The Steak Tartare Warrior Myth You Have To Stop Believing

Raw meat is a divisive dish. While some gag at the idea of eating anything other than a well-done steak, others get dreamy-eyed when they imagine a juicy steak tartare. Some people even go as far as deciding only to eat raw meat. The appeal of it is so big that many vegetarians wonder if they can imitate the flavor by eating raw Impossible meat. Whatever your stance on steak tartare, no one can deny that it is one of France's most iconic meals. But why, if the dish is associated with the French, is it called steak tartare? It turns out that it's all because of a persistent food myth that goes back all the way to the 14th century.

Tartare gets its name from the Tartars (now known as Tatars), an ethnic group of Turkish-speaking people from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The French chronicler Jean de Joinville wrote about them in the 1309 "Life of St. Louis," where he chronicled Louis IX of France's exploits in the Seventh Crusade. Here, he claimed how "uncivilized" the Turks were by describing how they placed raw horse meat under their saddles until it had been drained of all blood and then ate it without cooking. For over 700 years, the idea has persisted that Tartars ate like this, even though the source material is clearly biased, and there is little evidence from other documents to support what is likely nothing but a myth.

Ironically, even though de Joinville wanted to portray steak tartare as something to be looked down upon, his countrymen popularized the dish during the 19th and 20th centuries. High-end French restaurants started serving uncooked mince steak topped with raw egg yolk, and the public loved it. At this time, however, many called it steak à l'Américaine, or "American-style beef," because they thought this was how people from the U.S. liked their meat cooked. Since the dish was often served with tartar sauce, made with mayonnaise and mustard, it eventually became steak tartare.

But people worldwide have been eating raw meat for a long time. Germans, for instance, have mett, which can be prepared with uncooked beef or pork. German immigrants brought the dish to the Americas, and it has evolved into dishes like carne de onça in Brazil and Wisconsin's cannibal sandwich. Italy has the very popular carpaccio, Ethiopians eat kitfo, and Koreans serve yukhoe. Japan may have a dish that most closely resembles what de Joinville claimed to witness: basashi, or raw horse meat. If you love steak tartare, you may want to try the delicious international variations, but in the meantime, you can add the origin of steak tartare to a list of debunked steak myths we can stop believing.