Outside of this YouTube world, the rest of cooking gets pickier and pickier. More organic. More antioxidant. More local, to the point that only tomatoes grown in your own bathtub will suffice. “Vegan Black Metal Chef” — and all of its satiating brethren — is a rejoinder to every delicate food trend that has infiltrated the nation’s cookbooks and an answer to the prolonged adolescence that has made whole swaths of 20-somethings fear the kitchen.
The response is: Shut up and just cook something.
“I was always paralyzed whenever I would try to cook,” says Zach Golden, a New York copywriter, of the domestic failings that led him to launch the extreme cooking blog “What the [Bad Word] Should I Make for Dinner?”
“Make some [bleeping] baked stuffed lobster,” the site suggests in accusing block letters, providing a link to a recipe.
Golden recently got a book deal — the paper version of the site comes out in August — and he has a massive Facebook community of potty-mouthed cooks who report on their evening menus: “Thai chicken and [bleeping] veggies,” posts someone, to the cheerful response, “Nicely done, [bleep]!”
“I think that half of them are celebrating the defiance,” Golden says, “and half of them are celebrating the use of [Bad Word].”
Somewhere along the line, hunger became an act of defiance, feeding it became an act of rebellion. The people who follow this extreme cooking movement have looked at the Food and Drug Administration and its ever-changing recommendations — the four food groups, the food pyramid, the brand new MyPlate — and thought, Chuck it. We are going to just get into the kitchen and let ’er rip.
It’s 4 a.m.
The Vegan Black Metal Chef is still cooking.
More fire, please. More weapons. He gets a cut while he is dicing some veggies, a battle scar from the deadly Brussels sprout saute. He decides this would make excellent television and waves his bloody finger in front of the camera. Then he seductively licks the knife.
He has cooked until his hair is sweaty, until it clings to his makeup, until his shoulder armor sags off his back. He has cooked in such a way that anyone watching him cook would say, “I can do that. I am going to kick that pasta with spring vegetables’ butt.”
He has put on a good show.
Finally, just before the sun begins to rise in Orlando, he puts the finishing touches on his last dish. He then commences with a ritual headbanging, which is how he typically likes to end a successful cooking session.
The black candles flicker. The countertop is covered with an amazing feast of delicious and cruelty-free menu items. The stereo blasts metal.
Manowitz headbangs and headbangs, his long hair flying, until the meal is cooked, and the song comes to an end, and the only sound left is the sound of his chainmail, fluttering gently through a haze of smoke.
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