Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 24, 1990 TAG: 9007230032
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: PEARISBURG LENGTH: Long
"This is an experiment," Masri said. "We'll see how the public reacts. So far, they like it very well."
The family-owned restaurant may be the first in Virginia to put buffalo on its menu, according to officials with the National Buffalo Association in Fort Pierre, S.D.
But Joe Strauss, who owns one of West Virginia's two buffalo ranches, is betting it won't be the last.
"This is the beginning, I think, of a big and bottomless market," said Strauss, who's been raising buffalo for four years in rural Monroe County, just across the state line from Giles County. "We're starting to get all kinds of calls and I haven't even set up a pricing schedule yet."
So far, Strauss has sold only two of his 30 buffalo for slaughter - both of them to Charles' restaurant. But as the word spreads, he said, other restaurants are sure to make demands.
Buffalo meat is low in cholesterol, low in fat and appeals to the health-conscious, he said. "It's like having your steak and eating it, too."
\ On the farm
\ About 30 buffalo wander through the fields on Joe Strauss' 600 acres outside Peterstown, feeding on tall grass and hay.
The herd, led by a 2,800-pound character named Durango, is mellow but rugged.
"They're tougher than us and you have to admit that from the beginning," Strauss said. "I wouldn't recommend them as pets to anyone."
Though this herd is docile and the animals will, on occasion, eat out of a farm worker's hand, their speed makes them hard to catch if they need medical or other attention.
The buffalo at full speed can hit 35 miles per hour and have enough stamina to outrun a horse. Still, they stay within the fences of Strauss' farmland.
"These buffalo have as good a fence as there is in the state," said the 32-year-old farmer. "But they could go over or through it, in my opinion, like a hot knife through butter. They must like it here."
The environment in the fields is as natural as possible. There's a pond where the buffalo can drink or escape from the summer heat, though at the first sign of parasites the pond is closed off and troughs are filled with 500 gallons of water.
The animals have shelter, but they don't use it. "When there's a storm, the buffalo face into it," Strauss said.
The buffalo also offer farmers a profitable new venture, according to Strauss.
When butchered, a buffalo carcass produces more meat than a steer's. And more money.
Buffalo meat sells at about twice the price of beef.
"The return is really high and it seems to be a big hit," Strauss said. "There will always be a market for buffalo."
Even their heads can be sold. Strauss said he looked carefully at the symmetry of the buffalos' horns when he was buying his bulls because the heads go for $2,000 to $5,000 once they're mounted.
Strauss said he expects to sell more of his herd soon - some for meat and others as breeding stock to farmers who want to start their own hereds. "If I move six to 10 a month, that's a lot of buffalo," he said.
Strauss also expects, in time, to triple the size of his herd.
"It's an interesting thing to be part of watching them make a comeback," he said. "I'd like to see these at farms all over the place around here."
Strauss bought his original seven buffalo from various places across the United States, including Florida and Virginia. The rest have been bred on the farm.
At one time, he said, as many as 60 million buffalo, or bison, roamed the country. Before the turn of the century, they were near extinction. Today, the number has increased to an estimated 100,000 in the United States and Canada.
"It's OK to eat them," said Kim Dowling, publisher of the Buffalo Association's quarterly magazine, stressing that they are no longer an endangered species. "If they catch on, there's no danger they will be because people will keep breeding them."
\ Mo's and Charlie's place
\ As he waited for the dinner crowd last Thursday, Mo Masri paced around his restaurant, a western-style hat perched atop his head. "This is special, for the buffalo," he said, touching the brim.
Masri and his brother, Charlie, have owned this business for 11 years. They decided this year that it was time to put something special on the menu. And they decided six months ago that the "something special" would be buffalo.
Strauss has been a regular customer for over a year now at this small restaurant just south of Pearisburg.
"I told him one day we were looking for something new," Mo Masri said. "He said, `I have an idea for you: How about buffalo?' . . . It's different, but not too exotic."
They worked out a deal and the Masris put up signs in the restaurant, telling their varied clientele that the buffalo was coming.
When the item first appeared on the menu Thursday night, the place was packed.
Charlie Masri is the cook for this operation, standing in the kitchen with a spatula in his hand, a smile on his face, and a slab of buffalo meat on the grill.
So far, he's only whipping up steaks and burgers. But if the restaurant puts the item on its menu permanently, he's considering buffalo shishkabobs and buffalo roast, he said.
Mo Masri said he'll decide whether or not to keep the item after the experiment period ends this Thursday.
"If the customers like it, we'll make room for it," Masri said. "We might even specialize in buffalo."
So far, the reviews are good.
"We came today just to try this," said Jeanette Walls of Pearisburg as she bit into a piece of buffalo T-bone. "It was curiosity more than anything.
"I'll be wanting him to buy a buffalo now," she said, pointing toward her husband, Richard.
The Masris bobbed from customer to customer, asking questions and passing out comment cards, which were later posted on a bulletin board.
Mo Masri is especially proud of the card from Giles County Sheriff Larry Falls.
"It was the best steak I've ever eaten," Falls wrote. "It has a flavor all its own."
Mike Pedigo agreed that the steak had a distinct flavor, but he couldn't quite put his finger on the difference between buffalo and beef.
"I'll have to have it again," said Pedigo, who had heard from his friends at Hoechst-Celanese that Charles' would be selling the meat. "I like to try new things."
Strauss himself ordered a buffalo filet mignon last week and said it was better than any beef he'd ever tasted.
Still, he said, it was a little funny to eat an animal he'd spent so much time raising.
"You spend a lot of time coaxing them along," Strauss said. "Even if I sell them alive, it's a little like losing a member of the family."
by CNB