All men have a terrible secret, and it's eating at me inside so much I can't live with the lie anymore.
Most of us, myself included, can't grill a hamburger.
Oh, we make a big show of it. We'll get the coals going or light up the propane. We'll mix up some patties and throw them down on the grill. But then we start to flounder. Are the flames too high? Not high enough? When do I flip? Dang, I should have put the chicken on first to give it more time to cook! What about the buns? Do I toast them on the top rack or will it make them dry?
It's not funny. Really. There are some things men are expected to know, like sports and engine repair, that we don't actually get any training for. I don't like sports and the only thing I know about engines is that 80% of the time it's a problem with the regulator, whatever the heck that means, but you'd think I could master something as simple as heating ground beef. But when you only do it a few times a year, and it's a do-or-starve situation, there's no time to learn. So your friends and family end up eating burnt hockey pucks, which is fine because anything tastes good with ketchup, and you can't help but wonder how sincere they are with their praise.
I blame high school for not broadening our education. The boys in shop class and the girls in home ec should have swapped rooms for a day. The boys could learn how to cook a decent burger and the girls could learn how to jump start a dead car battery.
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About Moi
- The Beast
- A computer programmer turned holistic attachment parenting dad.
5 comments:
I broke down and had the wife teach me how to do it. There's the general concept of cooking the chicken slow over low heat vs. cooking beef quickly over high heat... that was easy enough to commit to memory. But how to know when the burgers are done? That was tough... but with a little practice and training I can now tell if they're done or not with just a little poking with a tool. Too squishy and they're not done yet. Just a little give and they're perfect. No give and it's way too late. No longer do I need to feel the shame!
As Jeff Murdoch says in Coupling "we re supposed to fly these babies right out of the hangar." Really, it comes down to practice. Most people only grill burgers once or twice a year. That's not a lot of time to learn how to get it right.
Sorry Josh, but you crossed the line asking a woman for help. It's things like that that will get you kicked out of the Guy's Club. You should have sought the wisdom of an elderly man (named Cookie or Buddy, preferably) who has been grilling his whole life and knows all the secrets. Ooh, maybe he's got a spatula for a hand! He lost the real one in the great grilling cook-off of ought-six, when he had to barbecue against ten other men.
Does Josh get any points back if I tell you that my knowledge came from my stepdad, the grill master, and a couple of other guys I know? So, really, it came from men, just I was acting as the in between.
He is right, though. It all comes down to practice, and understanding the squish test. But you didn't hear that from me. Pretend that this is Richard posting....
"The Wife"
I found my greatest problem was always not cooking them long enough. Once I added about 5 minutes beyond when I thought they were "done" I started getting just about perfect burgers. Just takes practice!
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