A common trait that I’ve noticed amongst the food-obsessed is that one of the first places that they visit on overseas trips is the supermarket as a way to orient themselves amongst the strangeness of the new food. My first phase was to hunt down the hilariously named snack foods that make the perfect parting souvenir. For example, witness the Chocolate Flavoured Collon or my personal favourite brand of water, Steve the Quality Drops.  The hilarity far outweighs the deliciousness on all occasions. After you’ve trawled the supermarket aisles for deep perversions of the English language and come away satisfied, what next?

Now I scout out cuts of meat. I’ve become a meat tourist.

Somewhat surprisingly, there is no single, canonical way to butcher an animal. There are common cuts across different cultures, but oft times, it is impossible to find the exact same cuts that you like in a different country without having a special relationship with your butcher. Butchery is an extremely culturally specific trade – and different cultures value different parts of the same animal. For example, Brazil’s favourite cut of beef is the picanha, which is a cut from the rump. Almost everywhere else, it gets ground up for hamburger or cut into chunks for a casserole.

American’s love pork ribs, cut with a huge slice of surrounding meat still attached so that the meat retains moistness after hours in the smoker. It is almost impossible to buy the right ribs for true American barbecue in Australia without giving some very specific instructions to a butcher. Please, anybody, prove me wrong.

My obsession on my last trip to the USA was tri-tip.

As far as I know, tri-tip is only really a popular cut in the Western states in the USA. Until the 1950s in America, it tended to be ground straight into meat for hamburgers like the picanha cut. In Germany it was given the respect it deserves and named the Bürgermeisterstück – the piece for the master of the town. France’s Beef Information Centre reports that the French name for it, aiguillette baronne (“the baroness’s lanyard”)  started as a butcher’s pun that I entirely don’t understand.

It is a cut of meat that you either cook extremely quickly or very slowly. It makes awesome fajitas (fast) and works well in the smoker (very slow).

Tri-tip in Australia is left as a part of two different cuts – the rump and the round. When butchers break up a beef carcase, the rump and the round are split, leaving part of the tri-tip on both parts.  If you ever need to con an Australian butcher into cutting you the tri-tip out, here is a handy chart.