There's nothing like the draw of raw beef

Originally published May 7, 2003

Rob Kasper

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RECENTLY, DURING the hors d'oeuvre hour, I spotted an old friend, raw beef.

It was sporting a modern name, carpaccio manzo, and was traveling in sophisticated company - mache leaves, parmesan cheese and extra-virgin olive oil - but the core ingredient was a traditional serving of red, raw and flavorful beef.

I scooped up a carpaccio manzo, finished it off in a few bites and soon was feeling fine and feral.

I was not alone in my enthusiasm for the red stuff. Many of my fellow flesh eaters, who were at Martin's West for the Restaurant Association of Maryland's awards banquet, found their way to raw beef as well.

Lance Hanan, executive chef of Della Notte restaurant, had prepared 500 servings to be dished up on toast during cocktail hour. Because about a dozen other chefs from area restaurants were also serving hors d'oeuvres to the 700 diners at Martin's, Hanan figured he would have leftovers.

Not so. Each serving of carpaccio manzo was eaten.

After suffering through a period of diminished popularity, beef eating is back in vogue. Just try to get in a steakhouse on a Saturday night.

Eating raw beef, a practice that for a time even the boldest carnivores undertook in the privacy of their homes, now appears to be making a quiet public comeback. Likening the practice to eating sushi with its high-quality fish and careful sanitation practices, chefs are offering raw-beef dishes, usually appetizers made under watchful eyes, with top-dollar cuts of meat.

Still not everyone is jumping on the raw-meat wagon. Public health Web sites warn that folks with weakened immune systems, such as AIDS victims and expectant mothers, should not eat raw beef or, for that matter, raw seafood.

Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, has said that after spending time in some meatpacking houses, he lost his taste for raw meat. "I think you'd have to be a great thrill-seeker or out of your mind to eat steak tartare today," he said in an interview with The Atlantic magazine.

The well-dressed restaurateurs eating the carpaccio manzo at Martin's West the other night looked respectable and mentally stable. Hanan offered several reasons why his raw-beef dish had been so well-received.

First, he said, was the audience. This was a gathering of people in the food business, people "who have sophisticated tastes," he said. Moreover, the restaurant folk were confident that he was using high-quality meat and following procedures that minimized the health risks associated with eating raw beef.

Finally, he said in a gathering this large, there was always a good chance that "some of them were on the Atkins diet." He was referring to the diet founded by the late Dr. Robert Atkins that many meat eaters love.

Recently, while eating my way around town, I found raw beef served two different ways, as carpaccio and steak tartare, at two different functions.

A few weeks ago, Jerry Pellegrino of Corks restaurant in Federal Hill served his Kobe beef tartare at a benefit for Meals on Wheels held at the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel. I had one of those raw-beef morsels.

It was remarkable, juicy and faintly sweet. Pellegrino later told me that he had added black-currant syrup and red-wine vinegar to the ground meat.

Pellegrino said that when he put this version of steak tartare on the menu of his restaurant as a $16 appetizer, it drew reactions from three groups of customers.

"The younger crowd who are into the food scene are fascinated by it," he said. "There are the older people who say, 'I haven't seen this on a menu in years,' " he said. "Then there are people, and there are still plenty of them, who say, 'I wouldn't touch that with a 10-foot pole.' "

Steak tartare is high-quality meat, usually steak, that is finely ground, seasoned, then quickly served, usually with chopped shallots and capers.

A key to its preparation, Pellegrino said, is to serve the dish immediately after the meat has been ground. The longer the ground meat is exposed to air, the greater the chance that it will lose flavor and give bacteria a chance to grow, he said.

The definition of what constitutes carpaccio is now pretty broad. Originally the dish was a plate of raw, thin beef, drizzled with a sauce usually containing olive oil and lemon juice. Often the beef is frozen and is sliced, or pounded, into very thin pieces and served with greens and parmesan.

"It should be chilled, but not icy cold," Hanan said. The dish was invented at Harry's Bar in Venice in the 1950s, in honor of an exhibition of the works of Italian Renaissance painter Vittore Carpaccio, whose paintings used vivid reds and whites.

The toothsome version of carpaccio manzo - manzo is Italian for beef - I enjoyed the other night at Martin's West had red highlights. However, because the meat was served on a bed of mache, the dish also had strong salad hues.

Recently, restaurant kitchens have been applying the term "carpaccio" to almost any dish that has ingredients that are very raw and thinly sliced.

There is a "tuna carpaccio," a "swordfish carpaccio," a "pineapple carpaccio" and even a "tomato carpaccio." In other words, there is now a carpaccio out there that even a vegetarian could love.