TOM PARKER BOWLES: Raise the steaks: Why there's no middle ground
There’s an awful lot of bosh, tosh and tommyrot spouted about steak.
Grand soliloquies about the cow’s noble lineage, and the purity of its breed.
Endless essays on the eating habits of said beast.
To create good steak requires a combination of knowledge, experience and hard work
And stirring eulogies not only on the manner of its death, but the place of its birth.
Seriously, I’ve seen shorter obituaries for former Prime Ministers. It’s a piece of meat, for God’s sake, not an entry in Who’s Who.
And as yet another raft of steakhouses open in the capital, each promising ever-greater taste sensations, I’m rather nostalgic for the days when there was but one chain of steakhouses, named after a Scottish city, that we knew were second-rate. Meaning we were never tempted to return for a second bite.
Because when it comes to steak, there’s no middle ground.
A tiny proportion of them are good. Memorably good, where even the most fleeting of recollections acts like the bell with Pavlov’s dogs. One tinkle and the juices start flowing.
The rest, and I mean the vast majority, are little more than a tender/chewy, well-seasoned shrug. Nothing foul or depraved, just a bit of beef cooked, eaten and filed under ‘forgettable’.
Because to create good steak demands far more than buying a pretty rare-breed cow, throwing it in a field and letting nature take its course.
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