Hi marymc
I'm not sure where you are looking as we have all the categories you mention available in search. Click on Advanced search when you are in Recipes on My Bookshelf. To search all beef, chicken, pork, fish, etc click Ingredient type and select the type you want. To search individual ingredients click Ingredients and add as many as you want. To search main course or dessert or appetizers, click Meal/course and select what you want. And you have other categories such as ethnicity, special diet and occasion that you can add to the search. You can create any combination of categories for your search.
If you need further explanation there is a section in Help, How to.. which covers Searching for recipes.
When we launch the new website in a couple of weeks there will just be one search (no quick/advanced) and there will be filters for all the categories to narrow down your search results.