After being vegan for fourteen years, a woman tried home-cooked steak, and was moved to tears. Her raw reaction, as well as her sweet husband’s support, is both really wholesome and incredibly relatable.
In the clip, the woman shared how she longed to have shared food experiences with her husband as he prepared her meal. Any couple where one partner has a dietary restriction has felt this specific kind of longing. It’s…not fun.
As the meat sizzled in oil, the woman said “I’m sooo scared.” The husband, quipped, “I’m more nervous than you are!”
A very high-stakes dinner
Then, the steak was ready. The woman sniffed, it, and with mild disgust said, “it don’t smell good” before reluctantly cutting into it.”
Trying to offer support, the husband says, “do you need any water?” Flustered, the wife playfully says, “you’re asking me too many questions right now!”
Hand trembling as she drew the fork closer to her mouth, she admitted that she already felt like crying. To which the husband lovingly reminded her that she didn’t have to go through with eating the meat. He would eat it in her stead.
One bite, a whole lot of feelings
But eat it she did. And, unfortunately…it wasn’t “really bad,” as she had hoped. With that bite of the medium-rare dish still in her mouth, she cried, “it tastes soooo gooooooood!”
Did we say crying? Scratch that. More like sobbing, blubbering, having a full-on existential crisis.
Even the most enduring and wholehearted of vegans or vegetarians are capable of loving the taste of meat. For many, it’s a matter of discipline over carnal cravings, rather than actual preference
This can, therefore, bring up feelings of guilt, should they, for whatever reason, break their meat-free pact. And the poor gal seems to be experiencing a bit of this in a bad way.
Trying the steak with a piece of garlic made things even more delicious, and therefore more dramatic. With equal parts anguish and ecstasy, she lamented, “my tofu never had any flavor!”
Husband. Chef. Emotional Support.
The husband then tried to comfort his poor, conflicted wife with a hug and a pat on the shoulder as she bawled. What a champ.
“May this kind of love find me,” one viewer wrote.
And then, this woman said perhaps the most relatable statement regarding food ever: “Every time I make a food decision, people get mad at me.”
But certainly, her husband wasn’t mad at her, and the clip ends with them hugging each other and sharing the steak together.
Food is complicated because we are
We all have our own relationships with food, and those relationships can change throughout our lives. A meal can carry memories, values, comfort, nostalgia, celebration, and a whole lot of other complicated feelings. Sometimes, all at once, in one bite.
That’s part of what makes eating such a deeply human experience. Food is about nourishment, of course, but it can also be about identity, values, pleasure, and, of course, the people we share it with. For this couple, all those things came in the form of a rare cooked steak.
There’s no single right way to approach food, and most of us are simply figuring out our own path as we go. Hopefully, we can give ourselves and each other the same grace this husband gave his wife: a little room for big feelings, and someone to share the meal with when we’re ready.
