Europe
15. Taillevent (Paris)(01 of15)
The 14th-century French chef Guillaume Tirel was nicknamed Taillevent — \"wind slicer\" — supposedly in reference to his prominent beak. When André Vrinat opened his restaurant in Paris in 1946, he borrowed the name to suggest a connection with ancient Gallic gastronomy. His son, Jean-Claude, inherited the place 26 years later and established it as arguably the most perfectly run restaurant in France. The younger Vrinat died in 2008 and the restaurant has new owners (and only two Michelin stars instead of the three it long held), but it\'s as good as ever: The dining room is clubby and warm, the service is beyond accomplished, the wine list offers surprising bargains (including irresistible prices on a wide range of Raveneau chablis), and the cuisine of chef Alain Solivérès — \"tradition continually renewed,\" which translates to such fare as spelt risotto with frogs\' legs, sole with almond mousseline and verbena juice, and veal cheeks en blanquette with baby vegetables — is irreproachable.\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: © RÇmoulade de tourteau
14. Dinner by Heston Blumenthal (London)(02 of15)
Having given Britain some of the most scientifically advanced cooking in the world at The Fat Duck, Heston Blumenthal next embarked on a quest to give them some of the most historical. The conceit of Dinner by Heston Blumenthal (and yes, to answer the inevitable question, it is also open for lunch) is to reproduce recipes from his country\'s surprisingly rich culinary past. The oldest example on the current menu is Rice and Flesh (rice with saffron, red wine, and calf\'s tail, from c. 1390). The most famous dish is Meat Fruit (c. 1500), a chicken liver parfait coated with, and resembling, mandarin orange. Spiced pigeon with ale and artichokes (c. 1780), roast sea bass with leaf chicory and cockle ketchup (c. 1830), and a chamomile- and orange blossom-scented strawberry tart (c. 1591) are among the other offerings. The nice thing about all this food is that it\'s very tasty and doesn\'t seem \"historical\" at all; it\'s a testament to the longevity of good cooking.\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: © Mandarin Oriental Hotel London
13. Dal Pescatore (Canneto sull'Oglio, Italy)(03 of15)
This family-run restaurant about 20 miles north of Parma was opened as Vino e Pesce, a simple tavern in a village of 36 inhabitants on the banks of a pond in 1925 by Teresa Mazzi and Antonio Santini. Since these humble beginnings, Dal Pescatore has expanded with each passing decade, acquiring its current name in 1960 and three Michelin stars in 1996, but the Santini family has been a constant. Today, Nadia Santini, Teresa\'s and Antonio\'s granddaughter-in-law, is the chef, preparing such elegant but tradition-based specialties as lobster terrine with caviar and sweet-and-sour eel, risotto with saffron and balsamic vinegar, and roast pork with Sichuan pepper sauce. The wine list is monumental.\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: © Flickr / Sifu Renka
12. El Celler de Can Roca (Girona, Spain)(04 of15)
Considered the heir apparent to the now-closed elBulli as the leader in avant-garde cuisine in Catalonia, this superb restaurant (number two in the world, after Noma in Copenhagen, according to Restaurant magazine) grew out of a simple tavern run by the Roca brothers\' parents. The three young men — chef Joan, pastry chef Jordi, and wine expert Josep — learned their craft both from their family and from some of the finest forward-thinking chefs in Spain (Ferran Adrià among them). Today, in their beautiful establishment, clean-lined and bright in an almost Scandinavian way, they offer exquisite, unusual food — from caramelized olives brought to the table on a bonsai-size olive tree to oysters marinated in fino sherry with seaweed and oyster sauce to sole with olive oil emulsions of olive, pine nut, orange, bergamot, and fennel to steak tartare with mustard ice cream — guaranteed to amaze and delight. Desserts are miniature sculptures (a tiny tower that turns out to be rose soufflé with lychee sorbet foam), and the wine list is extraordinary — though not as extraordinary as the themed chambers of the wine cellar, a must to visit.\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: © El Celler de Can Roca
11. El Racó de Can Fabes (Sant Celoni, Spain)(05 of15)
Santi Santamaria, the self-taught Catalan chef who turned a corner of his family\'s small-town farmhouse into his region\'s first Michelin three-star restaurant, died suddenly of a heart attack in early 2011, in Singapore, where he was opening an opulent outpost of his growing restaurant empire. It is no disrespect to him — quite the contrary — to say that the quality of Can Fabes, still run by Santamaria\'s widow, Àngels Serra, and his family, hasn\'t faltered. This is due in large part to the presence in the kitchen of Xavier Pellicer, a onetime Can Fabes chef who went on to cook dazzling food at ABaC in Barcelona before returning here, shortly before Santamaria\'s demise. Santamaria opposed so-called molecular gastronomy, but the food at Can Fabes is full of imagination while remaining firmly Catalan. Choose between a contemporary and a rustic dining room and sample asparagus with saffron sabayon and baby octopus; peas with blood orange vinaigrette; razor clams with favas, cock\'s combs, and gizzards; Pyrénean lamb with goat milk gnocchi; local strawberries with basil and verbena ice cream…\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: © El Racó de Can Fabes
