That really depends on your ethnic background.
Oh I’m with you there. Only raw tuna is my second favorite. Salmon is one of two foods I would demand be plentiful were I tasked with survival on an island somewhere. Raw salmon, I never get tired of.
Come to think of it, my mother, although a fish lover, doesn’t know shit about sashimi or sushi of any form, so I guess it comes as no surprise that I was always taught that raw meat was weapons grade nuclear bad by that silly woman. Clearly, the child has become the parent and I have some teaching to do. Mom?
Actually, I think I found one. Joey Gerard’s (PDF) in Mequon and Greendale, WI, has something that is listed as “Raw Beef and Onion Ground to Order, Raw Onion, Marble Rye Bread,
“Lawry’s” Seasoning Salt 7.95.” I assume that is the same as a cannibal/wildcat sandwich?
Hm, ditch the craptastic seasoning salt for basic salt and pepper to taste, and I’d go fo rthat.
Been eating steak tartare since I was at least 5 years old that I can clearly remember. Love the stuff. Something about the capers and onion just really enhance properly chopped [not ground] steak. Simply does not taste right without them. Now I am craving it, so we may just have to make some tomorrow.
That’s exactly how I love my classic tartare. There’s one bar here (The Paramount Room) I go to solely because they have a fairly classical presentation with American Wagyu beef, chopped (NOT ground), capers, a touch of horseradish (or maybe mustard), raw egg yolk, etc. Here’s a photo I found. Love the stuff. Great texture, perfect balance of flavors. Yum! I could probably eat dinner five days a week of nothing but tartare, some toasted bread, and a good pint of beer.
/drool
As another that never even dreamed of eating any meat (aside from sushi) that’s not been cooked to doneness, it just blows me away to hear that so many indulge in the practice and that it can be had from pubs, etc.
What is it about the taste that’s so appealing? If you had the exact same ingredients available, only cooked, which would you prefer? Have you ever gotton sick from eating meat raw?
Depends on my mood and the place and how well they prepare their tartare. Put it this way, Paramount Room has an American Wagyu burger that is I assume the same meat used to make the tartare. I’ve had their burger before (on my first visit), and it is exceptional, but every time I’ve been there since (maybe a couple dozen times), I’ve always ordered the tartare. If I go with my wife, it’s easy, because she’ll order the burger, I’ll have the tartare, and we’ll both get a bite of each other’s meals, but 90% of that tartare is mine!
I have not. There is some risk involved, yes, but I’ve eaten raw beef, raw pork, raw duck, and raw seafood, to no ill effect. I’ve had it at restaurants, made it at home, etc., and never had an issue.
And it goes by many different names, depending on the ethnicity of the cuisine you are eating. If you are in a German restaurant, look for hackepeter or mett. Hackepeter and mett are supposed to be made with raw pork, but I’ve only seen beef versions here in the US. At a Korean restaurant, it’s yukhoe, yook/yuk hwe or something similar. As mentioned above, in a Lebanese joint, it’s kibbi, kibbe or kibbeh or something similar, with nayyeh] after it. It is often made from lamb. The best version I had was in a place in Dearborn, Michigan, just outside Detroit. Gigantic portion, and the best part is you can take the leftovers home and use it to make cooked kibbeh, too. Ethiopian has its kitfo. And so on and so forth. Then there’s the classic tartare and carpaccio (thinly sliced raw meat.)
Thanks, pulykamell. I completely ‘get it’, it’s just a concept somehow I’ve been shielded from before. Now curious, I’ll start looking. One nice thing about it, seems like it would encourage you to frequent the better restaurants and there’s nothing wrong with that.
What makes meat prepared in any manner appealing? Some of us think it tastes good.
In some cases - such as salmon - no preference. Beef? Well, when I eat it cooked I like it minimally cooked so maybe I’d prefer raw as often as not. Some things have no appeal to me raw, such as chicken which I definitely prefer thoroughly cooked and pork, which I don’t like cooked or otherwise but I insist on being well done when I eat it at all (exception: I do like pork in sausage, but again, that’s cooked).
So, really, a lot of it is just personal preference - why does one person prefer tuna salad and another tuna casserole? Why does one person like pork chops and another like pork ribs? Why does one person like baked chicken and another like it fried? It’s just another way to prepare meat.
No.
I have, however, been hospitalized from a food-borne illness caught from either fully cooked meat or salad (not sure which, but that’s what I had at the culprit meal).
If you want to eat raw meat there are ways to minimize the chance of illness, just as for any other food. Think about salad - you still have to properly prepare the vegetables and there have been plenty of instances of food-borne illness from things like raw spinach. Indiana recently had an outbreak linked to cantaloupe. Raw flesh foods can be more expensive due to slightly different handling required in some cases to guard against food-borne illness and parasites, but for someone with a healthy immune system the risk is found acceptable to many. For someone with a compromised immune system raw meat is far from the only food they need to worry about.
