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Discontent beef
Morris Cargill
I am glad to see that Roger Clarke, the Minister of Agriculture, is giving considerable attention to the matter of local beef production. He has suggested that local consumers boycott imported beef. But if local beef is to be encouraged, then it's his job to act through appropriate tariffs.
I have long found the whole question of locally produced beef a very puzzling one. The company that owns and operates Content Beef is owned and operated by Jamaica Broilers Limited which manages to produce chicken of a quality and standard equal to the best in the world. Yet, when it comes to beef, Content Beef has long been a matter to me of considerable discontent. I see no reason why we cannot produce something that is as good as prime American beef, but we don't. I hardly ever see a properly cut rib roast or sirloin roast and its steaks are usually tough and tasteless.
When the good hotels in Jamaica import prime American steaks, they get, for instance, boxes of eight-ounce steaks all absolutely uniform in shape, weight and flavour. And this, of course, is very necessary when you are catering to a large number of American tourists. But as far as I can see, Content Beef is not able to provide a similar service. I see that a Mr. Paul Grant, described as a master butcher of Ireland, is in Jamaica presumably to teach the Content Beef people and others how to cut beef properly. I hope he succeeds. But it seems to me that one of the problems of Content Beef is that they do not mature the beef properly.
I see that Burger King uses 100 per cent Content Beef for its hamburgers. I don't know whether all the other hamburger fast food outlets do the same, but they certainly should because hamburger meat is minced and flavoured. So therefore it doesn't matter what it looks like to start with.
I have asked in this column a number of times why the Content Beef people are unable to produce high quality beef. I get no answer. But until we can produce quality beef in Jamaica, we have no case for cutting down imports from abroad and this is especially true concerning the tourist hotels.
FILM CENSORSHIP
I read that the film Blade had been banned by the censor on the grounds of extreme violence. But the ban was shortly lifted.
This matter of film censorship is a tricky one. I am convinced that the amount of violence shown on American films and television does in fact influence the amount of violence in the country. Considering that the fashions of film stars are followed everywhere, it is silly to say that the fashion of violence is not also followed. I think that Jamaica would benefit greatly if there was a good deal less violence in motion pictures or on television. On the other hand, censorship cannot be the answer. Apart from everything else, the moment you censor a film, you guarantee large box office returns.
Many years ago when I was involved in the exhibition of motion pictures in Jamaica, my then colleague and my old friend Herbert Hart had the job of arranging for the motion picture censor in those days to view all our films in the small private viewing room of the old Gaiety theatre.
In those days, violence was not really a problem but the film censor, an elderly gentleman, was apt to be greatly disturbed by sex. Any too open a treatment of a sexual theme would immediately result in the film being censored.
We would then have to cut out any of the scenes to which he objected, but we were delighted to be able to announce that the film in its original state had been censored for this always guaranteed a packed house.
So I don't think that censorship of motion pictures would be very effective against violence. I think that we'll just have to hope that audiences will reject violent films of their own accord.
Unfortunately, I think this is highly unlikely.
Morris Cargill is The Gleaner's senior columnist and has been writing for more than forty-five years.
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