Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/14/this-holiday-season-wisconsinites-are-reminded-to-cook-their-meat.html
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This letter to Dear Abby last month had me confused, now it makes sense?
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The Flesh of Christ is for Easter, silly!
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Your cult, your dietary restrictions!
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I HAVE RIGHTS!!! /s
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I’ve lived in Wisconsin my entire life and had never heard of this. I asked Mrs. V (also a life-long resident) if she had, and she said she knew several people growing up who took part in this tradition.
Huh. TIL.
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WTF? says the guy who used to ask for a raw egg in his Orange Julius on the regular until the health authorities put a stop to it. 
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Presumably it’s coming from the Scandinavian tradition:
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They can pry my famous turkey tartare from my cold, dead* hands, the way they did last Xmas.
*(I got better. Just some nerve damage.)
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Please let this be a euphemism!
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Or from Germany --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mett
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Kitfo, Steak tartare, carpacio, Mett (raw ground pork), Bo Tai Chanh - people around the world eat raw meat, all the time - provided you take precautions, it’s not something to get all crazy about. (I personally eat kitfo, Bo Tai Chanh, and steak tartare relatively often - and for years - it has not once made me sick).
Just don’t get a package of ground beef from the supermarket and throw it on a plate.
Also - if you were super paranoid, you could sous vide the meat at low temp to pasteurize it. (https://lipavi.com/recipe/sous-vide-pasteurized-steak-tartare/)
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Seems like the place to use irradiated eggs.
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Well now I am curious if it tastes good or not…
Wisconsinite here: can confirm, it’s a thing and I guess I don’t know what the big deal is when many happily consume sushi or beef carpaccio without batting an eye.
Bummed I’ll be missing out this holiday season.
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The trick, as always, is to use high-quality, fresh meat and take hygiene seriously. (I like steak tartare a lot, but I only eat it in reputable restaurants, or make it myself from good beef.)
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For me it was because I mistakenly leapt to the supermarket ground beef mentioned in the Dear Abby column. Oops!
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Weeelllll the big deal is that sushi is usually prepared right out of the fish very shortly before consumption. And even then people do get sick from old sushi, or from a parasite in the meat.
Beef is sitting much longer from butcher to table. And hamburger by nature has more crevasses to introduce bacteria for it to grow. Rare steaks at least don’t have the internal meat exposed to bacteria like hamburger through a grinder might.
But there are ways to help mitigate the risk.
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Indeed, I was surprised one of the first times I went to a potluck up in Wisconsin as a young man and there was a big mound of steak tartare on the line, something unheard down south in Illinois.
The article makes it sound like Wisconsinites just eat raw hamburger, though, which (uh, generally?) isn’t the case. The holiday festivities serve a proper dish, made with fresh sirloin, onion, pepper and egg. I’d personally be much more worried about catching COVID at a Wisconsin holiday gathering this year than suffering from a bad tartare.
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Yes, this exactly.
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