Guy Food

[Pontormo]

How do you explain all the men who replied to this thread, then? I guess you're calling them all women? 

They were nagged into it by a woman?

A.

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Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?

Might I point out the co-founders of this site you joined to talk about food are both male?

Now, be a man, read this thread on Sardinian cooking and go stuff one critter inside another inside another and pit-roast it in Deborah's yard...

Henry Lo might suggest you eat maggot cheese while you're at it.

Edited June 28, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[Daddy-A]

How do you explain all the men who replied to this thread, then? I guess you're calling them all women? 

They were nagged into it by a woman?

Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?

There you go again. Talking about eating.

Myself, I just ate me a damn fine hamburger for dinner.

Now that the eatin's done, I suppose it's okay to talk about it

A.

[rjwong]

Myself, I just ate me a damn fine hamburger for dinner.

Now that the eatin's done, I suppose it's okay to talk about it

A.

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BURP!

I think that says it all, ehh?

[Pontormo]

There you go again.  Talking about eating.

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I believe I was giving you cooking orders.

---She who dined on chickpeas, chilies, tomatoes, onion, garlic, bulgur, parsley, olives, cucumber, mint, beets, lemon, red wine, cardommon tea, a single date and almonds, that is, something you could serve a vegan if need be

[mark922]

There you go again.  Talking about eating.

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I believe I was giving you cooking orders.

---She who dined on chickpeas, chilies, tomatoes, onion, garlic, bulgur, parsley, olives, cucumber, mint, beets, lemon, red wine, cardommon tea, a single date and almonds, that is, something you could serve a vegan if need be

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I'm not sure that eating your date is vegan.

[jsolomon]

I'm not sure that eating your date is vegan.

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Depends on the preparation

[Reefpimp]

This can only end badly.

[ZenKimchi]

These are what I consider man foods in Korea:

Cow Intestines Grilled with Soju

Still Squirming Squid and Octopus

SundaeGuk: a spicy heavy stew with all the nasty bits of blood sausage, intestines, cartilege

HaejangGuk (Hangover Stew), usually including big Fred Flinstone racks of pork spine and coagulated cow's blood

BulDalk and DalkBal (Spicy Charcoal Grilled Chicken and Chicken Feet) -- Never eat these when you have something to do the next day. You will spend much of it on the Thinking Chair.

Edited June 30, 2006 by ZenKimchi (log)

[jsolomon]

I did have to appreciate the misguided culinary idiocy that was elicited a few months ago by a pizza chain. They had advertised "Steak pizza" and in the commercial a dude answered the door with the quip, "mmm, man fuel".

Sounds like a waste of two good foods. Grill the f-ing steak and have cheese pizza as a side.

[MarketStEl]

All of which has got me thinking about really manly food. What defines properly butch nosh?

First rule is that it shouldn’t be a meal. That whole sitting down and eating thing implies we have time to spare between slaughtering animals, building skyscrapers, wrestling bears and all the other cool stuff we do every day. Really manly food is some form of grabbed snack.

This is our Tim Hayward's's opinion, and here's one man who doesn't think grilling is manly.

Link to "Barbies for Boys." Oh, I laughed!

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Great piece, but once again, it contains evidence that if someone calls the sandwich they're making a "Philly cheesesteak," it isn't:

My own favourite manly recipe follows all these rules. It came from an excellent cook who used to open with me in a San Francisco restaurant. We used to knock these up while gossiping about last nights’ exploits, comparing hangovers and setting up for the day. The 'Philly Cheese Steak', though about as culinarily undistinguished as you can get is as hotly debated a regional speciality as bouillabaisse. I just think it’s a hell of a lot more fun to eat.

1. Take a large roll, split it, leaving a hinge and scoop out a little of the crumb on either side. In the US one would be looking for a Vienna roll though these can be a bit tough to locate in the UK. I’ve had excellent results with ciabatta and a sourdough batard from Chez Paul.

