Almost every man likes to grill. But not every man LOVES to grill. What delineates the two, is that all men don’t understand the importance of a GOOD grill. I was guilty of this fault for a very long time, actually for my whole life up until last summer.

You see, I grew up a vegetarian. Therefore, I grew up without a barbecue grill most of my life too. Of course, you can grill vegetables, but it isn’t as fun as grilling meats. It wasn’t until late middle school and into high school that I convinced my parent’s to get a grill, even before I became an omnivore. But since my parents knew that there isn’t as much to grill when you’re vegetarian, we bought an inexpensive Ch*rbroil grill from the Wally Word down the road. It was great, for a few summers. Back when I didn’t understand why my food burned on one side and didn’t cook on the other. Why the back of the grill was always searing hot while the middle was hardly warm. I also didn’t understand that how come it grew rust every year even after spending an extra $40 on a grill cover. I never made the connection that a cheap grill equals lower quality. Now, this is no knock on the brand at all, since they do make some decent grills for the price.

But I always figured that “Dude, it’s grill. It’s meant to spit out flames and heat up some metal.” I guess this alludes to the primitive nature of grilling. The throwback to cooking over a tribal fire, the searing of raw meats, and the smokey goodness of charred food. And in a way, it truly is. Studies have shown that the cooking of meats by grilling actually creates new molecules by the breakdown of amino acids and sugars (like that charred crust on your steak). Neanderthal and Cro Magnon man evolved for thousands of years, long before the invention of the backyard grill, by cooking food over an open flame. So don’t ignore that craving you always get for some grilled food, it’s in your blood! Or genes, I should say.
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