Minor T-Bone Mystery Solved!

I received a couple complimentary steaks to try out from New York Prime Meats, which you can see here, before and after their appearance on my Memorial Day grill. By the way, if these guys think they’re going to get a mention on a high-traffic, award-winning blog for a few prime steaks, well, they’ve got another thing coming.

No, this post is not about how juicy and tender their gorgeous (free) beef was, it’s about me finally learning why the flat, bone end of a Porterhouse or T-Bone is always thicker than the opposite pointy meat end. This question has haunted me for decades. Not enough to actually ask a butcher, but still.

I always assumed it was cut that way so we’d have to pay $15 a pound for bone, and they’d grind the extra meat for those fancy red-leather-booth restaurant burgers. However, according to Ed Logan, Head Butcher at New York Prime Meats, the simple explanation is that once a thick steak is cut from the larger, primal sections, the meat contracts and shrinks up a bit, while the bone does not.