The Fiorentina Steak | Leave it alone

Why everyone who tries to improve it ruins it

Hold a Fiorentina up by the bone and look at the outline against the light. The t-bone down the center, the long strip of meat on one side, the smaller fillet on the other, the slight curve at the top where the spine used to be. It’s the shape of Tuscany. Not a loose resemblance, the actual shape — the Apennines along the spine, the Maremma swelling out on the west, the Valdichiana tapering down below Siena.

Coincidence, obviously. But it is the kind of coincidence that this region, which does not believe in coincidences, has decided to take seriously. You are eating the country. On the plate, from above, it is a map.

This is the most famous steak in Tuscany (maybe in the world), and it is the worst-cooked piece of beef in the world, because almost everyone who cooks it does something to it, and the entire point of the dish is that you do nothing to it.

That’s the whole recipe. I wish I were joking.

There is real beef involved, and we should be honest about that. A proper Fiorentina is c…