Almost five years ago, my husband and I retired to the Abruzzo region of Italy from the U.S. I've made a lot of cooking adjustments, but beef cuts have me beaten. I want steaks and roasts. Research has helped very little. Dialect gets in the way in villages and I'm a long way from the closest large city, Roma. Photos are met with quizzical looks. The closest we have gotten is "girello", from the shoulder. I want top round, sirloin tip roasts, and NY strip, T-bone, and rib-eye steaks. The only time I sort of got what I wanted was when I recognized a piece of meat that resembled a filet, but it was huge and there was no "mignon" about it. It was good, but pretty expensive. I have seen few cuts with marbling, but a lot of stringy tendons. They don't seem to cut meat in the same direction I'm used to seeing. We have a good butcher who is willing but doesn't seem to be able to help. I welcome any suggestions as to how I can shop without being so frustrated. Thank you for any assistance.
Meat – How to get cuts of beef I recognize when in Italy
beefcut-of-meat
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Best Answer
As someone who has moved from the US to another country I can relate and have some general advice. Rather than spending time trying to find the US equivalent of something try to take advantage of what's good and plentiful locally. If there's something you desperately miss there's always an online store to help, the trick is not to miss those things as much.
I wrote a meat app years ago and did a lot of research as I wanted to make an equivalents table for meat cuts across the world. I gave up because it was impossible: cuts are very different from country to country, there may be no exact equivalent for what you are looking for. Instead I would suggest you try a different approach by describing what you want out of the meat and how you plan to cook it and relying on the butcher to give it to you. Rather than saying 'New York Strip' tell the butcher you want a tender cut for charcoal gilling, for example.