Tatare

Steak tartare — raw minced or finely chopped beef served with raw egg yolk, capers, cornichons, onion, and mustard — takes its name from the Tatars, the Turkic-speaking peoples of the Eurasian steppe who were among the chief military force of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century. In French and European usage, Tartare (from Greek Tartaros, the deepest underworld, adapted to name the fearsome eastern peoples as inhabitants of a hellish region) named both the Tatar peoples and the Mongol forces they were part of. The dish's French name dates to the late 19th or early 20th century and reflects a European tradition of naming exotic or pungent preparations after the wild peoples of the distant East — 'Tartar' in European imagination connoted fierceness, rawness, and a life outside civilized norms.

The folk legend attached to tartare — that Tatar horsemen tenderized raw meat by carrying it under their saddles, allowing the combination of pressure and horse sweat to soften the beef during long rides — is almost certainly false. Food historians have found no contemporaneous evidence for this practice, and the physics of it (pressure alone does not tenderize meat in any useful way) are dubious. The legend persists because it is vivid and because it explains the 'raw' aspect of the dish through a convenient narrative: these were fierce, nomadic, unconventional people who ate their meat raw and unsalted, tenderized by the violence of their own horsemanship.

The actual origin of steak tartare in European restaurants appears to be late 19th-century French cuisine, where a fashion for raw beef preparations emerged, likely influenced by the German Mett (raw seasoned pork) and related northern European traditions of eating raw or barely processed meat. The first documented recipes in French culinary literature appear in the early 20th century, and the dish is credited to various Parisian restaurants and chefs. The 'Tatar sauce' — a mayonnaise with capers and herbs — predates the raw beef dish and gives its name to both tartare steak and sauce Tartare (tartar sauce), suggesting that the naming came first and the dish was assembled around it.

Today steak tartare is a standard of French and Belgian restaurant menus and has spread through fine-dining culture globally. It requires the highest quality beef (since no cooking will compensate for poor raw material), a skilled kitchen (since food safety depends on fresh, high-grade beef and careful handling), and a diner willing to eat raw beef. The Tatar name persists in both the fine-dining steak version and in the common condiment (tartar sauce for fish) — two very different preparations that both carry the memory of the Mongol steppe in their name, neither of which would have been recognized by any Tatar horseman.