"The New York State steak dinner, or 'beefsteak,' is a form of gluttony as stylized and regional as the riverbank fish fry, the hot-rock clambake, or the Texas barbeque," wrote Joseph Mitchell in his now-classic New Yorker article (ca. 1939).
Until the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the right to vote, these dinners were strictly male affairs, usually thrown by or in association with political clubs. Like the German-influenced barbeque still found in areas of Texas today (see Insufficient's earlier posting here), the old New York beefsteak would have foregone amenities like knives, forks, napkins and tablecloths.
"The life of the party at a beefsteak used to be the man who let out the most ecstatic grunts, drank the most beer, ate the most steak, and got the most grease on his ears," wrote Mitchell.
All of this changed in 1920 when the beefsteaks went co-ed and, in Mitchell's telling, "degenerated into polite banquets" with the forced addition of such things as "Manhattan cocktails, fruit cups, and fancy salads to the traditional menu of slices of ripened steaks, double lamb chops, kidneys, and beer by the pitcher."
Still, even a curmudgeon like Mitchell would be pleased to know that things haven't changed much since his 1939 account. Here are some conventions that he would certainly recognize:
Encouraged: Casual Dress
In Mitchell's time, patrons wore butcher aprons, embroidered with name of the person or event they were celebrating, and used them in lieu of napkins. They also wore chef hats bearing personalized mottoes like "Prohibition Was Good for Some. Others It Put on the Bum."
Today, casual dress is encouraged among diners, and the waiters still wear aprons, although, alas, no funny hats.
Discouraged: Potatoes
Although there's usually some controversy on this point, your correspondent falls squarely into the camp of men who believe it is a sin to order potatoes at steak dinners. Too filling. As Mitchell wrote, "They take up room that rightfully belongs to meat and beer."
Encouraged: Over-eating
Speaking of sins, gluttony is not only condoned, but encouraged. It was in Mitchell's time, too, as the dean of East Side beefsteaks Sidney Wertheimer explained to him: "The foundation of a good beefsteak is an overflowing amount of meat and beer...When you go to a beefsteak, you got to figure on eating until it comes out of your ears. Otherwise it would be bad manners."
Go to any New York steak house and you'll still find patrons gorging themselves beyond the point of normal excess. Kind of like I did with this beauty...
Verboten: Ketchup
No argument here. Nuff said.
Photos taken on recent visits to Peter Luger's, Old Homestead and Wolfgang's steakhouses
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