Lunchtime Tips

Teriyaki Beef Tips. There's just something enticing about the very name: "Teriyaki" connotes a certain exotic, multicultural side--something the modern Harvard student is always seeking, even in the dining hall. But diversity doesn't make a meal--you need more.

"Beef." Substance. Real food for real people. There's something manly about beef, something that appeals to the political incorrectness in all of us. Beef tips are also dangerous, chock full of cholesterol and fat. The Marlboro Man undoubtedly eats beef tips and they're not doing his already-diseased organs any good. But that's irrelevant. Beef tips are for those who look cholesterol in the face and scoff. But machismo does not make a complete Harvard meal, at least for those living outside of Kirkland House.

Tempering the strength of "beef" with a touch of delicacy is "tips." No hoi polloi chunks or slabs served here, but instead cultured little tips. Images of Master's teas and intellectual debate come to mind.

Teriyaki Beef Tips: In one entree you have foreign intrigue, red-blooded vitality, and refinement. As if this were not enough, there is the mystery surrounding beef tips. What exactly are beef tips? Where is the tip of a cow? The nose, the tail? Or are "beef tips" meat from cows who have been tipped? Does this long-maligned practice actually produce a delicacy?

Crimson beef expert Anna D. Wilde, a native of beef-heavy Wisconsin, speculates that beef tips are cow ears. Some of them do look like ears, others most definitely do not. Whole dinner conversations can be sparked by an oddly shaped piece of meat. Do chickwiches ever provide such food for thought? Even Harvey Mansfield rarely does.