What's for dinner? How about steak?

Think about it - thick, tender, cooked to within an inch of perfect, topped with mushrooms, dripping with marinade that goes well with any sidedish, man, you could eat steak til ... uh, the cows come home.

So how much do you know about the critter who'll furnish dinner, as well as milk for breakfast and a burger at lunch? Not much, huh? Well, chew on this: Beef: The Untold Story of How Milk, Meat, and Muscle Shaped the World, by Andrew Rimas & Evan D.G. Fraser.

Somewhere between 1.5 and two million years ago, an aurochs (the ancestor of modern-day cattle) lumbered out of what's now India and spread across Africa, lower Europe and Asia.

Beef: The Untold Story of How Milk, Meat, and Muscle Shaped the World, by Andrew Rimas & Evan D.G. Fraser; c.2008, Wm. Morrow; $27.95; 238 pages.

As glaciers retreated, the behemoths spread north where they survived until the mid-1600s. Aurochs were fierce and huge - even Julius Caesar commented on their size (nearly six feet at the withers).

Though aurochs were hard to tame, captive breeding produced a gentler strain that evolved into cattle - and they eventually became a source of wealth.

As human societies became more agrarian and mobility ensured survival for both man and beast, owning cows became important because animals could walk to water and crops could not. In Kenya, where cows make the man, Masai warriors tell stories of brazen cattle raids; traditional Masai, in fact, believe that all cows are theirs, as decreed by God.

Cowpokes and vaqueros were hired by cattle-rich barons partly to keep wealth-on-the-hoof safe and together. The word "cowboy", by the way, wasn't always laden with ropin' and romance.

While bison are native to North America, the first cows were brought to the New World via Mexico by 17th century Spanish colonizers.

Later, the cattle became chattel used in exchange for Caribbean slaves who would porter baggage for the Spanish conquerors.

These days, when you think of cows, you probably either think of bucolic, Wisconsin-pastured, black-and-white Holsteins or rangy Texas longhorn cattle on their way to your plate.

But the mooooovement from pasture to platter hasn't been without controversy, and the subject continues to incite argument.

As much as I liked this book, there were parts of it that almost made me stop reading. Beef: The Untold Story of How Milk, Meat, and Muscle Shaped the World is, at times, filled with mind-numbing passages on mythology, ancient text, and esoteric poetry that are better-suited for a college thesis.

Yes, this book is supposed to be history of a sort, but the antiquated accounts grew wearisome.

On the other hand, the modern-day accounting of Beef is horns-and-shoulders better, with lively stories of ranching and dairying, and cattling in the future.

I enjoyed those parts of this book much more, and I also thought the interspersed recipes were a fun addition.

While rural readers may be amused at occasional incorrect usages of cattle-gender words, I thought this book was OK.

As long as you keep the above caveats in mind, Beef is worth a look-see, and that ain't no bull.

(Terri Schlichenmeyer can be reached at schlichenmeyer@businessedge.ca)