Steak tartare

• 1. Introduction

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  Steak tartare, also called tartar steak, arrives at the table as a mound of raw ground beef, very often crowned with a raw egg yolk. This is a French dish. The plate usually comes with onions, capers, parsley or chive, salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce. The seasonings are often served separately, so each diner adds them to taste. The name points toward the Tatars, but the road from mounted warriors to a Paris menu is a strange one. Where did the notion of eating raw minced beef come from? How did a sauce end up inside the dish's name? Why do health authorities urge caution, and how many other kitchens have a version of their own?

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• 2. Saddles and Slander

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  In the 13th century, the French chronicler Jean de Joinville helped popularize a caricature of Turco-Mongol warriors, who were called Tatars or Tartars. The tale said they tenderized meat beneath their saddles and then ate it raw.

  Joinville never actually met any Tatars. He used the story to show that they were uncivilized.

  The Cambridge Medieval History offers a likelier explanation. It says early chroniclers saw Mongol horsemen placing thin slices of raw meat under their saddles. The meat was meant to help heal the horses' sores, not to feed the riders.

  The book also points out that meat pressed beneath a saddle would have been soaked with sweat and inedible by the end of the day. A related theory treats this same practice as the origin of pastirma. Whatever happened on the steppe, the dish that carries the Tatar name took shape much later, in restaurants far from Mongol horse country.

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• 3. Hamburg Steak Years

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  In the late 19th century, Hamburg steak became a fixture on the menus of many restaurants in the port of New York. The cut was beef minced by hand, lightly salted and often smoked. It was usually served raw, alongside onions and bread crumbs.

  Two things drove its popularity: it was easy to prepare, and its cost was falling. Some of the most popular cookbooks of the day described it in detail.

  By 1887, some American restaurants were using this style of preparation. Hospitals used it too, feeding it to patients either raw or lightly cooked and accompanied by a raw egg.

  Nobody knows when the first restaurant recipe for steak tartare appeared. One theory points to Paris, where restaurateurs may have misread Jules Verne's 1875 novel Michael Strogoff. In it, Verne described "koulbat" as "a patty of crushed meat and eggs." The description did not give the dish a clear name, but it may have helped popularize it. The name itself came from somewhere else entirely.

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• 4. A Sauce Names the Steak

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  In the early 20th century, what we now call steak tartare went by a different name in Europe: steak à l'Americaine. One variation of that dish was served with tartar sauce.

  The 1922 edition of Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire defines "Steak à la tartare" as "steak à l'Americaine" made without egg yolk. The tartar sauce arrives on the side.

  The phrase "steak à la tartare" literally means served with tartar sauce. Over time it was shortened to steak tartare. The line between the two dishes then faded away.

  By 1938, Larousse Gastronomique described steak tartare as raw ground beef served with a raw egg yolk, with no mention of tartar sauce at all.

  The older meaning has not vanished. "À la tartare" can still signal tartar sauce, mostly on fried fish. In France, a less common variant called tartare aller-retour presents a mound of mostly raw ground meat, lightly seared on both sides.

  The word has also spread to other raw dishes. Tuna tartare was introduced in 1975 by the restaurant Le Duc in Paris.

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• 5. Risks on the Plate

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  According to the World Health Organization, the risk of bacterial infection is low when basic hygienic rules are followed and the meat is fresh. Still, health concerns have reduced the dish's popularity in some parts of the world.

  In the United States, ground beef is not typically sold with the expectation that it will be eaten uncooked. Grinding can carry pathogens from the surface of the meat into its interior, where they are more dangerous. The United States Department of Agriculture recommends avoiding uncooked ground beef.

  Parasites add a second worry. Toxoplasma gondii may be found in raw or undercooked meat. A multicentre case-control study found that inadequately cooked or inadequately cured meat was the main risk factor for infection in every centre. Because of the danger of congenital toxoplasmosis in the fetus, pregnant women are advised not to eat raw meat.

  The beef tapeworm, Taenia saginata, can also be acquired by eating undercooked beef. Infectious larval cysts in cattle carry it to humans. People with taeniasis may not know they are infected, since symptoms are usually mild or absent. None of this has stopped raw beef from appearing on tables across the globe.

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• 6. Raw Beef Around the World

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  In Wisconsin, people of German descent favor a variation called the cannibal sandwich. It is made with sirloin, rye bread, salt, pepper and chopped onions. Steak tartare itself appears at many high-end restaurants in the United States.

  In Mexico, a popular street food called carne tártara or carne apache is ground beef cured in lime juice, much like ceviche. Chilean cuisine has a prepared raw beef dish called crudos.

  In Curitiba, in southern Brazil, German immigrants influenced a dish called Hackepeter or carne de onça. It is very common there and is served covered with chives.

  Ethiopians have long eaten raw minced beef under the name kitfo. In Nepal, the Newar of Kathmandu Valley have long eaten raw meat dishes.

  Belgium has the Martino sandwich, made with raw ground beef. Sweden calls its version råbiff, meaning raw beef. In Poland the dish is tatar, usually served with an egg yolk, chopped onions, pickles and bread. It often appears as an appetizer, especially alongside vodka.

  In Piedmont, in Italy, raw beef is traditionally eaten as carne cruda all'albese, also known as battuta al coltello. It is often made with Fassona beef and seasoned simply with olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper.

  Relatives of steak tartare also include Levantine kibbeh nayyeh, Turkish çiğ köfte, German Mett and Korean yukhoe.

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