Carnivore

The dominant wolf gets the liver, at least according to the podcaster Joe Rogan. In one episode, a bodybuilder called “CarnivoreMD” (real name Paul Saladino) tells him: “If you eat liver, you get to be an alpha male... or alpha female.” Offal has taken a markedly macho turn in recent years. No longer consigned to memories of the postwar school cafeteria, organs have become the preferred food of a certain type of gym bro. The word “offal” implies wastage — from the Middle Dutch for offcuts — but it can also be a delicacy. Foie gras is only the most obvious example. For the most part, though, the West has become squeamish about what was once called “variety meat.” But a new wave of offal-lovers is reviving an interest in organs.

Summer is fading fast, and though, according to my calendar, “the Autumnal Equinox” (is that the newest model of Hyundai?) isn’t until September 22, all the things we love about the season — swimming, county fairs, outdoor drinking, the August congressional recess — are essentially over after this weekend. And while people mark Labor Day in different ways, one of the best is with a barbecue, one of the few culinary traditions America can truly call its own. Smithsonian Magazine tells us barbecue has its origins in the first indigenous tribes Christopher Columbus encountered, who had a “unique method for cooking meat over an indirect flame, created using green wood to keep the food (and wood) from burning.