Sneaking raw meat from the kitchen counter

[torakris]

In the Yuk Hwe (Korean raw beef dish) thread there was some discussion of people snacking on raw beef as a child, usually sneaking it out of the bowl as mom was looking the other way.

I love raw beef and as a child I was more interested in the raw meatloaf than the raw cookie dough. My grandfather, who loved raw beef as much as I did, would always make a special Kris burger just for me. It was just seared on the outside and somewhere between raw and rare, the rest of the family referred to it as the still moo-ing burger.

At the age of 20 I joined the US Army to help pay for college and was assigned to be a Food Inspection Specialist. My favorite part of the job was doing the meat inspections, I would walk into the huge refrigerated rooms and be surrounded by beef carcasses hanging from the ceiling. The smell was absolutely intoxicating, I was in heaven. Part of the inspection included rubbing your hands on the inside of the carcass and I wanted to badly to pull off chunks and stuff them into my mouth.... I would also spend much more time than I needed to watching the butchers cut up the meat for sale just so I could take in the smell.

I don't think I will ever stop eating raw beef and every summer I still indulge in a couple Kris burgers.

Any other raw beef beef lovers?

[ellencho]

I was one. Eventually I was caught and made the excuse that I was playing a game called "lion". I was 8 so she believed me.

[wattacetti]

Right here.

Love raw tenderloin carpaccio, steak tartar, beef tataki, striploin that's stayed less than 30 seconds on a grill… all that good stuff. Never did the raw hamburger thing since there was always a question regarding the pre-minced hamburger itself, but tartar's better anyway since the bun just gets in the way.

[akebono]

hell yes kris.

when i get a nice, sexy, well marbled steak...

i always shear off a hunk and give it a test drive in the raw.

a guilty pleasure indeed.

[cdh]

yum yum yum... I love the raw beef too... tartare, carpaccio, steaks grilled from frozen solid so that there is still cool raw stuff left in the middle.

[Sugarella]

Yup, me too. I still love my red meat to be as rare as possible. Love the smell/texture of it and I think it tastes better than cooked meat.

When I was a kid I used to eat raw bacon more often then anything else raw, until one day my Dad told me I'd get worms. That worked....never did it again. Thankfully I never had the urge to try raw poultry.

But then, I also used to eat condiments straight out of the jar with a spoon, especially mustard. Grew out if that habit too.

[helenjp]

This is definitely a parting-of-the-ways issue! My mother's passion for meat was much like Torakris', but I never got it. She could window-shop the display in a butchery for hours, probably .

I like the taste and texture of raw and seared meat, but visually, a butchery is BORING!

[azureus]

My brother and I never had to resort to sneakiness to get raw meat as kids. Our mom loved it herself, and she always shared some with us when she was preparing dinner. I still love it. No more raw pre-package hamburger, though.

April

[mizducky]

Yep, I love raw meat. I used to sneak raw hamburger as a kid too. My mother caught me once, and it actually scared me how badly she freaked out--apparently she had some kind of issue about it being gross/disgusting/barbaric/oh god I don't even know. Anyway, the way she carried on, you'd think I'd made like the family cat and killed a bird and was eating that! Didn't stop me, though--just made me a *lot* sneakier about it. And boy, did I ever feel vindicated when I grew up and heard about tartare, carpaccio, etc. -- see, Ma? I wasn't being a freak, I was being precociously gourmet!

[Gifted Gourmet]

Because I was around before e coli became a terrorizing household word, my father and I had a wonderful time devouring all manner of raw beef ... he made a sandwich on rye bread with it, which was heavenly ... since only I have maintained that tradition, no one even suspects that I often sneak in a bit of raw beef when alone ... and in public? rare beef whenever I order it out .. bleu, as the French say ...

[bigbear]

Guilty. I still maintain that steak tartare makes a great hangover breakfast.

