The Amorous Brisket

 

“Nothing says ‘I love you’ like the breast of a cow – or maybe that’s diamonds.” Jamie Geller, kosher.com founder

"There are very few brisket recipes that do not have the word love somewhere in their head notes or descriptions.” Food blog post

Yes, brisket is the fastest – and paradoxically – the slowest way to a man’s heart. So there are times when the term brisket lover takes on new meaning. When “voluptuous,” “juicy,” “achingly tender,” don’t just describe the dish, but also the experience of sharing it someone you love. And I’m not talking about watching the Super Bowl with your favorite cousin. The results of my personal experience and my copious research proves that I’m not the only romantic who’s convinced that an excellent brisket can be far more seductive and swoonworthy than all the flowers and chocolates in the world. After all, you can’t eat the freesia. Or braise the Godiva. One of the first things I found out was that while everyone is thrilled to talk about brisket, not everyone wants to talk about their sex lives. But even without contacting the Hilton sisters or the Kardashian sisters, I managed to get some great stories and incontrovertible proof of brisket in the boudoir.

This guilty-pleasure brisket confessional came to me from the very funny and charming Jesse Kornbluth, a writer who lives in New York and edits the cultural concierge blog HeadButler.com:

Jesse Kornbluth: My Brisket Story

“It often happens—okay, it sometimes happens—that you and your new squeeze are having a fine dinner in a chic restaurant. The wine is velvet. A sense of well-being descends. So does lust. If only you could slip under the tablecloth and get to it. But you are not that kind of person. Dinner at her apartment? Different story.

“The brisket had cooked for so many hours that a knife was redundant. The wine was top-of-the-line California—it was the liquid equivalent of the brisket. The music was esoteric, soft but with a steady beat.

“One trick of great dining is small portions—and then seconds. We were on the second helping of brisket and the second bottle of wine when the conversation changed.

“The blouse and skirt came off. There was nothing underneath. And that, kids, was just the preamble. Plates were pushed aside, glasses carefully moved. And up on the table she went, a treasure of a centerpiece.

“Ever since, at Katz’s Deli, I order a brisket sandwich. I really like pastrami better, but with the brisket comes that memory. And it couldn’t possibly be tastier.”

“Is brisket sexy?” I asked Nach Waxman, who is an august food historian and a happily married man. “Well,” he said, after thinking about it for a few minutes. “I think it’s kind of slow-speed sexy.” To me, any kind of sexy is good.