Here's what my beloved chipped beef on toast is (or can be), after all: fresh butter melted in a pan, then mixed with flour to make a, yes, roux :P, after which milk is slowly stirred in to make a white gravy. When the sauce blanche :P is ready, you stir in very thinly sliced pieces of pastrami and ladle the whole thing over toast.
What's wrong with this? Vince likes carbonara but won't touch this? Oh, but carbonara's Italian, not backwoods Kentucky, which is where we got the recipe, from my great grandmother, America Sally Briton, who grew up in a small hill town there. Hmmph.
Alright, Vince isn't alone in his rejection of this noble dish. Hormel itself, pusher of all things pork shoulder, admitted that chipped beef is "an air-dried product that is similar to bresaola, but not as tasty." Though others admit to taking a guilty pleasure in consuming CBOT.
Yes, my beloved chipped beef was most commonly referred to as "shit on a shingle" by those who served in the military, and, sadly, it hasn't lost that reputation. (If you think that's bad, the Navy term was CFSOT, or "creamed foreskins on toast"--yum!) Now, there might be a reason for these terms when you figure that military cooks didn't lovingly stir it for a half hour and add fresh, high-quality pastrami. Though neither did I, or my parents, in the early years. We used margarine rather than butter, and mystery meat pressed in a package and labeled "chipped beef." Wikipedia probably gives us the most sanguine description of it on the Web, though a picture can say what words will not--check out the top left photo here, which makes it look truly disgusting. The second picture on the right does present it in its full glory, though.
So back to Christmas morning 1996(?) with Julene and Steve. We were living in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, just above our beloved Mission (scene of more entirely satisfying meals than I can recount, including "raw oyster Communion" at our beloved El Rio bar). I'd told Julene about the glories of chipped beef and we agreed it was the perfect brunch. So after arguing with Vinnie once more about its merits, I prepared it. Julene and Steve arrived, and just as we dug in, fortified with mimosas, they told us the big news--a babe on the way! I ask you, was it coincidence this news arrived with such a phenomenal meal? You can't deny it, V. And hey, your own brother, idol of Luca, lover of fine food, and man of pithy words (see his posting My Dinner With Vince | By Hogan Bielski, above) reveres it.
