In choosing meat it should be remembered that without being actually
unwholesome, it varies greatly in quality, and often an inferior joint
is to be preferred from a first class beast to a more popular cut from
a second class animal. To be perfect the animal should be five or six
years old, the flesh of a close even grain, bright red in color and
well mixed with creamy white fat, the suet being firm and a clear
white. Heifer meat is smaller in the bone and lighter in color than
ox beef. Cow beef is much the same to look at as ox beef, though being
older it is both coarser in the grain and tougher; bull beef, which
is never seen however, in a first class butcher's may be recognized by
the coarseness and dark color of the flesh, and also by a strong and
almost rank smell.