“Kobe beef” (notice the quotes) is on a ton of menus and has been for some time. Let’s get one thing straight: This is not actually Kobe Beef—it is Kobe-style beef, American Kobe beef, which is Wagyu cattle crossed with Angus cattle and raised in the United States and Canada. True Kobe beef hails from Japan, is painstakingly raised, coddled, fed grain, and massaged, all the stuff of myth and legend and hence the astronomical price tag to go with it ($100 for an 8-ounce rib eye).

So here is my beef. When I first served American Wagyu for New Year’s Eve 1998 at Table of Contents, it was virtually unheard of, had a certain cache about it, and we used it for a special occasion dinner. But now it graces local menus here and there in everything from luxury to pedestrian braising cuts and burgers.

Is there any reason to pay extra for American Wagyu in your everyday or weekend dining? Generally not. American Wagyu is, like a lot of things, mainly about marketing. I do like it in two everyday applications: pot roast from chuck roll and a rib eye steak. These cuts have great marbling, tenderness, and good beef flavor, but they generally are not better than great prime beef. The chuck roll is a tough, highly marbled cut, which needs low and slow cooking. The high fat content enables the meat to stay moist and super tender.

There is American Wagyu that approaches the unctuousness of the Japanese stuff, but American Wagyu is sold in so many qualitative grades, and the variance from top to bottom is so great (and so much of the best stuff goes only to the highest-end steakhouses on the coasts, such as Wolfgang Puck’s Cut, that most of the stuff you see around town is not worth it.

As for marketing over reason, let’s look at American Wagyu ground beef. I wouldn’t pay extra for it because it’s no different than 60 percent lean ground beef. Five years ago, you could not get anyone to buy ground beef that was less than 80 percent lean, and plenty of consumers clamored for 90 or 95 percent (which results in a flavorless, grainy burger). Now they call it a Kobe burger, and everyone goes ga-ga for a burger with 40 percent fat, most of which ends up in a pool on the bottom of the griddle.

If you are like me, and fat and flavor are what you are looking for, then add a tablespoon or two of soft butter to Minnesota grass-fed ground beef and have a great burger with real beef flavor and good fat content. When you see Kobe beef on a menu and you are not paying $100 per portion, remember that it will not be the meat of legend but the meat of legendary marketing.