[Rebecca263]

I've found my people! I have recently come out of the closet, here on eGullet, in fact. I adore raw meat, and I will even eat raw ground poultry, so kill me. Have you ever tried steak with some balsamic vinegar, or soy sauce? You just dip each bite a tiny bit, glorious. Almost any animal that I eat, I will eat raw, and prefer. And, yes, the butcher shop is intoxicating. Dare I say it? I think that people who enjoy raw meat are somehow a bit more in touch with their, um, natural side (yeah, that's the PG word!), and therefore have a 'je nais se quois', er, QUALITY, that I find very desirable, in a friend or a mate. You just know that someone who will eat raw meat, because it tastes good; and not be bothered by the connotations or social aspect, is a hedonist, and in touch with their own humanity in a deep way. And that can be a middle aged girl like me, a nice grey haired professor who adores his tartare, or a pig tailed three year old who sneaks raw meatballs. I have many friends who are vegan and vegetarians, and I understand their choices, but I have looked in my own mouth, I'm an omnivore, and I like it. I just don't see cooked flesh or refraining from eating others as proof of evolution. Although I DO cook meat, and enjoy it. And I eat a lot of vegetarian cooking, and enjoy that, too.

I'd rather give up chocolate than raw flesh.

[Rebecca263]

PS: ecoli? I've survived STAPH, I can handle anything. and, although I've eaten COOKEd foods with people who have hence gotten food poisoning, I've never had so much as a whiff of illness. EXCEPT for the time I ate tin after tin of fresh caviar. Four x six ounce tins in one sitting. I was ill for five days. I've since recovered, and now limit myself, 3 ounces! I was salt sick. So, I don't suggest dousing your meat with salt.

[akebono]

I've found my people! I have recently come out of the closet, here on eGullet, in fact. I adore raw meat, and I will even eat raw ground poultry, so kill me. Have you ever tried steak with some balsamic vinegar, or soy sauce? You just dip each bite a tiny bit, glorious. Almost any animal that I eat, I will eat raw, and prefer. And, yes, the butcher shop is intoxicating. Dare I say it? I think that people who enjoy raw meat are somehow a bit more in touch with their, um, natural side (yeah, that's the PG word!), and therefore have a 'je nais se quois', er, QUALITY, that I find very desirable, in a friend or a mate. You just know that someone who will eat raw meat, because it tastes good; and not be bothered by the connotations or social aspect, is a hedonist, and in touch with their own humanity in a deep way. And that can be a middle aged girl like me, a nice grey haired professor who adores his tartare, or a pig tailed three year old who sneaks raw meatballs. I have many friends who are vegan and vegetarians, and I understand their choices, but I have looked in my own mouth, I'm an omnivore, and I like it. I just don't see cooked flesh or refraining from eating others as proof of evolution. Although I DO cook meat, and enjoy it. And I eat a lot of vegetarian cooking, and enjoy that, too.

I'd rather give up chocolate than raw flesh.

←

rebecca,

remind me to never be in an airplane crash in the Andes, with you.

the Donner party and I had a good laugh at your post!

-m

a nice chianti, inc.

[Country Cook]

When I was a kid in the 70's nobody worried about eating a bit of raw hamburger, it never interested me much but then my dad found a local butcher in Thunder Bay Ont. (Heinz at the Brent Park Store) who had incredible beef, dry aged 4-5 weeks, each side selected with his eye for quality and perfectly cut. All ground beef was ground to order after Hienz chastized you about grinding up his beautiful cuts of meat. We used lean ground beef like tenderloin for steak tartare, it was great!, we made the real thing with tenderloin too.

I remember in the early 80's at a German restaurant being served steak tartare by a microbiology student, good tartare, unappetising discussion.

Lately I tried some German Meittwurst (raw pork sausage), yummy!

[akebono]

ok country cook gave me a flashback...

when i was a kid in boy scouts...

there was this other kid who used to eat raw

steak-ums....

trying to one-up him,

i ate a few pieces of raw bacon...

i remember the fat being really sweet,

it had a slight smoky flavor...

the texture was a bit wet, and slimy,

but it was good. good. goodgood.

when the scout master saw me

digging on raw swine...

he freaked, and went on some rap

about trichinosis, worms, and a fine selection

of other maladies...

the other day

my fiancee almost

ate some uncooked pancetta

because she thought it was just

some ginzo(no offense, sono mezzo italiano)

cold cut i'm always

filling the fridge with.

i am guessing that raw pancetta is not so safe?

better safe than sorry because she is preggers.