10. JB Restaurant (Ljubljana, Slovenia)(06 of15)
Set in a 1920s Secessionist building in the heart of Ljubljana, JB Restaurant is a family affair. Chef Janez Bratovz’s wife Ema is the manager, his daughter Nina is the sommelier, and his son Tomaz is his chef-apprentice. Slovenia’s top chef offers a nightly menu — recited, not printed— of Mediterranean, French, and Slovenian dishes, with dishes based (says Bratovz) on the elements — earth, water, air, and fire — representing the four tastes, sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. These might include such things as garlic soup with langoustines, foie gras pâté with mixed fruit jam, pork carpaccio with mushrooms and pumpkin seed oil, venison with tarragon tart, and medallions of beef with black truffle sauce. \r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: © JB Restaurant
9. L'Arpège (Paris)(07 of15)
Alain Passard, long ensconced in the original site of his mentor Alain Senderens\' epochal L\'Archestrate, is a thoroughly original chef who combines tradition (he rotisserie-roasts duckling, chicken, lamb, and game birds in the style that he learned from his late grandmother, and they are among the most perfectly cooked and succulent examples of these foods that you will ever find) with daring. The latter is expressed most dramatically through the vegetable-based menu he introduced in 2001, a veritable paean to produce. His spinach with brown butter and carrots à l\'orange, beets with coarse salt and quince mousseline, celery risotto with sorrel, and the like are little masterpieces that would convince you that Passard deserves his three Michelin stars even if you never tried a bite of his excellent turbot with smoked vegetables, lobster with honey and turnips, or Grandma Passard\'s roast duck.\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: © Philippe Vaurès-Santamaria
8. Hof van Cleve (Kruishoutem, Belgium)(08 of15)
\"Finesse is the message here,\" says chef Peter Goossens of Hof van Cleve. Every detail, from the crisp white linens to the artisanal vases and flatware, exudes individuality and character. There are three set menus, including the daily changing multi-course Market Walk menu and a seasonally changing Freshness of Nature offering. The latter might include scallops with piccalilli, cucumber, and smoked eel; langoustines with quinoa, shiitakes, and shellfish; and Flemish hare with chicory, lingonberry, and Jerusalem artichoke.\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: © Hof van Cleve
7. Varvary (Moscow)(09 of15)
With hand-carved stools, plush chairs, and plenty of woodwork, Varvary, which means \"barbarians\" in Russian, is anything but barbaric. Rather, the 10-table restaurant is a cozy perch from which to enjoy chef Anatoly Komm’s deconstructed Russian cuisine, an abrupt about-face on Russia’s gastronomic heritage of rigid, state-owned restaurants offering only a handful of foodstuffs. Komm\'s tasting menu, or \"gastronomic show,\" as he calls it, offers classic Russian fare refashioned with gels, foams, and the like. \"I would like to make traditional Russian food in a way that... a Russian would recognize from childhood, but at the same time, make it surprising, delightful and modern — 21st century,\" Komm said. And he has succeeded, with dishes like \"Original Russian Flavor\" (Jerusalem artichoke soup with cheese ice cream and sea-buckthorn and cottage cheese), borsch with foie gras, and homemade sweets and \"katroshka\" cake;.\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: © Varvary
6. Aqua (Wolfsburg, Germany)(10 of15)
In a beautiful dining room at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Wolfsburg — hometown of Volkswagen — with an Andrée Putman interior furnished with Art Deco armchairs and floral still lifes by Robert Mapplethorpe, chef Sven Elverfeld creates visually stunning and unfailingly delicious modern-style food that reflects the world’s best avant-garde innovations while remaining tied to culinary traditions from around Europe. Sample his smoked eel with pumpkin, green apple, and pumpkin seed oil; Greek-influenced rabbit pot au feu with white beans, spinach, feta, oregano, and lemon; Spanish-style take of foie gras with paella seasonings, Joselito ham, and Bomba rice; veal breast and sweetbreads with beets, rutabaga, lentils, and mustard; or hand-formed iced cheese dessert.\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: © The Ritz-Carlton, Wolfsburg
5. Guy Savoy (Paris)(11 of15)
