Beef and Rugby

Ross Anderson of the Times UK does what one must and more his previes to last week's Argentina/France game in the Rugby World cup: he turns the inter-nation game into a culinary face-off and recipe story. Happily, our fair country wins for its sheer steak quality. As he rhapsodizes about a trip he took to Buenos Aires:

Show a gaucho a French steak - a thin sliver of a thing, flash fried, tough, stringy - and he’ll fall about laughing. When a mountainous Argentine fillet isn’t hanging off the side of your plate, it’s melting in your mouth. I was in Buenos Aires not long ago, and as our restaurant asador wiped a cow’s bum and slapped it on the grill I asked him why Argentine beef was so sensational. “It’s the pampas,” he said.

Desperate to give France its due, at the end of the piece he notes that, "The French contribution to our meal? Well, they’ll win on the pitch..."

Well, as we know, it didn't happen that way: underdog Argentina won 17-12. All that and steak too...

UPDATE: Another use for the Argentine rugby win--As a "proof of life", the kidnappers of an Argentine businessman released a tape of the businessman reading the game's final score.

Photo: Telegraph.co.uk