It is precisely because beef was the highest-end and most precious food in ancient times that ordinary people were not qualified to eat it at all, so eating beef has become a very rare thing. The less easy it is to eat, the more you want to eat it. In ancient times, the small-scale peasant economy was the mainstay. Cattle were the most valuable productivity and production resources except people. Once there was no cattle, it was impossible to cultivate land and grow and produce food. Therefore, every household values cows more than life, and sometimes even cows eat better than people.

In this case, the rulers of past dynasties will naturally promulgate various legal provisions to prohibit people from killing cattle at will, and beef has become a food that people can't expect, and ordinary people can't afford or eat beef at all.

If you really want to eat it, you can only eat that kind of old and weak or sick cow. This kind of cow has completely lost its labor force and has no use value, so people can go to the government for registration. When the government sends someone to check it out and make sure that the cow died of natural aging rather than man-made, people can cook it and eat meat. But meat can be eaten, and things like cowhide and beef tendon still have to be handed over to the government to make weapons and so on.

As for the ruling class, it is relatively easier to eat beef, and there are usually special people to serve it. For example, the person who kills cattle in the idiom "An expert knows how to kill cattle" is officially appointed to kill cattle for the ruling class.

Therefore, beef was a kind of aristocratic food in ancient times, and most people couldn't afford it and were not qualified to eat it. Some poets or heroes who were dissatisfied with the rulers, including some robbers, took risks to eat beef to show their dissatisfaction and resistance to the authoritative rulers. For example, the Liangshan hero in Water Margin always comes to several plates of beef to show his rebellious spirit.