How To Eat Meat
A boy’s take on real men (#3)
Real men like their meat rare or well done. Never medium — medium is too indecisive. That goes double (i.e., never never) for medium rare and medium well because real men keep things simple.
They eat all the fat and chew every speck of meat off the bones.
When I cut the fat away, my dad studies my plate. He’ll sigh or shake his head or grimace or do all three. He’ll point at the fat and say, “What’s wrong with that?”
I don’t give in on the fat.
(I give in on the meat because Mom would get involved and put a stop to it. She’d be right, too, about ungratefulness and thoughtlessness.)
Eventually Dad will scrape the fat onto his plate and eat it up.
No one else in the family will notice this because conversations in our family of seven are like. . . imagine a musical, an Indianapolis 500 and a rally going on at the same time. Add a comedian performing. With all that happening in our dining room, you wouldn’t notice my dad grimace at the fat on my plate.
I notice, of course, and I get the message.
Real men eat their fat.
