Why is the price of ox tail so expensive?!


Question: As I've been to the store , I've watched the price of oxtail. Yesterday the price was at $5.59 pp US. At that price you would think it was steak not bone? Any ideas? Is it now a gourmet food that is causing the rise?


Answers: As I've been to the store , I've watched the price of oxtail. Yesterday the price was at $5.59 pp US. At that price you would think it was steak not bone? Any ideas? Is it now a gourmet food that is causing the rise?

I am a former chef and like Tara C and Clare they have hit the nail on the head, for alot of year those things and others like lambs shanks, skirt/flank steak and tripe were poor mans cuts, I say this not as knock againist the economically challenged, but like in the Middles ages and the rich got the good cuts and the poor the cheaper ones and the offal (innards) that is how some of the tastiest dishes were made from.

True, there is one 1 oxtail, 2 chicken wings and not much of the other things around. They became fashionable when this cuts were reinvented by as the one lady said celebrete chefs, there is a place in London UK that specializes in all those types of meats, innards and other specialty meats. If you want to find them slightly cheaper, try to go to a ethnic butcher that they are used in there cuisine, supermarkets charge more as they have so few, even a good butcher store or meat market could hook up up some even frozen can be cheaper, I buy mine along with my goat meat and tripe at a West Indian store.

One thing I've learned over the years is that a good piece of tail is never cheep.

They have become much more popular than they used to be. Pxtails used to be considered a "throwaway" meat because they had so little meat on them.

Just like chicken wings. Since hot wings became so popular, the price of raw chicken wings has increased dramatically.

It has to do with the importing and exporting costs, nothing about the flavor or popularity of oxtail.

Why do u even eat oxtail

One tail per ox. That makes it a rareity I'd think. I remember when nobody wanted chicken wings too and now look at the market. They cost more than hamburger. Supply and demand my friend, that's what it's all about.

I personally blame chefs like Anthony Bourdaine, for letting people discover the flavor of oxtails : ) It was a well kept secret for years. We ate them all the time growing up because they were so cheap and we were so poor. There's nothing like sucking the bone of an oxtail.

Wow, I haven't checked the price of them lately. For the last few years I've been getting my meat from a farmer friend of mine who raises cattle and swine and takes them in to the butcher. There are a lot of meaty soup bones in there when I order a half of beef. A lot of people don't care for soup bones.





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