As Toolip stated, older animals develop more connective tissue and fat, thus if prepared correctly make very tender meat. When slow cooked, these tissues melt and tenderize the meat. I personally don't like young meat very much, like veal or lamb, the meat grain is too fine and sort of melts in an unappetizing way without much flavor. It's probably an aquired taste though since many people do like it.
Older animals also have a much deeper and satisfying flavor. A cow is obviously valued for her ability to mother new animals and to give milk, but there comes an end to that life at some point, where she can't produce anymore, and why wouldn't one eat it then? Did people just let a whole animal go to waste?
Somewhere I read that in the past, dual purpose breeds were most common, for this reason. As for pigs, they grow much faster than cows, so using a first time mother for meat is not wasteful; they're also not kept for the milk.
I'll have to look at that meat book again, cause I can't remember the details. I do know that cow meat is valued much higher than steer meat however. The author also pointed out that there is a way to make steer meat more palatable, probably through longer hanging time but not sure.
My theory wasn't that males weren't butchered at all, but that they were maybe taken as calves rather than as steers, when they're more tender. A male wouldn't turn into a bull if butchered at a young age, so that scenario wouldn't happen.
With chickens, older hens at the end of their productive years, are highly valued for making slow-cooked stews ('stewing hens'). I think older animals were just as highly regarded as young ones back when people hunted only as well. Those are the animals most easily hunted cause they're slower. The 'steers' were probably not killed as frequently, being quicker and smarter.
I think possibly your theory is based on larger size production farms, rather than subsistence type farming more common in the past. I think it makes more economic sense to let the males grow a bit in those conditions, rather than be taken as calves. But for a small farm, not sure it does. Other factors probably took precedence.
Anyhow, I should just read up on this topic again, instead of making guesses;)!!
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Originally Posted by
gardenmommy 
That seems very backward to me. The older an animal is, generally the tougher the meat. Bulls tend to be a bit gamier, just because of the hormones they make, but I know that we've butchered bulls in the past. Cows, too, although that is pretty rare. I can't imagine that butchering steers vs. anything else is a newer phenomenon. There have always been bulls that were not needed for breeding, and since they are useless for breeding/maintaining herd integrity, they would be the prime candidate for providing the meat. Not only that, bulls tend to be more aggressive than cows or steers, so just for safety reasons, bulls not needed for breeding are usually castrated. However, I think that typically, steers would have taken longer to finish out (probably 3-4 years vs. 18 months-2 years) without the concentrated protein that is currently fed (corn, soy, cottonseed meal, etc.). That is only a general assumption, though, since my dad regularly finishes steers within 2 years just on grass and hay in the winter (he does supplement minerals, esp. in the winter). Additionally, cows are generally needed to keep the herd size stable, provide milk, and raise calves. Unless there is a replacement heifer ready to calve, proven cows are usually more valuable: they know how to mother the calf, have proven themselves capable of producing enough milk, etc.
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