It was all chilli and dry meat.

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"One of the major challenges is that we do fresh and not frozen, " says Mark Lobel, co-owner of Lobel's of New York, a famed Manhattan dry-aged meat butcher.

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Sometimes he would dress and cook the meat, sometimes he would dry it out in the sun, make jerky.

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One of the fence planks had been ripped down, and the meat lay under it, dry and tough but full of the smell that frenzied him.

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He kept his eyes open as the convoy moved along the crowded Kabul streets, where fresh meat carcasses hung out to dry and barefooted kids played in the narrow, dust-ridden alleyways.

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In the last few years, researchers have confirmed that cooking meat too long over a dry, intense heat creates small amounts of at least two kinds of compounds that can lead to cancer.

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There are full-service counters for fruit, vegetables, meat and cheese, shelves stocked with dry goods, a bakery and a discount section that circles the perimeter.

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Ideally, allow the meat to sit on a rack, uncovered, in the refrigerator overnight, to dry the surface well and develop all the Greek flavors.

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There is absolutely nothing you can do to improve the taste of beef more than dry aging it, which concentrates the flavor but is costly in terms of both storage and waste, as the meat shrinks significantly and loses weight.

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