Arguably the best Michelin-three-star in Paris, Guy Savoy is a beautiful restaurant, comfortable and coolly elegant in design, with consistently good food in a style that might be called sensible contemporary. Savoy is a master at imagining combinations that aren\'t immediately obvious but that make wonderful sense. His artichoke soup with black truffles and brioche spread with truffle-mushroom butter is an example; so is his arrangement of beets of different hues with crabmeat, his lobster with cauliflower in various forms and a taste of mustard, his Bresse chicken breast with lemongrass and chard glazed with chicken stock and bay, and his terrine of grapefruit with tea sauce. The cooking is remarkably consistent here; the wines are superbly chosen and often good bargains; and the service is superb, friendly but not familiar. Guy Savoy is everything a top-level French restaurant should be.\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: © Guy Savoy
4. Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester (London)(12 of15)
One of a trio of Alain Ducasse’s restaurants to be awarded three Michelin stars, Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester serves contemporary French cuisine in a bright and airy space with blonde wood walls and crisp white linen-topped tables. Executive chef Jocelyn Herland uses seasonal produce from England and France to create the à la carte menu and three-course set menus. The menu includes a heritage tomato tart with fresh herb condiment; \"sauté gourmand\" of lobster and truffled chicken quenelles; baked halibut, toasted hazelnuts, peas, and Saint George’s mushrooms; and Anjou pigeon \"à la broche\" with tender potatoes and sauce Choron.\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: © Dorchester London
3. Noma (Copenhagen, Denmark)(13 of15)
René Redzepi helms \"the world’s best restaurant,\" Noma, whose name is a portmanteau elision of the phrase Nordisk mad (\"Nordic food\"). The story of Noma is well-known. According to the lore, at least, BN (\"Before Noma\") in Scandinavia, there was only a revolving door of pork, potatoes, herring, and grumpy Protestants. AN (\"After Noma\"), every chef in Denmark and beyond was suddenly foraging for herbs spelled with funny letters and killing moose with his bare hands. The real story is this: In 2003, Danish restaurateur Claus Meyer approached a number of chefs about opening a high-end restaurant that would highlight Nordic ingredients. Most chefs passed, except Redzepi. After having done stints at Pierre André in Copenhagen, Jardin des Sens in France, elBulli in Catalonia, and the French Laundry in California, Redzepi, then working as a sous-chef at Copenhagen’s Kong Hans restaurant, formed a partnership with Meyer. Redzepi — The Daily Meal\'s International Chef of the Year in 2011 — has since become the poster boy for the über-locavore, foraging, and New Nordic movements. Did two Michelin stars, a TIME magazine cover, and three consecutive number ones in the San Pellegrino Top 100 Restaurant list change anything? Yes. From a kitchen staff of fewer than 10, Redzepi’s team has grown to close to 40, including 20 or more stagiaires, not to mention the hoard of foragers, farmers, and fishermen supplying the restaurant. Add a completely renovated kitchen, a food laboratory, and an actual head chef beyond Redzepi, and it’s a wonder that the restaurant is still in its original location. See Copenhagen-based food writer and Daily Meal special contributor Evelyn J. Kim’s full story:Noma Is Still a Work in Progress.\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: © Wiki / Antissimo
2. Arzak (San Sebastian, Spain)(14 of15)
With his cohort Pedro Subijana of Akelaré, Juan Mari Arzak brought nouvelle cuisine to the Basque Country, and helped modernize restaurant kitchens all over Spain. He is still a master, producing finely crafted traditional food on occasion but also embracing new techniques and fashioning innovations of his own at Arzak. And he now shares cooking duties with an even more modern-minded chef, his daughter Elena — the fourth Arzak generation to cook in this same spot. Expect dishes like rockfish mousse wrapped in fried noodles, lobster in a crispy potato shell with a sauce based on an the pith of an oily South American tree called copaiba, monkfish with spelt and gooseberries, duck leg with hibiscus pudding, and roe deer with hot chile sauce.\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: © Arzak
1. Osteria Francescana (Modena, Italy)(15 of15)
Massimo Bottura, Italy\'s newest Michelin three-star chef, describes his cooking as \"traditional seen from 10 miles away.\" His attractive contemporary-styled Osteria Francescana is located in Modena, in the gastronomically rich Emilia-Romagna region — a town famous as the home of Maserati, Ferrari, and Lamborghini, but also of aceto balsamico (the real balsamic vinegar), cotechino and zampone sausages, and such pasta as tortellini and tortelloni, so there\'s lots of tradition to draw from. Bottura deconstructs and reimagines tradition with such dishes as \"memory of a mortadella sandwich,\" \"five ages of Parmigiano-Reggiano in different textures and temperatures,\" \"bollito misto... not boiled,\" and \"Oops! Broken fruit pie.\" It\'s all delicious, and also lots of fun.\r\n\r\n\r\nClick here to see the More of the Best Restaurants in Europe\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: © Paolo Terzi / Osteria Francescana