Thursday, February 26, 2015

Where's the beef?

I've told ya'll about my friend Annette in posts in the past.
Well, for the past few months, she has been VERY successful in getting healthier (and even better lookin).  (Bitch.)  Sadly, I am afraid that some of this healthy livin' has made her a little delusional.  For example...the other day, she posted this:
...with the caption, "Cajun spiced cabbage steaks!"
Now, I like cabbage.  I like cajun spices. I like Annette's cooking.  I am sure that the cabbage in the picture tasted mighty fine.  However, I am equally certain that it did not taste like a steak.
I'm not judging...I've had these sort of delusions myself...when I've been successfully dieting for awhile...and I have my carrot "chips" and my fat-free ranch and I'm all, "I love these CHIPS!  Why, this is just like snack chips, only better!  I'll never eat another Dorito again in my life."
Until I DO eat another Dorito and my taste buds wake up from the stupor they have been in since I decided to forgoe "bad" food and eat right.
Carrots are fine.  They taste good.  But they are not, and they will never be a Dorito...or even a Ruffles potato chip.
Cabbage is all fine and good, but is not a steak.
"But it's called a steak because of how it's cut!"  Annette said to me. (This is when I texted her and asked if it was okay that I wrote this blog post.)

I looked up the definition of steak.  Merriam Webster's entry on the word "steak" was this:

Full Definition of STEAK


1

a : a slice of meat cut from a fleshy part of a beef carcass

b : a similar slice of a specified meat other than beef

c : a cross-section slice of a large fish

2

: ground beef prepared for cooking or for serving in the manner of a steak



Examples of STEAK

1. I grilled a steak for dinner.

2. We had steak and potatoes for dinner.


Now, I'm a purist and thus, the fleshy beef carcass definition is the only way I use the word "steak", but I can concede the other two (similar slice of another kind of meat or fish) definitions are also appropriate.

This, however:

is not a steak.  It is a funji.  Nothing against the mushroom family, but let's leave the land of make-believe for a moment.

Below me is an hunk of eggplant.

which is also not a steak.  And it is not covered in chickpea and feta gravy because such a thing does not exist.

This?


Looks like a very nice start to some eggplant parmigana.  Throw some marianara and cheese on it...yum.  What it isn't?...is breaded, country "fried" eggplant steak.


I don't even know if I LIKE parsnips, because I have never had one.  I have faintly distrusted them ever since I got a fortune cookie fortune that read, "fine words butter no parsnips." (Not making that up.  You can see it here)

But this "Parsnip Steak" with "Beet ketchup"?


No.  The insanity must end.


And this is???? Cauliflower steak? Really?  And we've, what...garnished it with clover and rabbit turds?

Folks...I'm all for your diets.  I am all for lowering your blood pressure and your chlosterol.  I need to get with that program myownself?  But!  We do not have to try to delude ourselves by calling things what they are not.  Because frankly, all it does for ME is remind me that I am not, in fact, dining on a steak.

Beet ketchup, indeed.







4 comments:

  1. I am SO with you on this Marianne! I love veggies and am happy to eat them, but they are not, as you've noted, ever to be mistaken for a steak. Now, a nice steak, with a side of roasted parsnip and carrot fries with a rosemary dipping sauce? To die for!

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    1. I'll have to give that a whirl...but like I said, I haven't ever had a parsnip.

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  2. I totally agree with you but not so much in agreement with the dictionary. In my brain, steak is ONLY red meat. Chicken, fish etc, no. Much less anything with veggies in it. It's sacrilegious to have anything veggie be called a steak. *rawr

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    1. See...people started with "tuna steak" and it was all downhill from there.
      Love your moniker, BTW.
      And is your profile pic somewhere in Utah? As a child, I lived briefly in Moab...my mother drug me over, under and through every rock formation in the state.

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