Buff ? Beef? B(r)oth?

Recently, I read somewhere (Nepal Weekly?) about a journo's US visit and his fear of eating beef. Then afterwards, saw the same post in Ajay's blog. Some of the comments to the post were funny, some where ridiculous and some outright stupid. When it comes to food (like many other things), we Nepalese tend to be very narrow minded and limited to very few variety. Very few of us have developed our taste buds beyond Daal-bhaat-masu and Roti-sabji-mithai. Granted that our food does have some variety to it and tends to be closer to Indian food (thus, spicy), but it is common to find too many of us, living abroad, not venturing beyond sandwiches and pizzas or an occasional pasta of some sort. Let's keep it aside for now...it is topic that I think I'll post something about on its own.

Double standards (read, hypocrisy) is what I see in what to eat or what not to eat norms that we follow. We do enjoy Everest momo to a great extent and don't eat buffalo meat at home. We eat Badel (boar) but don't eat Bangoor. We eat goat but don't eat chicken. So on goes our way of belonging to a "higher" sect or the "aaadambar" of it. Being a disciple of science, the only observation that I could make is that we label ourselves as belonging to a higher sect if we eat something that has less meat and more bones. Just think about it: pig then buffalo then goat, so goes our order (untimately, no meat at all :D ) . If all of them are farm raised, what makes one better or worse than the other? Given the free will, a pig tends to bathe more than a goat(which doesn't at all!). Or, may be I am not theorizing properly. May be it is this..less availability means more valuable, like gold, and so the higher status. If so, I have nothing to say..ignore my gan-gan and just enjoy your food.

I remember one funny incident. I brought some dry meat (buff, of course) from KTM during one of my trips home. At the port of entry, the custom inspection guy asked me if I had any meat product. I said I do. He asked me if it was beef. I knew that one couldn't bring beef unless it was inspected/approved by USDA as safe, owing to Mad-cow disease. Anyways, I said "No, I only know that it is a jerky (sukuti) of some sort". At that time, he produced a tissue analyzer and tested a piece of my sukuti with it. There it was -- in my plain sight -- the result read "BEEF". It was tossed off to garbage for disposal !! :-( Was I duped by the Bhatbhateni dept. store? No, I don't think so. It was what it was - it was buffalo, alright. But, it apparently falls into Beef category. Just like "Badel-ko-masu" falls in rest of the Pork category. Tilapia, Salmon, Rahu, Hile, Shrimp - what ever - it's all Fish. My friends, there you go...if you ever ate buff-momo, you ate beef ! Oooooops . :D

As for me, I don't care. I tasted my first beef before coming to the US..in India. I didn't know until a month later that the hot-sukuti that my Bhutanese friend gave me was a beef. To me, it was a sukuti that I was so used to in KTM. Well that was that. I still enjoy beef - but only eating out. I like brisket, meat loaf and BBQ. I am crazy about steak, medium to well-done , thank you ! Why only eat out, you ask? Because I don't know how to cook it properly. I can roast/grill/BBQ pork (chops or ribs) , leg of lamb, turkey and chicken very well; also, fry and stew almost anything. All my friends have enjoyed my cooking to a great degree. For some reason I never did any good with beef - but, never without trying.

Scientifically speaking, we are loosing a great source of protein by being so uptight, attaching social classification with meat types. Don't eat cows if you so believe....but eat something that has more meat on it than bones...for your own sake. My answer to it is : Buffalo !
Even Ted Turner (Yeah, that tycoon guy. Don't know of him? Google him - it's worth the trouble) has turned to buffalo in his chain of steak-houses Ted's Montana Grill . In case you don't know, he started this after "retirement" so that he could eat great steaks. They have started using Bison (wild buffalo), why? here is what Ted said "The taste is much the same as beef, but bison is highest of all meat in iron and is leaner."

Oh, all this talk of food has made me hungry...in mood of a hickory-smoked rare rib-eye, anyone?
Bon apetite :D