For Alex’s birthday, we cooked, among other things, filet mignon.  But mom ended up by filet mignon from 3 different stores (first she bought too little at the first store, then she thought she had enough when she bought it at the second store, but then remembered how much we love filet mignon so went to a third store to get a little bit more).  At each store she paid a different amount per pound for the filet mignon.  At the first place, she spent $42.99 per pound.  By the way, she didn’t mean to spend that much: she thought it was much less expensive because the price was displayed by the serving size not by the pound…it said $12.90 for 1 so she thought it was $12.90 for 1 pound. Man was she mad when she got home and there was only 1 little piece of steak (1 serving and it had cost $13!!!)  At the second store she paid $29.99 per pound (still too expensive, Mom said, but a bargain compared to the first store plus it was for Alex birthday).  And finally at the third store she paid $8.99 per pound.  Anyway, since we had filet mignon from 3 different stores, at 3 different prices, we decided to do a taste test.  Neither of us knew which filet was the most or least or middle expensive.

Here’s what they looked like beforehand:

We later learned that going counter clockwise from the top, the two small ones were the most expensive ($42.99/pound), then the next 3 small ones were medium expensive ($29.99/pound) and the finally the two largest ones were the least expensive ($8.99/pound)

And here is what they looked like plated, with mashed potatoes:

(Mom cut pieces from each sample and put them in the same order as they were before they were cooked).  The results were:

Max- All the steaks tasted amazing. The only difference for me was the toughness of the cut. The larger the steak, the tougher the cut, which is why I liked the smallest steak the best and the medium one second, and why the biggest ranked third. Later I found out that the smallest was the most expensive, the medium size was less expensive and the biggest piece was the least expensive.

Alex – I agree that all the steaks tasted great but I liked the medium sized (medium priced) steak the best.  The smallest one (most expensive) tasted good but was very soft. The big piece (least expensive) actually tasted better than the smaller one but was definitely the chewiest.

So one conclusion about filet mignon: the less you pay, the more you chew!

PS: here’s Alex’s birthday cake: