The game blade and I

As I considered how to announce this 

posting, in the way of a heading, I 

thought I might just let the whole 

thing ride on a cheerful double en-

tendre, and say no more. But this is 

no way to get off one’s chest such an 

abiding, leeching peeve that I’d be re-

luctant to call it a pet. On the other 

hand, Saturday, with all its consoling 

liberty, is no time for a Miltonian 

trumpet blast on the proximity of “the 

end,” which in many things can be most 

welcome. If one could suggest an end, 

therefore, I’d certainly choose the ir-

rational, fashionable adoption of the 

device described as “the steak knife.” 

Readers are invited to peer over the 

shoulder, as we all tend to do anyway 

at this page, to observe how very near 

indeed “the end” may be, if one could 

wean the tenant opposite, of promoting 

the steak knife.

The steak knife is to gastronomy, and

to its table service, as the Modern Jazz

Quartet of the 1950s and 60s was to jazz:

a shiny, slightly glittering object of no

inherent derivation in its medium. Probab-

ly research will show they emerged at the

same time, along with turquoise roadsters.

Sadly, it seized the known world by its

consummate extraneousness, as any artifact

of ostentation always does, such as the

several superfluous chronometers in a sing-

le Breguet wristwatch: not having to have

them, means having to have them. Even ad-

mitting the restaurant's genius for botch-

ing things, fails to justify the easier

slicing of the undesirable, only to ac-

celerate the distress of the jaws.

Now, who would take on, on Saturday, the

remediation of commercial gastronomy, es-

pecially in a setting such as this one,

which has renounced that oxymoron, in no

uncertain terms? Only the present writer?

I greatly doubt it, for the impertinences

of public dining have penetrated our pre-

serves, in the assumptions of our guests.

In the feeding, then, of visitors, even

the discreet open themselves to emulating

that tragic discovery of restaurants: he

who dines alone, is likely to stay alone.

And Saturday affords no support for this.

Admitting that the cuisine of China,

Mexico, India, and Oceana, broadly

speaking, exempt us from the likeli-

hood of having to lend a guest this

idiot prop of Western dining, an en-

tire universe of red wines cries out

for the occasional presentation of a

slab of flesh unreduced to bite size.

We don't query why this should be so;

it is a fixture of adapting to guests.

And there we are: necessity is the

mother of preposterous invention,

not its excuse. Who among us, would

ever venture within a Marathon of

distance, to serve a cut of meat so

unyielding to the blandishments of a

simple dinner knife, at worst, as to

support a cultural obsession with sam-

urai standards of sharpness, only to

transit the nibble to the frailty of

human teeth? The pristine silliness

of the device cries out to be beaten

back into butter spreaders, for the

plush extractions of the braise, the

discerning selection of the tender-

loin, the opulently grained fibres

of the competently managed roast. 

Are there really tables in our very

homes, where the translation of a

carcass from vitality is in doubt?

Yet still the plea arises, once

the steak knife has been exposed

as the fetish that it is, of the

incompetent and the commercially

seduced, for some residual oppor-

tunity to enjoy the allure of the

boning device, without guilt. If

not from necessity, then certain-

ly from convenience, a whiff of

legitimacy arises from the con-

sumption of wild game, especially

of fowl, the noblest and in many

cases, the most ideal foils for

the glories of red wines. Here an

edge is welcome, in eliciting the

meat from the elegant bone, from

tenacious ligatures of flight as

we admire enough to present to

each other, generously. A roast

of squab is an engagement to be

savored meticulously to the ful-

lest; and, so far from destroy-

ing such a prospect by its bon-

ing in advance, the steak knife

gains preferment it never knew.

Claire MacDonald

The Game Cookbook

Birlinn Publishing, 2015©

Duchess of Rutland

Shooting

  A Season of Discovery

Quiller Publishing, 2012©