Why was this meat, labelled 'Fillet of beef' so cheap? (don't think it's horse)

Factual Questions
1

I went shopping in one of my favourite international supermarkets yesterday (in Southampton) - this place has imported foods from all over the Mediterranean, Asia and beyond. At the back of the store, there’s a Halal meat counter.

I’ve bought meat there before (goat, mutton, chicken) and have reasonable confidence in the quality - and each time I’ve visited, I’ve seen ‘fillet of beef’ in the chiller, but at an astonishingly low price - cheaper than topside or rump.

It looks like I would expect fillet to look - a foot-long cylindrical piece of very lean, even-textured red meat. It’s perhaps a little paler than I might expect from beef, but I understand that fillet isn’t always matured for as long as other cuts.

I bought a whole fillet (came in at about £12) and I’ll be cutting steaks from it for dinner tonight.

Why would fillet be so cheap though? Are there any cultures that consider it inferior (perhaps driving down the price) to the other cuts of beef?

And I’m of course aware of the horsemeat scandal, but I can’t imagine that’s a factor here, as it’s prominently labelled as beef - and I don’t think they’d get away with that for long on a whole cut (all of the horsemeat scandal has involved processed products where the meat can be more easily disguised).

It looks a lot like this (which is an online pic of beef fillet):

2

What makes you think “fillet of beef” would be expensive? It’s presumably a cut so cheap they don’t even bother telling you what cut it is, just that it’s a “cut”. If they had meant “mignon”, they would have said “mignon”.

3

Not in Britain. The term “fillet steak” is used instead.

4

In U.S. terminology, the whole long stip of meat is called the beef tenderloin. Steaks cut from it are called filet (=fillet) mignon. Full explanation, included an illustration of precisely which long strip of meat we’re talking about, here.

The word “filet,” however, is a more generic term that can refer to other cuts and to other types of meat – for example, one often hears of fish filets. Some sources hold “filet” and “fillet” to have different meanings, but in many cases it’s simply a variant spelling. See definition 2 here.

The linked illustration sure looks like a beef tenderloin to me, though I’m not an expert on that.

The two possibilities that occur to me are:

  1. It is a beef tenderloin, and the shop doesn’t appreciate its market value, thus it’s quite a bargain, or

  2. It’s some other cut that can legitimately be called a filet, but would more helpfully (and perhaps less deceptively) be labeled as to what cut that is.

I’d be asking the butcher to clearly explain exactly which cut it is.

5

Is it the same one each time? :slight_smile:

More likely it’s some other cut and some deceptive butchering & labeling.

6

If the usage in Britain is anything like in Sweden “fillet of beef” refers to what Chronos calls mignon.

That said we have not only had the horsemeat scandal in Sweden. A while ago it was revealed that a large amount of fillet of pork had been dyed red and sold as fillet of beef (of course everyone involved with the import of said meat put the blame on everyone else). Could this possibly be an answer to Mangetout’s question?

7

It’s the same product each time (slight variability in shade of red and size), but not the same individual piece of meat (or it would be green in colour by now)

8

Pork fillet is considerably smaller in diameter in my experience, with a little more fat - and this being a Halal butcher, there would presumably be serious consequences if they they were found to be to selling pork as anything.

9

Correct - or more precisely, ‘fillet steak’ is fillet, sliced crosswise into steaks, but should always be the thing that is known elsewhere as tenderloin.

10

I’d expect it was imported frozen from somewhere far off where it’s cheaper.

11

ALDI has this. It’s probably a beef leg cut and is normally used for ground beef. I suspect it would be good to purchase only if you plan to grind your own.

12

You may be right (although I’m surprised there is a cut that can be engineered to look like fillet) - but if so, it’s a mislabelling issue, as the term ‘beef fillet’ means something specific in the UK.

13

I am taking it that OP has the correct cut down, having visually scoped out the cut of meat, including its unique shape and the evident lack-of-marbling. Unless OP has sized it wrong, and it is simply pork loin and mislabeled, which would account for its low price.

Otherwise, the only one being defrauded is, in fact, the retail butcher himself. The scarcity of that cut in each animal (a longitudinal cylinder through the “eye” of other expensive ones, giving you one per beast) and its desirable flavor and quality to many purchasers is known by all supply-and-demand costing people up the meat production chain.

If I may, Gary T’s response on terminology is both correct and a little too correct, in that it assumes that retail butchers always follow a single terminology. They may use differing terminology out of long-established local custom, incorrect knowledge, or, as been suggested, for fraudulent reasons.

The tenderloin, one of its names, has others (like God, as it has been said). As Gary T says, the cut is most often–in my experience on the East coast–referred to as filet mignon.

However, the part referred to as filet mignon is often (correctly in my book) the cylinder from each end of the cut; perhaps more narrowly only to the end with the smaller radius, a portion that is usually doubled over for cooking. Certainly in the most scrupulous of cookbooks, and always in the French cookbooks I’ve read (the authority of which here is arguable, of course), the terms are the following, taking small cylinders from each end of the tenderloin moving toward its center: filet mignon, tournedeau, chateaubriand. Each section from each side, more or less divided by eye, can be subdivided depending on thickness. Also, the number of central chateaubriands, since the binary approach from each side has come to an end, will always be half that of the other cuts. It is, in fact, the tenderest cut of the tenderest cut in the animal, and I have seen it sold at a higher price; it certainly sounds the classiest on a menu.

14

As to its cost, see my above post.

I read your post initially that you suggested the fillet as a whole should be called the single word “mignon,” in its non adjectival sense: small, petite, pleasing nd (I don’t know if archaic) an adjective or noun for a prison exhibiting those qualities.

So I immediately thought customers would get confused by the popular opera Mignon.

15

It’s probably an eye of round filet. I’ve got one in my freezer right now and there’s nothing engineered or misleading about it, but it does have an unfortunate physical resemblance to a tenderloin.

Eye of round is about as different from tenderloin as you could ever imagine. It’s a hard-working and very lean muscle, which makes it tough. It’s really best suited for dicing up to use as stew meat or similar wet, low and slow cooking methods.

16

It’s got to be two per beast, doesn’t it? Or are cows asymmetrical?

17

Concur.

18

I was just about to chime in and mention eye of round. I’ve never seen it labeled as filet, but it’s similar in appearance, the pricing seems correct, and it is my most disliked cut of beef. You’ll know right when you bite into it whether you have tenderloin or eye of round. It’s a bitch of a cut that doesn’t roast well, nor stew well. The only acceptable prep I’ve had of it is as a low-heat dry roast cooked to medium rare.

19

It looks likely that I have indeed been sold eye of round (will know for sure when I cut it). This should be labelled silverside in the UK

20

That’s a load of silverside, if that’s what it is. What are you going to do with it? Beef olives?