Thanks for the cite.
That sounds like a terrible idea and is the exact opposite of how you get a flavorful steak - aging it for a week at the very least, preferably several weeks.
Maybe you missed my first post. I’m not “hypersensitive” and if you think I am you must not be familiar with me or my posts. The point was that others have suggested that it’s poor people who like their steak well-done. Unless I missed the memo blacks are still disproportionately poor compared to whites so it’s no fucking surprise that blacks disproportionately like well-done steak. You’ll have to excuse me if I inadvertently became an obtuse prick in the post of mine that you’re quoting but don’t mistake it for fear of being labeled racist.
I’ve seen that suggestion, but nothing to back it up. And as I may have mentioned, I’ve known people who have firsthand experience of very poor backgrounds – poorer than almost any Americans ever would have experienced, even African Americans – and they don’t have any hangups over food preparation beyond insisting that it’s always available. So color me unconvinced.
So if it doesn’t ruffle your feathers too badly, I hope we can keep talking about the topic at hand. A prissy “we gave you a possible, speculative answer to this purported observation of yours, so I declare there’s no need to keep talking about it” kind of goes against the spirit of the SDMB, don’t you think?
Just like there’s been nothing to back up that blacks like well-done steak other than the OP’s anecdotes.
I didn’t call for a cease of discussion. I was telling him what my disagreement with his premise was. If anything, accepting something like “black people like their steak well-done!” as gospel because of an OP’s unverified reports is against the spirit of the SDMB.
Why is this a brain teaser or an opportunity to do the smug “that’s racist” dance?
The OP’s observations are largely correct WRT black culinary preferences (the high quality kind you normally grill) is, on average, an expensive meat. The usual connoisseurs of rare steak are middle to upper middle class white (and interestingly) Hispanic males, and in many cases there is near fetish for how to do steak “right”. I’m sure there are black people that love themselves a rare steak, but they are not the usual suspects.
People who do not grow up eating or appreciating rare steak are unlikely to become converts later in life. Most black people who are not from a socio economic context where rare steak eating was a big deal or particularly appreciated are not usually going to want a big bloody steak at restaurants.
I never knew lung cancer was caused by eating underdone pork…
Slow-cooked beef has a certain quality that half-raw meat lacks. It’s not a matter of turning the fire up high & burning the outsides, it’s a matter of taking time with the heat just right. It takes patience, something I hear white people lack.
Here’s what happens when you are a nitpicky smartass:
Someone comes along to point out that lung cancer actually did kill him, as opposed to nearly killing him.
His lawsuit against Trader Vic’s is kind of famous. Google it before you smart off. Thanks.
Actually don’t ask has provided a couple of cites that seem to back up the idea that African-Americans have a higher preference for well-done steaks than other people. That doesn’t mean it’s genetic–I suppose it could be some genetic difference in the umami receptors or whatever; just because “race” is a cultural construct doesn’t mean there aren’t real genetic differences between different populations–but it’s probably more likely cultural.
It could, as suggested, be a socio-economic thing, since poverty correlates with “race” in the U.S. It could also have originated as a socio-economic thing, but become cultural; i.e., a well-to-do black lawyer still orders his steaks well-done because that’s how his mama always cooked them (and she cooked them that way because she could only afford cheap cuts of meat); and even the second generation well-to-do black lawyer who grew up in comfortable upper-middle-class surroundings still orders his steaks well-done, because his mama cooked them that way, because his daddy liked them that way, because his mama cooked them that way, because she grew up poor, etc. And then generalize to a whole ethno-cultural group (which a few generations ago suffered near-universal poverty as the legacy of slavery and entrenched racism), and it becomes a cultural thing, like any other ethnic-cultural food preference. All of which is completely speculative, of course.
The first image result for, “ebono-centric southern english transplantation culture,” was this:
http://shavarross.com/2010/07/27/worlds-first-full-face-transplant-man-revealed-video/
My grandmother was (white) Caribbean and abhorred any hint of blood in her meat. She said it was cultural to the Caribbean. All her black friends had the same preference. (In one memorable incident she recounted to me, a black friend of hers screamed when she was served a steak with a hint of pink, and sent it back, looking very nauseous.) Wild-ass speculation: I wonder if there might be a west African root to the preference? Food taboos and rules, are very persistent, even when detached from their origins.
What smarting off, he died in 1985 of lung cancer… 11 years after he had what in one web page was claimed to be food poisoning, and another claimed was trichinosis, one claimed the lawsuit was $3 mil, another claimed $7 mil.
I remember both seeing his final appearance in King and I, his TV ad against smoking, and can clearly remember reading of his death from lung cancer.
Ok, let’s try this again, really slowly:
Claim: Yul Brynner almost died of disease X.
Fact: He caught trichinosis and almost died
Fact: he did not die from it
Fact: the world “almost” is clearly defined
Fact: “almost” means he did not die from trichinosis, but that he came close
Fact: He actually did die from lung cancer
Fact: He did not “almost” die from lung cancer given that he actually died from lung cancer.
Conclusion: he did not ever “almost” die from lung cancer
Conclusion the second: he did “almost” die from trichinosis
Conclusion the third: my point stands.
Christ.
There are tests that can be done to help you resolve this. If only to satisfy ones curiousity. They are generally inexpensive. 
You win the prize.
My dad grew up dirt poor. His father was a sharecropper during most of my dad’s childhood.
He didn’t have many steaks. Butchered beef was sold off the farm and not eaten. When he did eat steak it was a cheap cut, well done, and coated in A-1 sauce. Well done makes a cheap cut easier to chew. Dads navy records show he had rickets when he joined. He didn’t get much nutrition as a child. Certainly very little steak.
Medium steak with no sauce is an acquired taste. My mom used to encourage dad to try the steak without A-1. Eventually he preferred it that way. Then he started ordering it medium. Never medium rare. 
Old habits die hard.
YMMV. But that was my personal experience with dad.
It’s not just a poor thing, though. The best chefs of the previous generation almost unanimously preferred medium as the best way to cook steaks and other red meats.
It’s only been in the last 10-20 years that the rare/medium-rare thing has taken off. I’ve never seen any real investigation of this change, but I believe that a lot of it is a sort of “bottom-up” change rather than one based on food safety. Basically, the whole idea of rare being the “best” preparation has been promoted by popular culture (as opposed to actual taste preference). The rise of sushi and carpaccio have (IMO) contributed to the trend.
You can see this in effect if you watch Top Chef, where a lot of the older famous chefs disagree with the usual judges about over/undercooking of cuts of meat, as well as looking at older cooking instructions that describe what a “perfectly cooked” piece of meat looks like.
Admittedly, the change could be due to increased food safety in the last couple of decades, but there hasn’t been a large safety change in the last several decades. I believe (without cites) that the real driving force has been popular culture portraying rarer as having a sort of snob appeal rather than an actual flavor or texture difference – never will you see the sort of stereotypically badass character ordering their steak well-done unless it is for comedic effect.
ETA: it’s similar to the James Bond “Shaken not stirred” thing – the old school belief is that shaking bruises the gin, but most people these days seem to want Bond style martinis, because they associate it with suave sophistication.
Also, it’s easy for a careless griller to “cook” meat to rare. Medium-rare fits the careless, who would burn the outside black & leave the inside rare if they tried to cook to medium. I’ve had this crud served to me many times, even with hamburger, which you’re not really supposed to serve rare.
Inexpensive? Hell, they’re free. Just drive through an all-white suburb at 3:00 AM. You’ll find out if you’re black. In America you are the race you are perceived to be. It’s a phenomenological universe out there.
You are a very unpleasant person.