NYT: Meat Is Strategy

As a dedicated carnivore, this NY Times story on the sex appeal of eating red meat grabbed my attention:

Restaurateurs and veterans of the dating scene say that for many women, meat is no longer murder. Instead, meat is strategy…In an earlier era, conventional dating wisdom for women was to eat something at home alone before a date, and then in company order a light dinner to portray oneself as dainty and ladylike…“It seems wimpy, insipid, childish,” said Michelle Heller, 34, a copy editor at TV Guide…Ordering meat, on the other hand, is a declarative statement, something along the lines of “I am woman, hear me chew.” In fact, red meat on a date has become such an effective statement of self-acceptance that even a vegetarian like Sloane Crosley, a publicist at Random House, sometimes longs to order a burger. “Everyone wants to be the girl who drinks the beer and eats the steak and looks like Kate Hudson…"

I was first converted to the flesh-noshing lifestyle by cultural anthropologist Marvin Harris’ classic book Cannibals and Kings. Unfortunately, there’s a caveat in the article for single male carnivores:

What about when the tables, so to speak, are reversed? Can a man order a juicy New York strip on the first date and make a good impression? Gentlemen, be careful. Real men, it seems, must eat kale. “When a guy sits down and eats something fatty and big, you wonder if they eat like that all the time,” said Brice Gaillard, a freelance design writer. “It crosses my mind they’ll probably die early.”