River Steak

There's something about being out near a river on a warm, but crisp, day that makes me crave a particular kind of steak. There is something about taking a thick slice of beef tenderloin, stuffing it with garlic and wrapping it with bacon, and then grilling it, preferably over hot coals of a wood fire, until the bacon is crispy and the garlic is soft, that makes me feel alive. It's a complicated desire.

I was recently confronted with the above situation, thankfully with the means to satisfy that craving. Good beef tenderloin is ordinarily delicious, so much so that some of you might call it blasphemy to then poke holes in it and shove in halved garlic cloves - as many as will fit, ideally. And then perhaps it is further blasphemous to wrap the steak in thick slices of applewood-smoked bacon. But holy hell is blasphemy tasty! Allow me first to extoll the virtues of good meat and a good butcher: A good butcher is worth his (or her) weight in gold or chocolate - whichever you value most. Animals are complicated, especially the large ones, and carving the perfect steak or chop is an exercise in craftsmanship. There's a reason that, like in the other crafts, butchers would have to apprentice - there's a lot to know that you can't exactly learn in school. And a butcher is someone to whom you rather literally entrust your life. While much less true in the current, highly-regulated food-safety system (despite the pervasive horror stories...,) even now a good butcher will not only strive to give you the perfect piece of meat for your intended purpose but will also make sure that you won't get sick from it, if for no other reason than wanting your repeat business! A good butcher knows where the meat comes from, maybe even knows the farmer, and takes pride in your dinner even if not invited.

Good meat can, theoretically, be obtained anywhere in developed nations. Ok, you might have a hard time finding meat on a vegan, raw-foodist commune, but that's not what I'm talking about. While you can walk into most grocery stores and stagger out under a massive mound of meat, it will probably only cook up to be generically tasty. The few times I've had really good meat, adorned with little and cooked only simply, it has been remarkably rich and complex, and subtle, too. Some will say meat should not be complicated. To that I respond: too late, it already is. Cows and pigs and chickens, to only name the most common, taste different in different places - they eat different things, walk on different ground, drink different water. And let's say nothing about different varieties of cow or pig or chicken (or turkey, since Thanksgiving approacheth.) Beef can be sweet, grassy, like dense sunshine. Or it can be dark, sultry, seductive. Or it can taste of minerals and evergreens - trees and rocks.

This is why I like a good butcher - one with whom you can have a conversation about the flavour of different cuts of different kinds of meat. One with whom you can brainstorm interesting new recipes or consult about reproducing a grandmother's grandmother's roast. One who will understand the want, nay, the need, to stuff a tenderloin to bursting with garlic, wrap it in bacon, and put in on a fire.

Incidentally, that bacon-garlic special is more than ordinarily tasty... The tenderloin is a soft, un-fatty cut. This one was corn-fed regular black angus - mild, but slightly sweet and a little rusty. The garlic doesn't cook all the way. It roasts a bit in the beef juices but the cloves are still sharp and a bit spicy. And the bacon adds a gratuitous baste of smoky fat and saltiness. Unfortuantely, this one was cooked on a gas grill. Convenient, but you don't get the same crispy exterior as when you cook just above the white-hot coals of a 3-hour-old campfire. But that's just a hint of a totally different immersive experience - on in which you might just have to fend off ravenous bears to save your precious steak. Would you? I might - this steak's just that good.