Salisbury Steak Strategies

Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, a biscuit and canned collard greens. The yellow stuff around the edges of the meat turns out to be "gravy," even though it looks a bit more like axle grease. Meat like this is usually made with government commodity products--often with soy filler--and cooked in a factory where the "steak" is printed with phony grill marks. Have you ever heard of Salisbury steak being cooked on a grill?

But you need to try looking at this meal through the eyes of a child.

For instance, the biscuit becomes a perfect platform for the mashed potatoes. Piling the potatoes on top of the biscuit for a double dose of starch is fun.

Turns out you can smear the potatoes on the steak as well. And come to think of it, eating this Salisbury steak with the standard-issue plastic "spork" is darn near impossible. So more inventive ways to get it from the Styrofoam tray to the mouth need to be explored.

Here's one: turn the "steak" into a burger using that biscuit again.

This is the way we eat our Salisbury steak here in the District of Columbia.

And you know what? The collards weren't all that bad. Usually the kids don't touch the vegetables. But I saw quite a few digging into the collards.