Status Updates From Steak: One Man's Search for...

Evolutionarily, taste precedes language by millions of years. Deliciousness is more fundamental than eloquence.

The secret to great steak is great steak. Start with good meat, and it will be good even if you boil it.

Juiciness comes down to two different kinds of liquid. There is melted fat, which feels luscious and smooth in the mouth and induces salivation, creating the illusion of what sensory panels call “sustained juiciness.” But there is another kind of liquid that constitutes juicy, namely juice, the blood-tinged, umami-rich, water-based savory nectar that reddens a plate after a steak is cut.

The Japanese are not famous for inventing things. They are famous for perfecting the inventions of others.

As the Japanese see it, every part of their country has its own distinctive climate, geology, water, traditions, and so forth. Each region, therefore, produces its own equally distinctive foods, and they all compete with one another to produce the very best.

Terroir, simply, is the idea that you can taste geography. And in Tuscany, the geography tastes very good.

Cooking is what gives steak its flavor. Cooking makes sweet things sweeter and meaty things meatier. We seem to have been designed to prefer cooked food long before we developed the concept of medium rare. When humans discovered fire, their world became more delicious.

Give a man a restaurant recommendation, and he eats steak for a night. Give a man a sauté pan, and he can eat good steak for the rest of his life.