Happy Meat-morial Day!
May 29th, 2006 by Scott
Happy Memorial Day, folks, or as I like to call it, “Meat-morial Day”! You may not know it, but this holiday, once called “Decoration Day,” was originally a celebration of the Union troops’ return to the north after that unpleasantness between the states all those years ago. It became more of a national holiday after WWI, but even so, it wasn’t celebrated in the south until very recently (my father told me that, growing up in Lake Charles, LA, no one would take school or work off on this day; he only started using it as a work holiday last year). But despite my southern brethren’s continued bitterness over the Union victory (yes, even still), we make certain to commemerate our fine men and women in uniform today by grilling up a holy shit-ton of meat.
This is something about America that I really, truly love and appreciate: when we have a national day of celebration, be it Memorial Day, Independance Day, Thanksgiving — hell, I bet even Arbor Day — the foremost important activity is the consumption of animal flesh. Well, that and blowing things up, which I’m also quite partial to (ever see what an M-80 does to a honeydew melon? Fruit-salad shrapnel, watch out!). Why is this, I’ve often wondered? Is there something deeply, fundamentally American about eating meat? I’m inclined to say yes, and I doubt I’d be hard pressed to fine some red-blooded, hardworking Yanks to agree with me. One very fascinating — not to mention poignant, thoughtful and beautifully written — take on the significance of American meat. appeared in Salon today. For the author’s kin, who struggled mightily over the decades and rarely had the means to eat any meat at all, hosting an elaborate BBQ brimming over with meat dishes is their way of celebrating triumph over hard times. This, friends, is the American dream, realized with meat.
So, too, do I celebrate this Memorial Day. It’s a tame one for me this year, especially in comparison to the one described in Susan Straight’s Salon piece mentioned above, but nice all the same. I just spent the weekend in Dallas to attend the wedding of my cousin Jessica, and now I’m back with my folks in Shreveport, LA, where they moved after losing our house to Katrina flooding last year. It’s nice here, in that quiet, southern bible-belt kind of way, which is a welcome relief to the anxiety-producing cacophany, claustrophobia, steel and concrete of New York, where I now live. So I took the opportunity to do a little grilling with Maw and Paw. The Shameless Carnivore’s Memorial Day Special?
Inside-out bleu cheeseburgers!
I’ve had this recipe in my head for years, but I’ve never gotten around to attempting it. No time like the present, right? Basically, you take your mixed and seasoned meat — I use half ground sirloin, half ground chuck (keeps it sticky without being too fatty), along with finely chopped white onion, minced garlic, soy sauce, Worchestershire, a little salt, cayenne pepper, parsley flakes and a dash of dry ground mustard — and wrap it around a small hunk of nice and stinky bleu. The result is something that looks like an ordinary burger…but take a bite and SURPRISE, melted cheese on the inside! Top it off with some sliced roma tomatoes, fresh romaine and a little dijon mustard, and you have a hamburger worthy of celebrating our proud troops and veterans. Pair that with a an icey beer some roasted corn, and you have USA on a plate:
Cheers, and happy holiday!
