How To Choose Meat
From The White Ribbon Cook Book by Kathryn Armstrong, 1894. Section 2 of 9.
In purchasing beef secure meat of a deep red color, with the fat mingled with the lean, giving it a mottled appearance. The fat will be firm, and the color resembling grass butter. The smaller the breed, so much sweeter the meat. It will be better for eating, if kept a few days. Veal, lamb and pork (being white meat) will not keep more than a day or two.
Beef
For roasting, the sirloin and rib pieces are the best. The chief object is to prevent the escape of the juices, and if you are roasting in an oven, it is a very good plan to throw a cup of boiling water over the meat when it is first put in the oven. This will prevent the escape of the juices for a while, and will thoroughly warm through the meat.
Mutton
Choose this by the fineness of its grain, good color, and firm white fat. It is not the better for being young; if of a good breed and well-fed, it is better for age; but this only holds with wether-mutton; the flesh of the ewe is paler, and the texture finer. Ram-mutton is very strongly-flavored; the flesh is of a deep red, and the fat is spongy.
Lamb
Observe the neck of a fore-quarter; if the vein is bluish it is fresh; if it has a green or yellow cast it is stale. In the hind-quarter, if there is a faint smell under the kidney, and the knuckle is limp, the meat is stale. If the eyes are sunken, the head is not fresh. Grass-lamb comes in season in April or May, and continues till August. House-lamb may be had in great towns almost all the year, but is in highest perfection in December and January.
Pork
Pinch the lean, and if young it will break. If the rind is tough, thick, and cannot easily be impressed by the finger, it is old. A thin rind is a merit in all pork. When fresh, the flesh will be smooth and cool; if clammy, it is tainted. What is called measly pork is very unwholesome, and may be known by the fat being full of kernels, which in good pork is never the case. Pork fed at still-houses does not answer for curing any way, the fat being spongy. Dairy-fed pork is the best. A sucking pig, to be eaten in perfection, should not be more than three weeks old, and should be dressed the same day it is killed.
Veal
Veal should be perfectly white; if purchasing the loin, the fat enveloping the kidney should be white and firm. Veal will not keep so long as older meat, especially in Lot or wet weather. Choose small and fat veal. It is in season from March to August.