CLOSE TO THE BONE

Embracing your animal instincts is the best way to enjoy meat, if not the most decorous, finds Kelly Eng.

When I first met my partner, I hid it, of course. It was only when he was out watering the orchids or flossing his teeth that I could do it – quickly, furtively. But even then I was outed fairly early on. After volunteering to make pea and ham soup, I was caught in flagrante delicto with the ham hock. Oh the shock. The shame. The gristle.

Let me state my truth: I’m an avid eater of meat on the bone. And when I say avid, I mean I go at it like Henry VIII cross-bred with a Neanderthal. It’s not just the meat: it’s the cartilage, the tendon, the bone, the marrow. There’s nothing I won’t tackle. Cutlery, you venture? It’s just not effective for those hard-to-reach crevices. Inevitably I’m left despairing at all the wasted meat that I know could be hoovered up in one fell suck.

Eating meat off the bone is ugly; it can’t be prettied up or Photoshopped. There’s no greater dilemma than being presented with a quail leg at a cocktail party and trying to do it justice while holding a drink and a clutch and discussing #MeToo. (Looking angry at the patriarchy is hard with a femur lodged between your front teeth.) But in the privacy of your own home and the safety of your least-elasticised tracksuit pants, going hard at a bone-in morsel is a deeply satisfying experience. Ask any hyena.

Meat close to the bone is slipperier, more succulent, more flavoursome. It’s the best meat. So what if I hail from a long line of bone suckers? (Mother more flatteringly describes us as “hands on”.) The day my partner met the family, my brother was squatting on the floor next to the bin chewing on the remains of a lamb leg, his lips shiny with animal grease.

Then there’s the way Dad “carves” a chicken. While others slice slowly and methodically, Dad dons pink washing-up gloves (for heat protection) and starts ripping it apart. Blobs of chicken juice, gelatine and fat fly in all directions as we hover like hungry lion cubs, preparing to pounce on any scrap that might come our way. Naturally, some meat makes it into his trap as he goes (third-degree burns guaranteed); he then surveys the pile of chicken and – like a bouquet-tossing bride – launches a mini drumstick at a lucky bystander.

Many people feel that eating meat off the bone offers a low return on investment, or that chewing on a carcass is somehow primitive. My partner is in the latter camp. He says it’s the noise that drives him to the edge. It’s about nurture not nature, isn’t it? Bone foods were an alien concept to him growing up – his mother lovingly tweezered the bones out of his tinned fish until he was well into his 30s.

I can see some logic in slicing through chicken breast with sharpened metal – you keep your hands clean and enjoy a solid meat-to-effort ratio – nor does lust blind me to the risk that bone foods present. I’ve had bone fragments wedge themselves in my oesophagus, requiring hasty dislodging (the trick is to eat a rolled-up piece of bread with peanut butter, which isn’t easy to prepare when you’re suffering suddenonset brain hypoxia). But I can only conclude that there’s a fine line between pleasure and pain. And we’re all allowed to get our hands a little dirty.

My partner is very accepting of my primal ways, and our differences work well. When we roast a chicken, I have a leg, he has a breast, and the next night is a happy repeat. The third night, I enjoy two wings and other carcass bits while he eats a cheddar sandwich in the other room with his headphones on. I no longer need excuse myself and head to the opposite end of the house to gnaw on a bone; it is he who is the refugee. I’m out – not of the closet, but the butler’s pantry – and I stand by my right to eat a chicken leg proud. And loud.