'Make It Rare': Modernists Write About Steak

‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Pig’

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo....

He was baby tuckoo. And he was hungry. The moocow came down the road where he lived: he waited.

O, the rare side of beef.

On the little green plate.

He ate that moocow. That was his steak.

O, the brown steak.

When you eat the steak first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother put on the fish. That had the queer smell.

His steak had a nicer smell than his fish. He played with the food and later, he threw up.

Whoosh la la la
Whoosh tralaladdy
Whoosh lala.



‘Burnt Angus’

Dinner present and dinner past
Are both perhaps present in dinner future,
And dinner future contained in dinner past.
If all dinner is eternally present
All dinners are unredeemable.
What might have been is an apertif
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of steak.
What might have been medium and what has been medium rare.
Point to one end, which is always rump.
Forkfuls fall in the memory
Down the mouthfuls which we did not chew
Towards the piece we never sliced
Into the hindquarters.
My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dressing on a bowl of salad
I do not know.


...to be continued