I am a great believer in raw food. I enjoy raw vegetables and raw fruit, but most of all I enjoy raw meat. I’m quite happy to eat as much nigiri sushi and sashimi that comes my way, not to mention a juicy steak tartare or a tart ceviche. But what I can never resist is a good carpaccio. I have such an unrepentant weakness for these sweet, slippery, paper-thin slices of fresh, raw beef that no matter how exciting the antipasti on the menu of an Italian restaurant sounds, this plain, simple dish is always my first choice.

Now, I’m not an extremist who believes that we should eat only raw foods and that if we don’t we’re inviting a department store’s worth of lifestyle diseases upon ourselves. Foods need to be handled differently depending on what suits them best. While certain dishes need to be cooked thoroughly before they are edible, most need to be cooked only lightly to be pleasurable, some however, are best when their constituents are served unblemished and in their natural state.

Anyone who has tasted a carpaccio will gladly attest to the latter for a carpaccio is the essence of simplicity and purity. Usually served drizzled with olive oil and garnished with bitter rocket leaves or tart caper berries, it is always the fresh, clean flavours of beef that dominate. Uncooked, unflavoured, unmarinated beef, untouched and unadorned. A carpaccio is an exercise in minimalism – a haiku in a plate.

Despite its primal character, carpaccio isn’t of ancient pedigree; it was created in 1950 by a chef-proprietor named Giuseppe Cipriani at Harry’s Bar in Venice. Created for guest Contessa Amalia Nani Mocenigo, a frequent customer whose doctor had placed her on a diet forbidding cooked meat, it was originally made by covering a plate with the thinnest possible slices of raw beef and garnishing it with a drizzle of a light, cream-coloured sauce in a crosshatch pattern. Since the colours on the plate were so evocative of the brilliant reds and whites of the Venetian Renaissance painter Vittore Carpaccio whose paintings were at the time being exhibited in Venice, Giuseppe Cipriani named the dish carpaccio.

Clearly it wasn’t just the Contessa who was captivated by this innovative antipasto, for it soon became popular across Italian restaurants. However, I suspect that like the pizza, it wasn’t until it crossed the Atlantic Ocean that the carpaccio attained international notoriety.

One of the best carpaccios I’ve eaten was on the opening night of a restaurant called Stars in San Francisco’s Bay Area. Late for an operatic performance, we rushed into the restaurant looking for a quick bite. They seated us at the bar and a tall beautiful, blonde waitress sympathetic to our plight got the kitchen to rustle up a plate of the most divine carpaccio in under 10 minutes. I’m sure that part of the allure of the meal was the beautiful blonde as the speed and friendliness of the service as was the quality of the carpaccio. But then the most memorable food experiences aren’t just about the food, are they? They are as much about what you’re eating as much as they are about the where and when.