If I'm going to have st**k, it's got to be five-to-burnt. None of this bleeding bleeding business. Give me charcoal over blood any day. And not too much fat on it, either -- but not so little as to ruin the flavour and texture.
I -- or rather, Simon, for at the time I still thought of myself as a man -- was a vegetarian for five and a half years. Initially, as is the case with so much of the sum total of human endeavour, for the purpose of impressing a member of the opposite sex; and after that ship had sailed away, it became a matter of principle, of not turning back. Then when I finally decided it was OK not to be a vegetarian anymore (Sunday lunch at a friend's house was pork or nut roast. As I am allergic to nuts, didn't fancy a plate of just carrots, cauliflower and roast potatoes, dry with neither nutty nor m**ty gravy and the pig was already dead anyway, I tentatively ate the pork. And it was good. The first thing I saw taking my plate back into the kitchen was a tea towel with a picture of a pig on it), I sort of re-discovered m**t and tried things like ch**k*n on the bone which I would never have touched before. I still couldn't quite bring myself to eat even a medium st**k, though! The lid was slammed firmly down on that idea at a friend's barbeque party, where I was summoned urgently to the bathroom to receive a brief lecture on the benefits of cooking one's food thoroughly.
For that matter, I still can't quite bring myself not to star out the word "m**t" whenever I type it.