# Is ground beef the most versatile food?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ground-beef-the-most-versatile-food/930765>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** food-cooking\
**Created:** [January 18, 2021, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ground-beef-the-most-versatile-food/930765 "2021-01-18T00:55:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2021, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ground-beef-the-most-versatile-food/930765/1 "2021-01-18T00:55:18Z")

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I’m a sucker for those seasonal special magazines published by Cooks Illustrated. One of their recent ones focuses on ground beef and has a surprising variety of dishes. It seems like every region has their own meat pie. And it seems “Cornish miners” built hundreds of remote towns in places like Argentina, or anywhere else, adapting their pasties to local ingredients. Australia, Nachitoches, Jamaica, Quebec, Spain… they all have a different spin on it.

Is any good so versatile? So internationally used? Chicken? Sure, but we’re talking a specific form, here.

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**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2021, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ground-beef-the-most-versatile-food/930765/2 "2021-01-18T03:03:19Z")

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I would think beans are more versatile. Nearly every culture uses beans of some sort; they’re a staple world wide.

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**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2021, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ground-beef-the-most-versatile-food/930765/3 "2021-01-18T03:15:36Z")

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You’ve missed the diverse products of pig, described by [one expert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BZDZyRaGa8) as ‘the magic animal.’

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**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2021, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ground-beef-the-most-versatile-food/930765/4 "2021-01-18T03:18:17Z")

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You refer of course to H. Simpson’s observational musings, “On the Unexpected Relationship between Bacon, Ham, and Pork Chop.”

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**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2021, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-ground-beef-the-most-versatile-food/930765/5 "2021-01-18T04:17:18Z")

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I read that miners wives made Cornish pasties with a small extra rind of dough that could be used (by filthy hands) to hold the pie - and thrown away when the rest of the pastie was consumed.