## 3 Results and Discussion
### Consumers' Palatability Scores  
There were no statistically significant main effects due to the cooking method but there were significant differences between the muscles for all attributes (Table 3). Interactions between the muscle and cooking method were significant for flavor liking and juiciness (\(p<0.01\)) and for tenderness, overall liking, MQ4, and satisfaction (\(p<0.001\); Figure 1). \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline
**Muscle** & **SM 5** & **BF** & **RF** & **SEM** & \(p\)**-Value** \\ \hline Fat & 2.3 b  & 2.8 b  & 1.1 a  & 0.16 & \textless{}0.001 \\ Moisture & 73.3 a  & 73.2 a  & 75.4 b  & 0.22 & \textless{}0.001 \\ Protein & 23.8 b  & 23.2 ab  & 22.9 a  & 0.12 & \textless{}0.05 \\ Ash & 1.4 b  & 1.5 b  & 1.0 a  & 0.05 & \textless{}0.001 \\ Connective tissue & 1.3 a  & 1.6 b  & 1.1 a  & 0.05 & \textless{}0.001 \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Mean concentrations \({}^{\#}\) of the main components of the three muscles (% of raw weight), analyzed by ANOVA. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c} \hline
**Factors** & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Cooking Method (C)**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Muscle (M)**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**C\(\times\)M**} \\ \hline  & **Stewing** & **Roasting** & **SEM** & \(p\)**-\(\
u\)** & \(p\)**-\(\
u\)** \\ \hline Flavor liking & 53.1 & 47.6 & 1.77 & 0.120 & 47.8 a  & 43.8 a  & 59.2 b  & 1.81 & \textless{}0.001 & \textless{}0.01 \\ Tenderness & 45.6 & 43.6 & 2.87 & 0.729 & 35.4 a  & 33.3 a  & 64.3 b  & 2.89 & \textless{}0.001 & \textless{}0.001 \\ Juiciness & 45.6 & 53.4 & 2.41 & 0.103 & 42.8 a  & 43.3 a  & 61.8 b  & 2.46 & \textless{}0.001 & \textless{}0.01 \\ Overall liking & 52.0 & 47.9 & 1.93 & 0.291 & 46.6 a  & 41.6 a  & 1.97 & \textless{}0.001 & \textless{}0.001 \\ MQ4 & 49.8 & 47.1 & 2.07 & 0.519 & 43.2 a  & 40.0 a  & 61.7 b  & 2.10 & \textless{}0.001 & \textless{}0.001 \\ Satisfaction & 3.0 & 2.9 & 0.08 & 0.576 & 2.8 a  & 2.6 a  & 3.5 b  & 2.10 & \textless{}0.001 & \textless{}0.001 \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Mean consumer scores for palatability attributes for three muscles using two different cooking methods with analysis by ANOVA. Figure 1: (**a**) Mean consumer score for FL—flavor, TE—tenderness, JU—juiciness, L—overall flavor, and MQ—MQ4 depending on the applied heat treatment. (**b**) Mean consumer score for SAT—satisfaction depending on the applied heat treatment. (**c**) SM—_Semimembranosus;_ BF—_Biceps femoris;_ RF—_Rectus femoris._a,b,c_ Values within an attribute that do not share a common superscript are significantly different (\(p<0.05\)). Consumers scored the muscle RF (both stewed and roasted) significantly higher than SM and BF for all sensory characteristics (_p_ < 0.05; Table 3). These eating quality differences between the muscles were greater for the roasted meat than the stewed meat (Figure 1a,b). Average flavor liking for RF was scored 11-15 points higher than the other two muscles. It should be noted that the beef from these two cooking methods was assessed at different times by different consumer panels, so the consumers were comparing the qualities of one or the other cooking method, and a direct comparison of the two cooking methods was not attempted. The potential effect of different consumers was mitigated by the large number of assessors, evidenced by the fact that the scores for individual muscles cooked by the different cooking methods were not significantly different. The RF muscle exhibited the lowest protein, fat, and connective tissue content compared to the other muscles (Table 2). RF received much higher scores for tenderness than SM and BF which received very low scores, with similar but lesser effects on the other attributes (Table 3). The impact of the connective tissue on tenderness may explain the difference between RF and BF but not the low scores for SM, suggesting that factors beyond basic nutritional composition are influencing meat quality perception. This may include sarcomere length, proteolysis, or the generation of flavor.