That was funny. 
I don’t eat beef anymore (and with a wife who holds a doctorate in e. coli, can you blame me?), but I have to say that before I moved to the U.S., I never ever heard any waiter ask someone how they wanted their burger done – and to hear people reply “medium” and “medium-rare” to the question is almost as stupefying as watching them eat this red-to-pinkish hued mélange of stringy beef.
It is gratifying to see them ducking out to the bathroom repeatedly two days later as the food poisoning kicks in. :wally
Perhaps an analogy would be in order.
I pull a red rip tomato off the plant in my garden to serve with dinner. “I’m sorry,” says my friend, “I only like tomatoes cold. Can you put it in the fridge?”
Is it my friend’s right to prefer cold tomatoes? Certainly.
Does putting my garden fresh tomato in the fridge destroy some of what distinguishes it from grocery store tomatoes? Indisputably.
Is Friend going to get hydroponic tomatoes next time? You betcha.
Tell your [fictional] friend to eat a fat dick next time, problem solved. = )
See, while I like my steak medium-rare, hamburger is one of those things that I prefer at medium-well. If I want rare ground beef, I’ll have beefsteak tartare. But in a hamburger, I don’t know. The quality of the ground beef is usually so-so at best (unless you grind it yourself), and I personally don’t think medium-rare hamburgers have the right hamburger texture. I do still try them from time to time, but I can’t say I’m a fan.
I usually order my burgers medium. I’ve never had food poisoning from one.
Medium rare?
Yeah, with extra boy butter. Enjoy.
I eat rare hamburger all the time. I often even nibble on completely raw morsels. I’ve never once gotten sick from it.
Me and my husband, too, and ditto on the never having had food poisoning. I am more frightened of the idea of a stranger following me to watch me go to the bathroom two days after seeing me in a restarant. :eek:
I like my steaks well done and I even put catsup on them. I don’t care if the chef is unhappy about cooking it the way I want it, it’s my money and my dinner and he’s being paid to do it my way. If he substitutes a lesser quality cut because he doesn’t agree with my tastes, then he is defrauding me.
This is the Straight Dope afterall… I thought all bacteria that made you sick came from OUTSIDE the meat…internally, it’s fine, afterall, the animal lives, or did.
So searing the outside should fix that plight, eh? I love rare meat.
I agree.
I admit it: I’m a steak snob. I like 'em rare, with no condiments.
I vividly remember a conversation I had with a technician at my previous job. (She was from Kentucky, BTW. I’m not sure if that’s significant or not.) We were talking about restaurants dishes, and she mentioned loved good steak. “Me too!” I replied. She then went on to say she liked them well done and smothered in ketchup. :eek: I said, “You are joking, right?” She said, “No. That’s the way my family has always eaten them.”
You know, I get the same way about people who like Casablanca, Audrey Hepburn, and Olive Higgins Prouty, and look down on me for liking You Got Served, Brittney Spears, and J.Lo.
From reading this thread, I get the distinct impression that some participants haven’t had, say, a dry-aged filet mignon or porterhouse at an upscale establishment that specializes in steaks.
All I can tell you is it’s a different beef planet. A piece of steak like that can literally take several weeks to prepare, and it’s worth every minute of it. It has been allowed to slowly, carefully decompose and dehydrate to such an extent that many of the proteins have broken down a bit, and the flavor of the beef has been concentrated. The meat is incredibly tender, rich, almost buttery. It’s heavenly. If you value a truly decadent carnivorous experience, you owe it to yourself to march down to that restaurant with about 200 bucks in your pocket, for yourself and a companion (you can spend more, believe me). Order a bottle or two of really good red wine, go easy on the sides and bread so you don’t fill up, and get yourself a great big, juicy cut of their finest. Medium rare at the absolute most. Let it melt in your mouth, with a sip or two here and there of the wine between bites. Slowly so you can really taste it and feel it and smell it. Cooking something like that to well done is just a sin. It’s not so much gauche as it is criminal, an act of vandalism.
When I was a kid, I used to accelerate my bike down the biggest hill in the neighborhood, so I could blast off from the little bump of a hill at the bottome of the big hill. Between the two hills I emerged from a blind alley and shot across a four lane street. I never got hit by a car.
My favorite way to cook an expensive NY steak is in about half an inch of smoking bacon fat. No breading, just clean bare meat. Deep fried on one side, then the other, till it’s a perfecty baby-pink medium rare inside whith a smokey crispy crust outside. Probly take a year off my life every time I eat a steak like this, but I’d rather die young and fat than never experience such heaven again.
It would be defrauding you if you ordered a filet mingon and the chef gave you top sirloin instead. It would be defrauding you if you ordered a premium grade and got something different.
But when you order, you’re ordering a particular cut of a particular grade of beef. If a good chef gets his lot of twenty (say) prime Angus porterhouses, he’s going to see a few that are especially nice and a few that are less nice. He’s probably going to save the best ones for the people who order their steaks the most rare, where the quality of the steak is going to come through, and the worst ones for well-done. You’re getting what you ordered.
Similarly, if someone just asked for “a glass of champagne” (and not a particular one), I’d want to give them better champagne than I would someone who ordered a mimosa. It isn’t looking down on the person ordering the mimosa, it’s just recognizing that all sparkling whites taste pretty much the same mixed with orange juice.
This is just so funny on so many levels. I think I may use it as a sigline.