Blogtown, PDX

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Food “Meat is Strategy”

Posted by Alison Hallett on Thu, Aug 9 at 4:39 PM

(Chas sent me this link, with the comment “i assume that people who eat steak have unnaturally big poop”)

From the Times:

Restaurateurs and veterans of the dating scene say that for many women, meat is no longer murder. Instead, meat is strategy. “I’ve been shocked at the number of women actually ordering steak,” said Michael Stillman, vice president of concept development for the Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group, which opened the restaurant Quality Meats in April 2006 on West 58th Street.

The piece goes on to describe a new concern that ordering a salad “displays an unappealing mousiness”: “It seems wimpy, insipid, childish,” said Michelle Heller, 34, a copy editor at TV Guide. “I don’t want to be considered vapid and uninteresting.”

Ordering meat, on the other hand, is a declarative statement, something along the lines of “I am woman, hear me chew.”
In fact, red meat on a date has become such an effective statement of self-acceptance that even a vegetarian like Sloane Crosley, a publicist at Random House, sometimes longs to order a burger.

“Being a vegetarian puts you at a disadvantage,” Ms. Crosley said. “You’re in the most basic category of finicky. Even women who order chicken, it isn’t enough.” She said she has thought of ordering shots of Jägermeister, famous for its frat boy associations, to prove that she is “a guy’s girl.”

“Everyone wants to be the girl who drinks the beer and eats the steak and looks like Kate Hudson,” Ms. Crosley, 28, said.

I’m all for everybody enjoying their food. Of course. But creepily rationalizing that “if I eat meat it shows him that I am refreshingly unpretentious, with no body image hangups”… that is just so…. Agh.

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Comments

i know! eating meat to impress is just an extra layer of neurotic that lands you a dude who gives too much of a fuck what you order at restaurants.

Posted by honest vegetarian | August 9, 2007 5:17 PM

that is just so . . . pathetic.

Posted by rico | August 9, 2007 6:32 PM

If they really want to land that date, I suggest a steady diet of bananas and lollipops.

Posted by extramsg | August 10, 2007 2:06 AM

MSG - funny man, and probably true. But you also forgot the sausages.

Regardless, That was seriously one dumb article in the Times.

Posted by Cuisine Bonne Femme | August 10, 2007 8:59 AM

I sort of think vegetarians should only date other vegetarians, anyway. Ditto for meat-eaters. Otherwise the vegetarian in the relationship will constantly be grossed out or offended by the other's diet, while the meat-eater will live in a perpetual state of annoyance as their beloved bugs the shit out of every server in every restaurant, demanding ingredient lists and endless fucking substitutions. I mean, who cares if it's the middle of a rush, right? Or that the other server flaked on you and now you have to handle eight tables by yourself AND bus them? No, Princess Veggie just HAS to have her lentils, doesn't she! Gah!

(Ahem. Sorry. Was it Amy who wrote about how food server bitterness never really goes away, even years later?)

Posted by Beaton | August 10, 2007 10:25 AM

No, I don't think so. I can understand it, though. Alison was a server longer than I was...

But I was a veggie in a relationship with a meat eater for seven years (until I went omnivorous). I may have been a unique vegetarian, but I cooked meat for my sweetie, encouraged the consumption of steak, etc, and never did the "ewww, gross, how could you possibly be eating that??" thing (I did insist that meat never hit the veggie chopping board, though, but that's just basic food safety!). Likewise, she never pressured me to eat a burger. And I quietly ordered the obviously veggie friendly item on the menu. No big deal.

Posted by Amy J. Ruiz | August 10, 2007 1:54 PM

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