Meat


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Published: April 28th 2006
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There is something wonderful about cooking meat, no matter what the animal. First, there is the trip to the grocery store. I head to the frosty aisle, with the humdrum of concealed air conditioning gently rattling the racks. Which animal, and which cut? There is the careful, nearly methodical scanning of the eyes, as if somewhere in the pile of eerily wet styrofoam there is the Magical Piece of Meat, which has issued forth from a free-roaming animal that was not fed the the powder of its forefathers and was not slaughtered in a warehouse straight out of The Jungle. I look every time anyway.

There is the almost negligible slaughter that waits on the kitchen countertop, once to separate what gets cooked now from what gets cooked later, and once to chop up the meat before its nervous confrontation with my wok. Of course, in between the two instances of slaughter that are still left for us, descendants of humans who killed from start to finish, is the Defrosting. Woe betide the wretch who essays to cut corners and opts for the defrost function on the microwave, for it shall not work, no matter what the instructions in the manual say; take it from me, engrossed readers, take it from me, who has actually weighed the damnable meat and followed everything to the letter, only to take out meat that was not only undefrosted on one side but nearly cooked on the other, despite my meticulously timed flippings.

Of course, I must not get carried away by the killer instinct reawoken by the knife; meat without vegetation or carefully thought-out condiments is a talented actress without her agent, her makeup artist, and her publicist. Complexities abound. Do I continue with the knife or do I succumb to the dark side and sheepishly go for pre-mixed frozen vegetables? Simple soy sauce? Light or dark? Marinade? Hoisin? Oyster? My mind is numbed by the variety but I persist and settle down.

Finally, man makes fire, is amazed, as he always had been. The oil leaps and diced scallions somersault. Meat hisses as it is dumped into the black crucible, the healthy rouge turning pale in the face of adversity. Smoke rises and carries the fumes of meat and sauce everywhere, oozing out the window into the balcony, creeping into the living room, slipping under doors into the hallway to infuriate hungry neighbors who have just stepped in from the brisk Paris cold. Stabbed to ensure that it bleeds cleanly, the meat roars and roars but its cries soon become resigned murmurs as it realizes the inevitability of its gastronomical transformation. I shut off the range and as the oil crackles die down, all becomes quiet again and I slide the slabs onto plates. Emeril, I'm not. But today, I have conquered again. My wooden spatula, my tireless wok, my infallible and probably overpriced electric range, we live to do battle another day.


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