Some Milwaukee/Wisconsin things come and go, while some become icons. Mandatory Milwaukee/Wisconsin is all about the latter. This week: cannibal sandwiches!
Holidays are all about tradition. Spending time with family and friends. Nuzzling up with a hot toddy or some eggnog. Wondering when TBS and TNT starting pushing Elf as a 24-hour marathon thing. And, of course, the food.
And, in the case of Wisconsin, an annual warning from the state Department of Health Services that eating a particular kind of holiday food—”cannibal sandwiches,” also known as raw beef sandwiches or “tiger meat”—can totally make you sick:
But let’s back up: what exactly is this apparently deadly Wisconsin holiday treat? Is it really raw beef (!) spread on a slice of rye bread and topped with onion slices and a little bit of salt and a whole lot of pepper? Is it really that thing you vaguely remember your grandparents putting out on their holiday snack tables? Is it really that inexplicable delicacy brought over to Wisconsin by German immigrants? Is it really still hanging around in the 21st century, delighting some, horrifying others, and generating approximately 8,000 local news articles every December?
Yup!
Here’s a video of me (Matt) eating a cannibal sandwich in 2019. And for the record, my family never called them “cannibal sandwiches,” and we definitely never called them “tiger meat.” It was—and still is!—simply “raw beef sandwiches” for us!
Some comments left on the video give you a pretty good snapshot of the polarizing nature of these sandwiches:
• “Love these! Have them at every family Christmas party in Milwaukee.”
• “You could not pay me to eat this.”
• “I’m 50 and as far back as I can remember, these have been at every Christmas dinner. Love em!”
• “I think I’d rather eat a tide pod.”
• “I loved having ground raw beef on rye with raw onions and salt & pepper! Had them at weddings, on Sundays at bars watching the Packers play, at friends homes. I miss them.”
• “Dude looks like he is a Weezer band member.”
It’s wild being a middle aged man and still getting Weezer jabs now and then. Sorry, it’s the only “look” I’ve got!
Anyway, back to raw beef sandwiches. Are they any good? Well, I had another one at a recent early Christmas party—my first, I believe, since that 2019 video. And it was good! It kind of didn’t taste like anything, really, and the onion and pepper went a long way in making it palatable. It was fine! And I didn’t get sick!
So yeah, this Weezer lookalike is a raw beef fan. There, I said it. And I’m a holiday snack table fan, too. God, I love a good holiday snack table. Though that herring in the upper left corner can seriously take a hike. Gross.
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• Merry Christmas, Milwaukee! Let’s eat some raw beef sandwiches!