"Like a shoe sole" is even thinner. We are not talking about beef sliced like ham here. But a French "steak" or, more commonly, "steack" is about half as thick as what an American would consider the proper thickness to be. Hence other cuts with completely different names.

Kerouac,

You have read the Roland Barthes article to qualify his description?

Actually I have seen in France an obscenely large and thick steak, with corresponding price. It was in <i>La Tupinade</i> in Bordeaux, where the meat is presented for your approval before being cooked. I believe that the restaurant uses German beef (it uses German veal).

All this steak talk is whetting my appetite.

A nice 10 oz. grass-fed Angus ribeye rubbed with sea salt, fresh cracked pepper and garlic, broiled to medium-rare perfection, served with roasted rosemary potatoes and fresh sauteed spinach, and accompanied by a rich, well-balanced California cabernet. That's the ticket.

&quot;Like a shoe sole&quot; simply means that the meat is tough and overcooked.
The expression is &quot;manger de la semelle&quot; or &quot;cette viande &eacute;tait de la semelle&quot;.

<i>So . . when I see Kobe Beef on the menu at my local . . is that a codewrod?</i>

Yes. But not usually for what you think. Mostly, it just means it is from a Wagyu cow. If you don't keel over from the price, then it is almost certainly not genuine Kobe Beef.

<i>Ah walking, we tried to explain that in france there was other food than just steak and that people actually come to the country to participate in a wide range of food.</i>

A wide range of foods? Then why not offer American steak? I like French food. I will eat anything. But there is a time and a place for a proper steak, and most of Europe has never seen a proper steak.

<i>The age of puberty is linked to breast cancer.</i>

So is ethnicity, genetics, age at first birth, and any number of other things. You are drawing a straight line where none exists.

i guess some people think that lecturing on american beef hormones is saying something new and a mark of someone who is so informed and aware.

but for me this is just the same, predictable response from us europeans and our europhile collaborators.

i'm not particularly in favour of hormone beef..i just think that our knee-jerk response is worn out, predicable and shrill.

we never waste any time falling all over ourselves to say how silly it is to be concerned about eating steak tartare or even smoking (of course only if done sexily over a glass of wine in a french cafe). and giving children wine is another one of our pet projects that we love to crow on endlessly about. 'americans are just paranoid about everything' we love to say. but then we get so emotional about american beef. we're so intent on showing the americans that they are so wrong in this area.

why can't we be more open minded and just accept that people in different countries have different views, values, and concerns? thank goodness that we don't have scores of americans here who endlessly lecture us on the same things over and over...on how their way is right and ours if wrong. imagine hearing constantly about the drinking age, the higher smoking rates in europe, etc?

if we want to keep looking like closed minded bores, let's keep lecturing with the same tune on american beef.

walkinaround wrote: &quot;if we want to keep looking like closed minded bores, let's keep lecturing with the same tune on american beef.&quot;

I am sure that is written without any sense of irony by one of our open-minded and interesting participants.

&quot;we never waste any time falling all over ourselves to say how silly it is to be concerned about eating steak tartare or even smoking (of course only if done sexily over a glass of wine in a french cafe)&quot;.


Well, sexily or not, it is forbidden to smoke over things in French cafes......

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;
Well, sexily or not, it is forbidden to smoke over things in French cafes......
&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

not in the outdoor areas.

anyway, i think i was commenting on some people's fantasy of it all, wasn't i? e.g. the joie de vivre of a 'harmless' cigarette.

Among the things that perplex me is the idea that it is American visitors who might want to eat American beef in Paris. I would think it would be destined for people who live in countries where American beef is not commonly eaten, including the French.

Wag the dog?

If you wish to access a market of 500 million potential customers you better learn to play by their rules, not yours.

If one country like Argentina manages to comply easily with EU regulations for beef, why can't the US? Is it so hard?

Xenophobia? Nonsense. Where I live, the synonym for great beef is Argentine, not German. The local cows usually just qualify as &quot;okay&quot; but not &quot;great&quot;.

why do the ignorant get so uptight about american beef when we europeans slurp up panga fish from vietnam (very popular now in, for example, uk and france). they are farmed with hormones from chinese laboratories. very dodgy indeed. but it's not nearly as vogue to preach on about this as it is to lecture about american beef.

Many shrimp (prawn) farms in Asia also use intensive farming methods and hormones, but Europeans swallow steroid-fed praws without grumbling.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...ooddrinks.food

I started this thread before I saw Food Inc. Pleased the Eurpeon Community have strict regulations on meats and foods.

I love the AOC system and check out produce with this lable and the Label Rouge as well.

Do you like your "steaks" really THIN?????????????????????