Ridiculous ‘Bread Steak’ Recipe Ravaged by Carnivores on Instagram (It’s Toast, Just Call It Toast)

We understand the benefits – both personal and environmental – of plant-based diets, but one food writer has taken the meatless mandate too far with something called bread steak.

His name is David Tamarkin, and the offending recipe was posted on Basically, a website operated by Bon Appetit. You may not recognize Tamarkin’s name, but his legacy of anti-carnivore antics is notable: he is the former digital director for Epicurious, and while there, advocated for a new policy by which the site would no longer publish beef recipes.

So right off the bat, we disliked this guy, but then bread steak gate happened. See, Tamarkin stopped eating steak for environmental motivations, but the cravings for a substantial entrée never stopped.

“Sometimes, I wanted a slab of something absolutely lavish in the center of my plate — and for whatever reason, a cauliflower steak just wasn’t going to cut it,” he wrote.

So he created bread steak: a salty, fatty, parmesan-crusted hunk of pan-roasted sourdough that he claims is “downright meaty” and “decadent in the vein of a rib eye.” It was topped with snap peas and shallots for this Instagram post.

The internet was not having this nonsense. A sampling of Instagram comments:

“So… toast….?”

“y’all are really trying to convince people that cheesy bread tastes like steak…. thank you for starting my day off with a laugh.”

“A bread steak. A lettuce steak. A cauliflower steak. None of them are steak.”

“Whenever I feel like I haven’t had enough vegetables in my diet I just cut my steak into the shape of broccoli. That way it’s satisfies my vegetable cravings without having to eat vegetables. My meat broccoli is healthy, slightly grassy, and down right has bitter notes of cruciferous vegetables.”

“Getting second hand embarrassment from this post.”

As hardcore carnivores here at Mandatory, we cannot in good conscience endorse this recipe. Call it open-faced grilled cheese or savory French toast if you want to sound fancy, but don’t you ever call anything but a big, bloody slab of beef “steak.”

Cover Photo: LauriPatterson (Getty Images)

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