The Magician of Meat: How Pat LaFrieda Reinvented the Burger

Yes/No. One thing to consider is that while the "Prime" designation helps increase the price, the dry aging process is responsible for a larger part of the vale equation as well. It's likely that nobody is (was? this article is almost 10 years old) dry aging non-prime cuts as a general rule. And dry aging does drastically change the flavor in ways you can't replicate through other techniques.

Also to consider: these are butchers. They sell steaks, roasts, ribs, and other "whole" meat cuts as well. It seems plausible that a large amount of the decision to make burgers was "we have these pieces of wasted, dry-aged prime beef from trimming. We should try and make money somehow..." or "we get better prices when we buy whole carcasses, but people aren't willing to pay for certain prime cuts...but if we grind them up at 50/50 with a steak cut, we can sell them as burger meat!"

As someone who spent over a decade in the restaurant industry, it makes perfect sense that someone would try to do this as a way to turn byproduct into money.

Now, that said, you'll never see me pay the premium price for these burgers, because I don't think they're worth it. But the value of a meal has as much, if not more, to do with the clients than it does the quality of the product offered.

> The point of prime is it's better marbled. You can get that same effect in a burger by just adjusting the fat/meat mix. I grind mine to about 20% fat, but you can pick pretty much any proportion.

You can adjust the meat to fat ratio but you can't get the >100% beef flavor that comes with dry aging. If you add non-prime beef jerky to the equation I think it could be done but with just chuck and fat you can't create the same set of combinations as you're limited by the maximum "meatiness" of your initial meat.