A few weeks ago a friend gave my wife a cookbook titled “The São Paulo Cookbook” which has every recipe written in both English and Portuguese. This is a godsend because it also has a wide selection of substitutions for hard-to-get ingredients.
Now for the interesting part: There’s a two-page spread in the book that has two cow diagrams side-by-side. On the left page, the cow has all of the traditional American cuts of meat drawn out in a map and labeled. On the right page, the cow is divided in entirely different sections and labeled in Portuguese.
In other words, not only does one have to translate the name of the cut of meat, but one needs to translate the region of the cow as well. If memory serves me, there were about 20 different American cuts, while the Brazilian version had about 30.
A quick Google search shows me that there is no single standard chart, but they all seem to follow a similar layout. The Brazilian one was entirely different.
Which leads me to my question: How diverse are cuts of beef? Is there a special way to butcher a cow in each country, or is there a “Continental” vs. “North American” style?
Can’t answer your question directly, but will observe that even within the United States there are differences in the way meat is cut. Similar cuts with different names, or cuts that are completely unknown.
This is an example of Pork, the other white meat, but in South Florida no one seems to know what a pork steak is!
And even if the cut is the same, it’s called by different names. My Brother-in-law (in Canada) asked me to pick up a “Baron of Beef”, which is called “London Broil” here in the Northeast US, but it’s really “Round steak”. Sheesh.
I cut meat for a grocery chain and i travel to different stores within the chain to fill in for vacations etc. Even within the chain there are multiple methods of cutting and many names for the same cut. It seems that this is done by meat managers as a way to maximize sales and minimize profit loss. Basically, different stores sell differently; some stores in an area attract a different type of customer than a different area, and different methods sometimes yeild higher profits.