Meat evolution
I really like meat. It’s my favorite thing in the world to eat, especially beef. Of course it’s loaded with cholesterol and fat and probably other stuff that’ll make my testicles shrink, but I am always there for a steak.
There are people who say we shouldn’t eat meat, that it’s cruel and all that jazz. I say that meat is an essential part of a diet. It need not be the centerpiece, but it’s something our bodies crave because it’s something our bodies need. Want to be a vegetarian or (God forbid) a vegan? More power to you. Just don’t try to convince me that meat is the enemy because I’ve already been on your side of the argument and came back to this one all the same.
Anyway, I was reading Susan Burton’s article in Slate about well-done meat and it reminded me of my evolution from well-done meat eater to the rare-meat eater I am now.
Burton likes her meat cooked gray and I’ll admit that for the entirety of my childhood this was what I was told was the way to cook meat. When I was very little I was told that the burned pieces that had to be scraped off the meat was “frosting” and that it was the yummiest part. Yes, my mother is a sick, sick person.
When I was eighteen I got a dinner at a fancy steakhouse as my gift. I ordered a big, fat steak and it was delivered to me medium-rare. This was the first time I had delivered to me a piece of meat that had actual color to it. I found the experience transformative. Juice in meat? The taste of blood? That’s part of what makes steak good, I learned. I had clearly been missing out.
So I started having my meat medium-rare, until it occurred to me that if medium-rare tasted good, what would rare taste like? At an admittedly lower-rent steakhouse than I had visited at 18, I ordered a rare ribeye. Ribeye’s my favorite cut, you see. How good would it be?
