It is very, very rare that I care about depictions of meat but this 1945 illustration from the Meat Council is so lovingly done I must include it.

Usually I only tolerate meat pics in adorable semi-cartoon form among other foods, such as in this Ovaltine ad from 1938:

Talk about not even needing text (not that anyone was).  Paintings which're lusciouser [sic] than a photo deserve our appreciation.