2. Take a large, white onion and slice it into vertical segments. Work the segments through your fingers into a bowl to make loose, long slices. This should be a big, ugly cheap onion, one of those that are so coarse in flavour it makes you weep as you buy them. You’ll need a couple of large handfuls per sandwich

3. Take a medium sized, thick cut steak from the cheaper end of the spectrum and slice, on the bias, into finger thickness strips. Skirt, onglet, anything chewy and flavourful will do. If the butcher recommends beating it for a week with a mallet, you’ve got the right piece of meat

4. Shred a ball of fresh, wet buffalo mozzarella into a bowl. Don’t get too fussy about draining it.

5. Turn a low heat under an enormous cast iron griddle, Ideally, this should be mounted in the back of a truck outside a metal bashing factory in Pittsburgh. Failing this, use your very largest frying pan. Drop in the onions and sweat them gently until they have clarified then whack up the heat to begin to caramelise the edges.

6. Throw in the meat and dredge generously with pepper.

7. Take enough salt to kill every dietician, food allergist and yoga nutter in North London and strew it liberally onto the meat, laughing like a hyena.

8. Keep tossing everything until the meat is nicely browned but still pink inside. To be authentic you should be doing this teppanyaki style with two large offset spatulas. It’s important to continually scrape up any matter sticking to the pan surface and stir it in.

9. Lower the heat a little and throw in the cheese. This is the magical bit. As it hits the heat, the mozzarella yields loads of creamy fluid which combines with the onion juices and deglazes the pan. By the time the last curds of cheese are melting to strings the ‘gravy’ will be perfectly reduced.

10. Using your spatulas, shape the whole gluey mass into a long mound, lift it and dump it without ceremony into the waiting bun. Scrape, chisel or pour any remaining pan residue over the top and serve it forth.

Scoop out the bread? If you were making a grinder in Kansas City, maybe.

Cheap cuts of meat, sliced finger-thick? I suspect those chopped and formed "sandwich steaks" you can get in your local supermarket may well come from said cuts, but the real deal is thinly sliced sirloin tip. Whatever--it has to be sliced thin, certainly thinner than your finger.

Fresh buffalo mozzarella? Not strong enough to stand up to the flavor of the steak, even though it should produce a marvelously runny sauce a la Cheez Whiz, which some cheesesteak purists will tell you is the only acceptable substance to use on a cheesesteak. I am not among those purists, but if you must use a cheese whose name ends in a vowel, sharp provolone is the way to go.

Pink on the inside? The meat should be too thin for this to even be a possibility.

Boy howdy, the man couldn't have gone more wrong if he parboiled his ribs first, threw them on an open grill and called the result "barbecue"!

[MarketStEl]

I did have to appreciate the misguided culinary idiocy that was elicited a few months ago by a pizza chain.  They had advertised "Steak pizza" and in the commercial a dude answered the door with the quip, "mmm, man fuel".

Sounds like a waste of two good foods.  Grill the f-ing steak and have cheese pizza as a side.

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Having once tried a "Philly Cheesesteak Pizza" (see comment in post immediately above) in a moment of temporary insanity, I can only second this comment.

As for the general subject:

Gimme a grill with a lid, several slabs o' ribs and a good dry rub, and I'm in hog heaven. Put me down for those strong cheeses, too, though I draw the line at limburger. (While I'm at it, let's not forget the crossbreed of these two--smoked cheese.)

Yesterday, I was at a Fourth of July cookout where the grill (open) was being tended by a recent arrival from Japan who is taking English language classes at Temple. I surprised myself by commandeering the grill, on which he was quickly incinerating chicken parts amidst flames galore: "Here, you need to get those over to the side, away from the coals in the middle. The outside's burning while the inside's still nearly raw. Okay, we need to spread those coals out a bit. Can someone get me a cup of water? (Splashes water on flaming charcoal briquets) Okay, that's better."

"Oh, that's right, you're from Kansas City," said a wide-eyed guest.

I dunno--I think this was merely my Inner Macho Guy asserting himself, an event that occurs very infrequently.

[Daniel]

I am going to throw this sangwhich into the ring... A ton of smoked brisket on a French Loaf.. This thing was massive..

[jsolomon]

If there is sauce drizzled on the plate instead of the food, I don't think it qualifies... unless the plate is a bowl and there is more sauce than solid.

[Daniel]

No sauce drizzled.. I made a potato salad using oil, raw egg yolk, and some vinegar and it was saucy.. The mint I added to the potatoes might be a little chickish..

Edited July 5, 2006 by Daniel (log)

[Ling]

Mmmm...that looks so juicy I just want to bite the screen. The chick in me likes the mint in the potato salad too!

