Monday, April 12, 2010

Longview Beef Jerky - Original

longview beef jerkyLongview Beef Jerky is a brand of Longview Meat & Merchandise Ltd., based out of Longview, Alberta, Canada.

Longview has been making their jerky for the past 30 years starting with this Original variety. They claim their beef jerky is made from Canadian grown cattle. You can't buy Longview Beef Jerky in the USA, but you can find it at gas stations and stores throughout Canada.

They have eight varieties of jerky which I'll be reviewing here over the next couple of months.

The company sent me samples because rodeo is a really big deal in Alberta, and every July the Calgary Stampede attracts cowboy fans from the USA up into that area. So the makers of Longview Beef Jerky is trying to get the word out about their meat snacks.

Ingredients

Beef, soy sauce, marinade sauce, worcestershire sauce, spices, liquid attamate, sugar, prague powder (salt, sodium nitrite), sodium erythorbate, rosemary extract.

Taste

The first thing I taste from the surface of these pieces is a salty flavor that brings out a garlic & onion seasoning flavor.

The chewing flavor starts with a stronger garlic & onion seasoning taste, and just a bit more saltiness.

Overall the dominant taste of this jerky is that garlic & onion seasoning that I described above. I'm getting a lot of that flavor from start to finish. If you've eaten Funyuns Onion Ring Snacks, that's what it tastes like.

There's a moderate to high saltiness in this. It starts out as a moderate saltiness but progresses higher as I continue to eat more.

The rosemary extract mentioned in the ingredients seems to show up just a tad. If I didn't know it contained rosemary, I probably wouldn't notice it all. But I want to say that I do taste a hint of that flavor.

The natural meat flavors are either nonexistent or very faint depending on the jerky piece I'm eating. I'm not really getting any smokiness either.

There's a bit of soy sauce detectable in the latter part of chewing as the seasoning wears off.

To sum it up, it's mostly just that garlic & onion seasoning plus a good deal of saltiness that I taste, plus a bit of soy sauce.

Meat Consistency

These are slices of whole meat, sliced to a medium thickness, and in small to medium sized pieces.

This is a dry jerky, with a lightly oily surface feel. The pieces are very flexible, like soft rubber, able to bend all the way around with minimal cracking. Tearing pieces apart with my fingers require some effort, you have to find the right starting point to tear or else it can hard to do. Chewing is relatively easy, however.

The chewing texture starts out feeling rubbery with some initial chewing resistance. After several chews it breaks down and renders into a soft mass in about 20 seconds. At that point, it has a steak-like feel, but on the mushy side. It's more like a steak-cooked medium-rare.

I'm finding a good deal of stringiness in each piece I chew. I think that's largely what makes this difficult to tear apart. I also found some significant streaks of gristle in the larger pieces that gave this a more rubbery chew. Otherwise, no visible signs of fat.

In terms of clean eating, my fingertips pick up a light bit of oiliness. I didn't find any fragments of meat flying off as I tore pieces.




Snack Value

Longview Beef Jerky retails for $5.98 Canadian Dollars in most stores throughout Canada, in a 80g (2.82oz) package. Under current US exchange rates, that's pretty much the same in US Dollars. That works out to $2.12 per ounce.

For general jerky snacking purposes, at the $2.12 price per ounce (US or Canadian), it's a weak value. I'm getting a low level of snackability. I'm not really feeling inspired to keep eating, though it's not bad. That price is slightly higher than what you'd expect to pay for a Jack Link's or Oberto jerky here in the USA, and yet offers comparable or slightly less snackability.

Rating

canadian nutrition labelI'm giving this a fair rating.

This Original variety from Longview Beef Jerky offers mostly a garlic & onion seasoning flavor, a medium-to-high saltiness, with a just small amounts of soy sauce in the latter part of chewing. I found no natural meat flavors. To sum it up, it's a simple tasting jerky.

The meat consistency is mediocre, feeling more rubbery than anything else, and a little difficult to tear apart due to the high amount of stringiness. There's a steak-like chewing texture, though a little mushy. The chewing texture is perhaps this jerky's best quality.

Overall, I'm not really impressed with this jerky. It's not very snackable, not really inspiring me to eat more. Albeit this is only Longview's Original variety, I'm sure I'll find more interesting stuff in their other flavors.

For my recommended beer pairing, I'd go with something light bodied and refreshing, try a simple pale ale like a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, or a Stone Pale Ale.

Rating: Fair

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1 comment:

  1. the longview beef jerky sold in gas staions in that packaging is not quite the same as the stuff you buy right in longview. See this website for the real stuff :) http://www.longviewjerkyshop.com/

    ReplyDelete