bifshtek

plural bifshteks · alternative bifshteks

1. countableuncountableA Russian ground meat dish, often made from beef, consisting of minced meat mixed with various ingredients such as onions, spices, and sometimes breadcrumbs or eggs, shaped into patties or cutlets and pan-fried or baked.

   Here iss the dinner! There iss no truffles—there iss no goose—there iss no fish—but we have nice bifshteks!

   1932, Bella Spewack, Samuel Spewack, Clear All Wires! A Play in Three Acts, New York, N.Y.; Los Angeles, Calif.; London: Samuel French Ltd., page 150

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   “Russian food is satisfactory but lacks variety,[”] notes the new expanded edition of Pan American World Airways” travel booklet “New Horizons.” “Meats, including ‘bifshtek’ are often tough and greasy, vegetables overcooked,” it points out.

   1956 July 8, “[Stella, by Starlight] European Notes”, in Fort Lauderdale Sunday News and Sentinel, 46th year, number 298, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., page 10-D, column 1

   Now, about your restaurants, I don’t relish the idea of paying 30 or 40 rubles for greasy bifshtek and overcooked vegetables.

   1957 June 9, Morton Cathro, “Travelin’ Light: See You in Siberia”, in Oakland Tribune, volume CLXVI, number 160, Oakland, Calif., page C-3

   The food is flavorful but often on the heavy side. Meats, including “Bifshtek,” and vegetables are cooked long.

   1958, Pan American World Airways, Inc., “Russia (U.S.S.R.)”, in New Horizons World Guide: Pan American’s Travel Facts About 89 Countries, 7th revised edition, New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →LCCN, page 152

   Blood donors were not lacking: all the physicists “on duty” were ready to volunteer, and several whose blood group was the same as Landau’s had been selected and advised to eat much bifshtek.

   1965, Alexander Dorozynski, “As Long as There Is Life”, in The Man They Wouldn’t Let Die, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →LCCN, page 125

   Scan the menu in a Moscow restaurant, any Moscow restaurant—any restaurant in any Russian city: languette, entrecote, schnitzel, bifshteck,^([sic]) shashlyk. This is a Russian restaurant?

   1977 December 1, Harold Piper, “International cuisine: Russian cooks losing heritage of foods”, in The Sun, volume 282, number 13, Baltimore, Md., page D1