By Daniel Neman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
In a few short years, when super-intelligent cockroaches gather together to analyze the cause of the end of human civilization, I’m pretty sure they will look at each other and say, “Chkkxlk mklkx.”
Which is cockroach for “social media.”
Social media has lowered the world’s collective average IQ by at least 15 points. It allows and encourages people who know nothing to share their ideas with people who know less.
I cannot get on social media without being swarmed by people who believe the Earth is flat or that man did not walk on the moon or other conspiracy theories of breathtaking stupidity.
We are in the post-knowledge age, where a lack of information is valued higher than an actual understanding of facts. And into this morass comes cooking videos by people who do not know how to cook.
Which brings me to steak.
Some experts will tell you to cook a steak on a grill that is at least 400 to 500 degrees. Some, if you have the equipment, will recommend an infrared broiler that can reach 1,800 degrees for a perfect sear and has positions farther from the heating element to cook the steak to the desired temperature.
But those are only experts. Why listen to them when we have TikTok?
There is a page on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook called Thatrecipe.us (despite the “us” part of the name, I believe it is based in Brazil). The site offers near-daily tips on cooking.
It shows how to dip slices of banana into pancake batter and fry them, for instance, or how to make a dessert that mixes gelatin into chocolate milk or suggests an entrée of chicken thighs cooked in Orange Fanta and cream.
That banana thing actually sounds decent, which is why I think the site is trying to be legitimate. At any rate, it gets a lot of viewers who think it is legitimate. One recipe for salmon has been viewed 2.5 million times.
And then there is the steak. The steak recipe has been viewed 8.6 million times. They can’t all be for laughs.
You begin by seasoning a big pot of boiling water with garlic, rosemary, parsley and salt. Then you add a thick, juicy steak and, yes, boil it for 10 minutes.
We can see in the video that the steak has become a most unappetizing shade of gray. It’s enough to turn the fondest carnivore into a hardcore vegetarian.
That’s not how you make steak, that’s how you make soup. At this point, the water tastes better than the meat.
Fortunately, the weird robot AI voice that is explaining how to cook is not done with the meal.
Once you take the meat out of the water and pat it dry with paper towels, you season it liberally on both sides with salt and pepper, which is the first reasonable suggestion in the whole video.
Next, you pour far too much olive oil into a pan, turn up the heat and add the meat. Cook until well seared on both sides. Because you’re starting with meat that is gray instead of pink, it should only take 3 to 4 minutes per side to get that great-looking sear.
So to recap, that’s 10 minutes in boiling water and 6 to 8 minutes on a hot skillet. No wonder the steak comes out well done. It’s beyond well done. It’s practically cremated.
I realize there are plenty of people who prefer their meat well done, and I’m not going to judge them for that (though I secretly do). I’m just going to point out that it takes the video person literally 20 slices with a knife to saw all the way through the meat.
The video claims to have picked up this cooking tip from a five-star steakhouse, which could not possibly be true. Or it’s possible they’re trying to re-create the sous vide experience without understanding sous vide (in sous vide, the water is precisely controlled to remain at the meat’s serving temperature and the meat is vacuum-sealed in a plastic bag).
Fortunately, most of the 7,000 or so commenters are properly appalled by the whole concept. One says he has no friends but would happily share the video with some of his enemies. Another said something to the effect of “that poor meat was already butchered once.”
But some — many, actually — think it looks good. They’re planning to try it.
And the cockroaches creep ever closer.
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