The German/Polish side of my family, while my grandparents were still alive, served this at parties. My grandmother ground the beef herself with a hand-cranked grinder. She had a Polish name for it that I can’t recall, although I got the impression that the tradition was German.
I’ve had paper thin sliced filet mignon that was outstanding. Excellent meat, buttery consistency. I’ve gotten sick from bad potato salad at a fourth of July picnic, but never from raw beef or fish.
(Actually “super white tuna” (Escolar) will give me diarrhea, but I have no gallbladder and just avoid the fish)
Just go to Yelp or similar, type in “tartare” and give your location, and hopefully, something will come up. I get 69 hits for “steak tartare” and 31 hits for “beef tartare.” And that’s just places with Yelp reviews mentioning tartare. I’d bet there’s a lot of Polish/Eastern European places and Korean places that are missing.
Some preparations use ground beef; some use chopped beef. I think the texture of the chopped tartare is far preferable, so if you can find it, go for it. I’m not as enamored with the ground beef style, but they can be good, too. My favorite still is the classic preparation with chopped filet, capers, mustard, etc.
The only Polish names I recall for it are either befsztyk tatarski or simply tatar.
But the thing you are talking about is chopped beef and August West’s wildcat sandwich is made from ground beef which is a whole 'nother kettle of raw beef.
According to a cursory reading of the Wisconsin Food Code (warning PDF) all food served in a retail establishment must be cooked to proper temperatures unless the establishment has a variance. And from a cursory reading, it looks like the variances pertain to smoking, curing and packaging. The part about cooking starts at chapter 3.
Okay, I’m feeling a little better about not being the only one to be so sheltered. Mothers! They mess you up. But who knew we were in the minority?
I thought steak tartare was something adventurous foodies ate when dining someplace swank, not something kids liked to swipe from the kitchen counter.
I have never gotten sick from eating meat or fish raw, unless you want to count the projectile vomiting from eating a raw oyster. I happen to be allergic to them = clams, oysters and mussels in any form cause projectile vomiting in me. I can tolerate small amounts of scallops [1 or 2, more than that and I make a run for the bathroom. No, I do not know what the difference between them is that lets me eat limited scallops.]
As to the appeal, the taste. Why do you like to eat <insert name of your food of choice>. Taste? Texture? Combination of the two? Mad desire to graze on vegetation for your health? I happen to like dead cow muscle tissue. As to cooked or raw, it depends on the cut of the cut of the meat. Some are more suitable for cooking, some are more suitable for chopping and eating as tartare [fat content, muscle vs vein/ligament/tendon/silverskin content] as well as diet, I refuse to eat beef that has been fed fish meal - gives it a nasty fishy taste. I have had lamb, pork and chicken raw in Germany, and lamb raw in the US. I prefer those 3 cooked.
I normally refuse to bother with wagyu burger if it is deliberately ground for burger but if it is how they use their trim it is OK. The draw for wagyu is in the marbeling effecting the tenderness and mouthfeel of the piece, to me it is not the flavor of wagyu. I have had better tasting grass fed beef. [IMHO aged grassfed is better than aged corn/grain fed.]
Escolar will give everybody the runs - it is aproblem with the kind and amount of fat inherent in the flesh. Keep to small portions and you will be fine.
Read the menu of a Wisconsin establishment I posted in post #43.
My post about chopped beef is that is my preference for tartare. Most tartare I’ve had in Chicago is ground beef, so I specifically seek out chopped beef. On top of that, you said you’d be surprised that any establishment serves raw beef, ground or chopped didn’t even enter into the equation. I don’t know why you’re moving the goalposts all of a sudden (and it doesn’t matter if you do) or why you think I was only talking about chopped beef (I wasn’t.)
I’m quite surprised that you found it on a menu. I’ve had Cannibal Sandwiches at bars here in WI, but usually only at Christmas Party type events where people bring dishes in potluck-style.
Someone upthread posted about making your own using ground chuck, but I was always taught that was verboten, and that only round or sirloin were safe to eat raw. I have no factual basis for that, however.
My friends in college and I once spent an interesting week asking people from various parts of the state what they called this dish and we drew the “Wildcat Line” across a map of the state that corresponded roughly with Hwy 29. We did also hear the appellation “Tiger Meat” as noted by Kimballkid, but treated it as a local variant of Wildcat.
I think that’s more a matter of what cut is appropriate. Chuck is fairly fatty, and tartare tends to be made with leaner cuts like sirloin or tenderloin/filet (the classic preparation). I’ve had raw chuck, but I can’t see anything being inherently more unsafe about it. It’s a tougher cut of meat, but if you grind it, it doesn’t make much difference–it’ll just give your tartare a greasy mouthfeel.