During our summer vacation this year, we drove from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Denver, Colorado, passing ranch after ranch of grazing cattle. Colorado has a rich cattle tradition, dating from the 19th century, when longhorns were herded from Texas to Denver to be shipped east by rail. I grew up in Denver attending the National Western Stock Show. So when contemplating an artisan steak tasting by Oliver Ranch Company, I decided we had to do it at my sister's home in Denver.

Oliver Ranch steak tastings are like wine tastings, only with steak. Founder Carrie Oliver is trying to change the way we think about beef: instead of expecting the same corn-fed, marbled, homogeneous taste, she would like more people to discover the wide range of flavor and texture in beef based on breed, region, feed, age, care, slaughter, and butchering. For the artisan tasting she pulls together steaks of the same cut from four very different, carefully selected ranches, including Colorado's own Elliott & Ferris Families.

You might think that including my 5-year-old Jasper in an artisan beef tasting is the height of foodie-parent pretentiousness, but for me it was a valuable lesson in farm-to-fork education. For too many kids, meat is something that comes from a package in the freezer. I want Jasper to realize meat comes from animals, and that how those animals are raised matters--even if that lesson eventually turns him into a vegetarian. I also simply enjoy bringing him along with me on my adventures, and he appreciates being included.

So could he tell the difference? I didn't expect him to, but it turns out he had surprisingly strong opinions about the four different beef samples! His favorite was an Wagyu-Angus cross breed (American-style Kobe), which wasn't surprising to Oliver. She says that that steak, which is wet aged 21 days, has "a certain sweetness to it."

Beyond the food-literacy lesson for Jasper, I also like supporting a business with solid ethics. Oliver looks for ranches with sustainable practices that avoid steroids and preventative antibiotics and that treat their cattle respectfully--stress affects taste. She looks for ranches where breeds fit well with region and slow and steady weight gain is preferred to rapid.

If it sounds like I needed a lot of justification to indulge in a steak tasting, well, I did. It was a bit of a splurge--but so deliciously worth it for an inquisitive omnivore! Trying these four different steaks has made me more curious about a food I eat sparingly, but mindfully and joyfully.

Read what food writer and author Betty Fussell thinks of Oliver's steak tastings.