CATTLE ROYALE
A cattle ranching family turns generations of tradition on their head—and emerges with beef that is truly original.
A family of ranchers turns generations of cattle farming on their head—and emerges with beef that is truly original.
A SCENE IS PLAYING OUT among the placid cows of Santa Carota ranch that achieves a near operatic level of drama. A herd of massive Angus cattle grazes in the foothills of Breckenridge Mountain near Bakersfield, California, where the grass has turned bright green from several days of rain. The clouds overhead have finally broken, and some late-afternoon sun peeks through. Suddenly, something crosses their path, and they break into what first could be described as a lum - bering jog—and then into a full, running sprint. The object of their frenzy is a truck bearing one of its many daily 25-ton loads of carrots, and its driver has seconds to dump his pile of gold and get out before he is sur - rounded. They want carrots, and they will not be deterred.
The Pettit family have been raising cattle for 30 years in these hills, and much of that time they have been feeding their cows the culled carrots from nearby producers like Bolthouse Farms and Grimmway Farms. Until 18 months ago, Justin and Corinne Pettit and Justin’s father, Mike, were growing their cattle to 800 pounds, then sending them to a feedlot to be bulked up and what they call “finished” to nearly 1 ,300 pounds on grain. They had never considered finishing a cow on carrots until they conducted a single experiment. “We were breeding cows during a drought so that when it did rain we would have available cattle to sell. We were trying to finish them on grain or sell them, but there was no market at the time. So we said, ‘ Why don’t we just tr y finishing one cow on carrots?’” Considering the price a single cow commands on the beef market, experimenting with even one constitutes real financial risk. The Pettits decided to grill that first carrot-finished beef for Justin’s birthday in April of 2017. “We said, ‘We’re either ordering pizza or we’re going to celebrate,’” he says with a laugh. Just one bite of the steaks and the Pettits put down their forks and looked at each other . “And we said, ‘Oh, now we have to go to work.’” Justin describes the steak as having the flavor he remembers before beef began tasting standardized. “We’re so accustomed to grain-finished cattle,” he says, “but this was so different. The water in the carrots expands the muscles and makes it juicy . It’s like a berr y that just pops in your mouth.” Nutritional analysis shows that carrot-finished beef is lower in saturated fat than cows fed on corn. And although many health-conscious consumers buy grass-fed beef for its relatively low fat content, “a lot of the grass-fed meat is tough, chewy , and the cows have to be older to make USD A prime grade,” Justin says. His Santa Carota (“holy carrot” in Italian) beef reaches prime as quickly as grain-fed cattle, and 80 percent of his cattle grades as higher choice and prime. “And you have cows that are taking in all the great beta carotene and B vitamins of a carrot smoothie all day ,” he says. David Walzog, executive chef of SW Steakhouse and Lakeside restaurants at The Wynn Las Vegas, began serving Santa Carota filet mignon last year. “When I tested it out on the grill at Lakeside, my initial reaction was that it had great tenderness, a great char and the richness that you expect with corn-fed beef. But I had no idea what the back story was.” Once he found out that the cows were grass-fed and carrot-finished as well as hormone- and antibiotic-free, “then it became a really interesting proposition.” Walzog had been purchasing grassfed, so-called “never ever” beef, which comes from animals that were fed no animal byproducts and did not receive antibiotics or hormones, from cooperative ranches in the Midwest. “But the grass-fed cows didn’t have the depth or richness that this beef has, ” he notes. “And by the time this beef lands on your plate, we know the entire stor y of its procurement and provenance, and that idea of a single-source ingre - dient is crucial to us and to our guests. ” It’s also an important part
of what he calls “relationship ingredients,” sourced from fishermen, farmers and ranchers with whom he has forged a personal relationship. As Walzog prepares to expand his menu from the porcini-dusted Santa Carota filet mignon he already ser ves at SW Steakhouse to strip steak, ribeye and other cuts, he and SW assistant chef T ed Tom make a taste-testing trip to the ranch to tr y a whole striploin, ribeye, tartare, strip steak, cowboy steaks, an entire filet mignon and tri-tip. Naturally , if you plan on grilling this much beef, you need a crowd, and a crew of cowboys and ranch hands, friends and family arrive as reinforcements. Seasoned cattle rancher and longtime former professional rodeo cowboy Marv Hurley has taken the axles off a