Steak Tartare with Halen Môn

With a feast of raw meat, the only things separating a gritty fifth-century encampment at the foothills of the Altai Mountains in Kazakhstan and a bistro in Paris, Buenos Aires, New York, or Tokyo are the rimmings. In the modern case, these might involve a glowing egg yolk cradled in a caldera of flesh, slivers of oily anchovy, the pickled plumpness of capers—an interplay of texture and flavor, of raw and cured, oils and acids, aromatics and salt. The spectral freshness and crackling crunch of Halen Môn penetrates through this wonderful exchange and substantiates it—footnotes in the secret life your mind leads during the most intense moments of pleasure at the table.