[Lone Star]

Down here on the Gulf, the guys get together for a big gumbo cook a time or two each year. It always involves at least one run to Kemah for shrimp, crab and whatever else they decide to throw in and a couple of runs for beer.

Other faves: Shrimp boil in the backyard with propane and kettles or catfish fry.

The only consistent ingredient is mass quantities of beer.

[jsolomon]

No sauce drizzled.. I made a potato salad using oil, raw egg yolk, and some vinegar and it was saucy.. The mint I added to the potatoes might be a little chickish.. 

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Oh no, mint is very manly. For instance, carbonara sauce--coal-miner's sauce. You can't get much more manly than a coal miner. I always put mint in my carbonara.

Also, mint, wild mint, can be found hiding by rivers here for intrepid naturists to find. That is very manly.

Mint is manly. Unless it's in a menthol cigarette. Bleck.

[MissAmy]

I was sent to find lunch for my boss, her husband and myself yesterday. I ended up at Central Market, grabbing salads, when I recieved a phone call: "Amy, honey, don't get my husband a salad. He said he needs something Manly." We laughed. I found a hogie stuffed with all manner of cheese and meat and salami, no veggies. I passed the test.

[dividend]

It was definately a guy food kind of weekend for this girl. Trips with my family to our house at the Lake of the Ozarks normally are.

I started the weekend off right spending a wad of money on booze at the grocery store at the intersection of the two Missouri highways closest to our lake house. I knew I was in trouble as I stood on the aisle of hard liquor and potato chips, deliberating between a fifth or a handle of Jack. (Jack and I are on a purely first-name basis.) I settled on a handle. Along with a jug of Jose Cuervo and some margarita mix (for my mom). Needed some Corona, noticed 24 packs of long necks were on sale. Got two of those. On to the cold beer aisle and snagged a 12 pack of Boulevard Pale Ale. Som actual food made it into my cart by the end of it, but I don't think the 8 limes, jar of cayenne pepper, and tortilla chips fooled anyone. I got in line, and noticed several guys in different lines, with prissy girlfriends, and carts full of wine coolers and real food, looking at me with serious envy.

The weekend after that was a tribute to manly food that included grilled t-bone steaks, lazy BBQ'd chicken, dozens of hotdogs and sausages, monstrous hamburgers, pancakes the size of my head with seven or eight slices of bacon, all eaten on our finest Chin-ettes, with our hands, accompanied by a cold beer or six, potato chips, chips and (homemade salsa), store bought potato salad, roasted cashews, baked beans, and the iceberg bag salad Mom bought to feel a little less guilty about it all.

I think I might be missing some female parts of my DNA. Today, before work, I found myself at Costco, hotdog in hand, looking for Jack Daniels Single Barrel and really dry Cabernet Sauvignon.

So I guess you now know what I think of as "guy food."

[Jason Perlow]

A bunch of us guys had some guy food in Chicago recently:

http://offthebroiler.wordpress.com/2006/07...g-fogo-de-chao/

All this place needed was a firing range, a cigar menu, and a couple of go-go girls and we would have been set.

[Tim Dolan]

I gotta find one of those places close to me...

[Daddy-A]

Fogo de Chão has the reputation for being the very best in the entire country, in terms of both the quality and variety of its meats and excellent salad bar.

Jason, if it weren't for that amazing parade of meat that followed, the inclusion of a salad bar would have almost certainly disqualified this place for "man food."

Good God! My cholesterol jumped 20 points just looking at the pictures! Nice work.

A.

[Kris]

For my hubby, it's steak, potatoes and creamed spinach.

[Kris]

P.S. - Recently, my husband and a few of his guy friends wanted to get together for dinner to catch up with each other. They hadn't seen each other for a good while. What was the restaurant they picked? - A Brazilian churascarria!

Yes, the wives/S.O.'s were allowed but it was so funny how they were looking forward to the rodizio. Our evening out was dubbed, "Meatfest 2006."

Meatfest 2007 is already being planned...

[Grub]

I dunno what Guy Food is. There's yer big steaks and huge burgers, but that's not as much a reflection of maleness, as much as an inverse reflection of some womens' desire to eat light and achieve that oh-so-sexy Nichole Richie Bag-O-Anters look.