-m to the a to the tt

Edited on account of my fat fingers.

Edited January 25, 2006 by akebono (log)

[Soup]

Raw beef and Sea food. Love them both.

I am very nervous about "getting sick". example, I've never eaten raw hamburger. I don't think I would trust it unless I knew someone I trusted grounded it.

Raw beef is really a treat.

[Rebecca263]

rebecca,

remind me to never be in an airplane crash in the Andes, with you.

the Donner party and I had a good laugh at your post!

-m

a nice chianti, inc.

←

Hahaha, you'll have to remember THAT on your own. It's been said many times, person tastes like pig. Maybe BBQ accoutremonts should accompany all airplanes and climbing parties.

Rebecca, motto- I bite.

Edited January 25, 2006 by Rebecca263 (log)

[torakris]

As a child I had no problem eating raw beef but I think I avoided chicken and pork because you just heard scarier things about it.

At the age of 17 I took a class trip to Spain and when I came home all I could do was talk about their pork. It was there that I learned pork can taste good and it doesn't have to be cooked until it turns to rubber. Almost 20 years later I still dream about the incredible pork I ate all over Spain.

Now I live in a country where almost anything can be eaten raw. I now eat raw beef liver, horse meat, whale meat and even chicken brains and don't bat an eye and most importantly neither do my dining partners.

[Mallet]

NO beef gets cooked in my household without me tasting it raw first!

[scubadoo97]

We use to grab a taste of raw ground meat as kids. And when my grandmother made raw kibbe not much made it to the table. Not exactly, she made a lot but there was a lot of tasting by anyone close by before it left the kitchen.

[MarketStEl]

Well, I may as well just jump on into the fray, especially since several people I like have also come out. (Then again, I did hint at this to Rebecca in another thread in General Food Topics a while back--I think it was in response to someone else expressing either incredulity or skepticism that people would actually serve raw meat.)

I have had the occasional bout of diarrhea, no doubt caused by some bug in something I ate, but I've only gotten really sick from eating food twice. Both times, it involved restaurant meals. Both times, it was seafood. Once, it was fried oysters. The other time, it was sushi, which is one of my favorite foods in the whole wide world--I loves me some raw fish! I still happily gobble up sushi whenever I get the chance, but I've not been back to the restaurant whose sushi made me sick, which is right around the corner from me and--oh, the agony!--now offers a $19.95 all-you-can-eat sushi special every night. That might be enough to get me to risk that place again.

I've never gotten sick off raw meat, not even raw hamburger. And I never--repeat, never--make hamburgers or meatloaf without scarfing down some of the raw material along the way.

A dash of seasoned salt on this clump. A splash of Worcestershire on that one. Yummy!

I think we should organize a "beef sashimi" party, complete with dipping sauces. Yes, including soy sauce mixed with wasabi.

[Rebecca263]

I think we should organize a "beef sashimi" party, complete with dipping sauces.  Yes, including soy sauce mixed with wasabi.

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Can we have it in Philly? I'm willing to supply some accompaniments... and none will involve 'person'.

[misstenacity]

*Because* of this thread, when I was making meatloaf the other night I took a spoonful of the lamb-y and beef-y spiced mixture and gave it a try. Yum!

You people are corrupting me! *grin*

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

[Lady T]

I think we should organize a "beef sashimi" party, complete with dipping sauces.  Yes, including soy sauce mixed with wasabi.

←

Can we have it in Philly? I'm willing to supply some accompaniments... and none will involve 'person'.

←

You really need to extend that party to Chicago. I'd be there, believe me. As a child, I loved the meatloaf, mixed, with its egg and onion and crumbs and herbs, before it went into the oven...but I loved the raw beef straight from the butcher, just with salt and pepper, just as much.

I do much the same thing now, although I'm waaaaay hell more careful about the sourcing and handling of the meat. But damn it's good.