Tom Mylan shares ways to ‘horribly wound yourself’
We’ve always known that the Atlantic Monthly was a fine publication, cutting a large swath through politics, art, social issues, and even fiction. But it began to lose us when it took a turn for the pulpy and had its pop-culture makeover (turning point — the Leave Britney Alone cover). But this grande dame of print has fully recovered — at least in our eyes.
Well sort of, since the article that has captured our fancy exists only in online form, so we may not spread it out on the counter and drip our blood on it after we accidentally cut ourselves while attempting simultaneously to read its instruction and slice meat (the piece, incidentally, spends far more time on the former than it does on the latter).
We are speaking, of course, of “How to Wield a Knife” by Mr. Tom Mylan, published by the Atlantic online. Mylan’s method, which he pretty much sums up as “ways to horribly wound yourself,” is, like the renaissance in butchery he helped ignite, a basic-is-best approach.
Mylan is a deft writer, and the short piece, one part instruction, one part memoir, and two parts warning, is a must-read for anyone who has ever spent too much on a knife forged in Japan by the descendant of some ancient swordmaker out of a Tarrantino film, or who just wants learn new ways to slice off pieces of his or her thumb.
“I am an expert,” writes Mylan. He is not, however, referring to butchery. This declaration follows the subhead “Cutting yourself.” In this section we learn one of the secrets to Mylan’s success: his butcher bra — a chainmail chest piece he wears while working that keeps major arteries safe from sharp blades. (You can get yours through Stahlnetz, a German manufacturer of all sorts of bizarre butcher equipment.) While this piece of equipment might be excessive for the average home cook, most of Mylan’s advice — self-effacing, informative yet not instructive — can be applied to your kitchen.
No doubt, the publication of this story will really piss off Julie Powell (who seems to feel she has some sense of ownership over Mylan, as if he were a band she ‘discovered’ in high school that now all these assholes are listening to). But we are all for things that piss off Julie Powell, so please read it.
