What is a “primal” and “sub-primal”?
The animal in brown in this .pdf document demonstrates the 9 primal cuts of the beef animal. Within each primal category there can be more than one sub-primal category. For example, the short loin sub-primal is a sub-directory of the LOIN primal as shown on the diagram. Consequently, the delmonico steak is the final portion cut from the sub-primal short loin which is from the LOIN primal. The other sub-primals from the LOIN primal are the tenderloin and striploin sub-primals.
