It cannot be stressed just how important meat has been in both human evolution and human history. Meat allowed us to evolve large brains by giving us a high-engergy, high-protein food source that was easy to digest (the trade-off for our big brains was a shrinking of the distance of the gut). Meat allowed our hunter-gatherer ancestors the luxury of lots of idle time. Time to tell stories, to be artistic and to invent.
The domestication of animals let to meat on request and from that grew specialization in tasks which allowed diversification of the jobs human did and the beginnings of civilization. It's the challenging of meat that made human culture possible. Yet, as Europe moved into the Middle Ages, as land became owned by the aristocracy rather than the citizen meat became a rare commodity, only for the tables of the rich.
Thai Cooking
Thus we have the contemporary paradox. Meat commands a superior as meat requires more land to nurture than do crops. But the human digestive theory has evolved to process meats. We are deficient in positive amino acids that we must gather from our food. And whilst a mix of beans and grains will furnish us with those needful amino acids and it's potential to establish an comprehensive culture on this mix (as the Mesoamerican civilizations demonstrated) it's still easier for us to gather these needful components from the meat in our diet.
And, yes, humans also crave meat. We crave the fats in meat and the taste of cooked meat. This is hard-wired into our brains and is an needful part of who we are, as omnivorous apes. We can deny that part of ourselves and live without meat, our brains let us do that. But our teeth are designed to eat meat and it is an needful part of what we want in our diet. After all why is the composition of meat and vegetables such an needful component of the meals of just about every civilization on earth (regardless of what, precisely, the meat component and the vegetable components of the diet may be).
Out teeth and our digestive systems allow us to eat just about anyone and it's one calculate we are so victorious as a species and part of that success is the ability to eat that most nourishing of foods, meat. So, to celebrate the carnivorous side of our nature here's a first-rate formula for beef steak:
Pepper Steak
Ingredients:
675g boneless steak, cut into cubes
2 tbsp vegetable oil
450ml strong beef stock
450g canned, diced, tomatoes (with juice)
200g chopped green bell pepper
100g chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp paprika
2 tbsp cornflour
2 tbsp water
Method:
Add the oil to a large frying pan and cook the beef until browned then drain. Add the stock, tomatoes, green pepper, onion, garlic, Worcestershire sauce and seasonings along with the beef to a pan then bring to a boil. Sell out the heat to a low simmer, cover and cook for 1 hour or until the meat is tender. Discard the bayleaf at this point.
Meanwhile merge the cornflour and water into a plane slurry then stir into the mixture. Bring to a boil then cook, stirring frequently, for 2 minutes or until well thickened. Serve on a bed of rice or noodles.
Meat and Meat Recipes
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