The problem, historically anyway, was that beef here was all grass fed, free range, which meant it was way too lean to make a decent burger. Most of what used to be available was basically just frozen patties. If there’s anything good to come out of the change in beef here, which has gone from a decade ago when 100% of all cattle raised for human consumption were free range, to a point where roughly 65% of the cattle are now feedlot, grain-fed, because the ranchlands have been turned over to GMO soy production for China, is that we now have beef that has enough fat marbling in it to make really good burgers – and no question, the world of gourmet burgers has taken off over the last few years (the flipside is, that I hear all the time from visitors now, “I don’t get what the big deal is with Argentina beef, it tastes the same as a steak back home” – yup, it pretty much is – it didn’t used to be). The biggest issue these days, is the same as that with steaks in steakhouses, getting them to cook it rare or medium rare when tradition dictates somewhere between medium and well done.

Next time I pass through Ipswich, I’ll show you how we make empanadas….