Veau

True veal is as hard to find in this country as wishbones in cut-up chickens. The flesh of veal should be a mother-of-pearl pinkish color and should come from a baby calf two to three months of age. It is slaughtered at the time it is weaned from its mother and before it goes on a diet of grass and grain. It is a milk-fed calf. When the calf starts to eat solids, it develops muscles and they begin to turn red. The longer a calf lives, the darker the meat becomes.

French butchers are artists when it comes to cutting meat. They strip the individual muscles from both veal and beef and then tie in roasts or cut individual steaks or medallions of meat across the grain of the meat. We cut veal as we cut beef, but it is not the technique for veal steaks. The connective tissues in a young calf are not strong enough to hold the different leg muscles together. In a slice of veal the various muscles fall apart. Therefore, the only sensible thing to do with a slice of veal is to cut the connective tissues from around the individual muscles and cook the small pieces of veal.