trailer and fashioned a massive grill. Long tables line the barn, which is stacked high with hay . As Hurley sets up equipment, he’s trailed by his rescue mutt P ancho and faithful rooster, Brewster. The Pettit kids and their friends are on horses, practicing their roping. Corinne is transforming this working barn into an elegant dining room. Walzog and Tom are in a makeshift kitchen frenching the bones of cowboy bone-in rib chops, and soon the entire party moves out to the grill, where the chefs pile on the meat, along with potatoes infused with rendered beef tallow and roasted in a cast-iron pan with garlic and fresh herbs; root vegetables; skillets of portobello, maitake and cremini mushrooms; and cipollini onions. The original plan is to create a beautiful display table with the bounty from the grill, but Walzog changes the plan and the trailer-grill itself becomes a smoldering buffet table. As the sun sets, our plates are loaded with steak tartare prepared grillside from Santa Carota filet mignon, as well as steaks, potatoes, vegetables and bright salads, and the party moves from grill to barn—where the work of tasting all this Santa Carota beef begins. Perhaps the best way to describe it is intensely beefy and rich, with a crusty char surrounding butter y meat that, incidentally, does not taste of carrots. By now, the lines have been blurred between crew and family, ranchers and chefs. That trailer-grill has become a metaphor for our party. The wheels come off, the guitars come out, and we spend the rest of the evening telling stories and sing - ing around a campfire. Our photographer, Sam, has been adopted by the Pettit family, has learned to chop firewood, and may never return to L.A. Deep in cowboy countr y, it is hard to imagine that we could be in downtown Los Angeles in two hours.
The Pettits’ history in Bakersfield is a classic American story of resourcefulness and entrepreneurial grit. Mike’s father moved here as a child at the end of the Dust Bowl Migration but had to leave the family tent at 1 2 years old since the family couldn’t afford to feed him. After going to work for a woman who boarded horses, he was adopted by a cousin of Butch Cassidy, who kept cattle in Bakersfield. He became a fireman, as did the two generations after him, saving money to fund cattle businesses on the side. “But when we started the carrot beef, and we realized what we could produce, we literally bet the farm. W e sold all our equipment, and we have ever ything riding on it because we believe in it,” Justin says. In only 18 months, they developed their brand and clever Santa Carota logo (a carrot with horns and a halo) and were discovered by some of the best restaurants in the U .S. “It’s a Cinderella story for us,” Justin says. “We had to be firemen so we could be ranchers. We didn’t have enough land, so we had to use carrots to supplement our business. As people became more aware of what they were eating, the market came to us. ” And their success has led to new ventures, like the wagyu they’re currently breeding for har vest in 2020. In the process, those carrots also tell a stor y of sustainability. “We’re essentially giant vegetable recyclers,” Justin says. Santa Carota cows eat 1 0 percent of their body weight in carrots each day—approximately 130 pounds of carrots per cow from the 200 tons that are delivered daily. In fact, if you are driving east on Highway 58 past Edison, you can see the carrots glowing from the hills. “What is sustainability in beef? No one has defined it, ” Justin says. “Ranching families will say they’re sustainable because they’ve been doing it for generations. For us, our local environment is what we have. There are a lot of excess carrots, and it’s all going back into mak - ing something that’s really healthy and delicious for people. ” Keeping their cows free-range and happy is part of the equation. “You go to a lot of feedlots, and the cows are packed in nose to nose, ” Walzog says. Every part of Santa Carota’s land has hills for its cows to walk up and catch a breeze, and even the calves have less stress than on other farms, since they’re weaned on carrots. “A lot of ranchers have to lock up their calves to get weaned because they cr y and bawl, and they’re stressed. Here, when they see that carrot truck showing up, it’s like Mom coming with a bottle,” Justin says. As their agricultural startup shatters ranching tradition, it’s ultimately the quality of the steak that matters. And for the P ettits, a recent trip to Las Vegas put it all into perspective. During National Finals Rodeo in December, they were able to bypass a five-day waitlist for SW Steakhouse to tr y their Santa Carota filet mignon. “They set us up by the Lake of Dreams, and the meat was so good, so light, ” Justin says. “No one sees the hard work and struggles that go into a steak. But we sat there and ate this incredible food and thought, This is anyone’s dream.”