Thousand-Dollar Steaks

As a publicity stunt to lure tourists, Alberta's Social Credit government staged a "national dish" contest, offered $1,000 in prizes. Contest rules called for a dish "distinctive to Alberta" which could be served by restaurants for not more than $1. Six thousand plain and fancy recipes (including one from a wag who suggested "grilled gophers fried in Turner Valley oil with Alberta gas over a mountain range") swamped contest headquarters. Last week in Edmonton, the judges selected a plain-sounding winner.

First prize--$600 and a gold medal--went to pretty, rosy-cheeked Jessie Hazard Smith, an Edmonton housewife. Her dish: Alberta Gold Medal ranch steak, cut off the fillet, rump, sirloin or tenderloin, dipped in salad oil, grilled in a hot pan from eight to twelve minutes, spread with one tablespoon of butter and sprinkled with salt & pepper.

Like many a housewife who had sweated over a fancy recipe for the contest, the Edmonton Journal was put out: "Just why steak should be a typical Alberta food is not explained. . . . Grilled prairie chicken or buffalo stew . . . would have lent itself to seductive advertising." But Dan Campbell, the Social Crediters' pressagent, liked it fine. He got ready to beguile tourists with the slogan: "Alberta is the only place in the world where you can get a thousand-dollar steak for one dollar."

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