The guy way of cooking

This is “The Guy Way” to prepare a healthy, raw vegetable dinner. 1) Take raw vegetables from fridge. 2) Throw them in the bin. 3) Go out for a steak.

But be warned: some of the guy-est guy foods are in danger. Meats are going through “the zombie barrier” according to a reader who asks only to be identified as Riki. He showed me the viral video circulating in the past few days showing a piece of raw beef throbbing and pulsating - despite being on a kitchen counter, ready for the pan.

It was linked to another viral video showing a beheaded cuttlefish rising from a seafood salad and dancing, despite not having a brain. (In this sense, cuttlefish are like human males, who also only dance when they have used a powerful chemical - Carlsberg Special Brew - to cause temporary lobotomies, a Latin-derived medical term meaning “surgical removal of the part of the head that prevents men behaving like bottoms”).

Riki’s theory is that food is now so full of chemicals - especially in China, where the beef video came from - that you cannot kill it. It is “Undead”. You can tear it to shreds but it will keep creeping back to life with terrifying relentlessness, a bit like Britney Spears’ career.

The video of the throbbing beef, filmed by “Mrs Cheng of Shandong” and spread by China’s CCTV, was fake, said a butcher quoted by Channel 9 news of Australia. He’s wrong.

In the interests of science, this columnist bought a zombie steak from a nearby wet market (it looked dead at first, but the butcher hit it with the back of his chopper to make it start pulsating), and it WAS pretty upsetting. “Shh! It’s okay. I'm not going to hurt you,” I found myself lying to the plastic bag.

By the time I got home, it had stopped moving, and I wasn’t sure whether to mince it for burgers or organise a funeral with a choir and a selection of tasteful inter-faith readings.

Becoming a vegetarian may not be a complete answer. A reader who is a passionate vegan (“emotional person behaving as if she comes from the planet Vega”) forwarded a recent article from Britain about farm vegetables showing curious behavior, with some “singing” audibly. Cauliflowers are creaking and squeaking, while rhubarb is making a fizzing, popping noise. Scientists say it might be related to climate change.

She shared with me her puzzlement over how to be kind to vegetables. “If you cook vegetables before you eat them, you’re boiling them alive - but if you consume them raw, you’re eating them alive,” she said. “Which is worse?” I left her apologising to a head of lettuce as she viciously tore off its leaves.

The only possible answer is to drop both meats and plants. That leaves us with an all-salt diet, which could get kind of boring after the first 30 seconds or so.

I opted for pasta. Here's a useful note on "The Guy Way of Estimating The Right Amount of Pasta to Cook." 1) Guess the right amount of pasta to put into boiling water. 2) Wait for it to cook. 3) You were wrong.

Bon appétit!

- (Nury Vittachi is an Asia-based frequent traveller. Send ideas and comments via his Facebook page)

Nury Vittachi