SAMA HOOLE: Fat is where the vitamins are--A, D, E and K2. Fat is the fabric. Every cell membrane you own, the sheath on every nerve, 60% of your brain by dry weight.

Most people cannot read a steak, which is why they keep buying the wrong one.

Read it in three places, and read it in this order.

The cap. That thick band of pale fat curving round the outside edge, running the full length of this one. Buy it for that alone. As it renders it… pic.twitter.com/1PsivFNdSO

— Sama Hoole (@SamaHoole) August 17, 2026

Most people cannot read a steak, which is why they keep buying the wrong one. Read it in three places, and read it in this order. The cap. That thick band of pale fat curving round the outside edge, running the full length of this one. Buy it for that alone. As it renders it bastes the meat from the outside in, and if the pan is hot enough it crisps into something close to crackling. It is also the first thing a nervous shopper asks the butcher to cut away, which is how a good steak gets ruined before it leaves the counter. The seams. Those wide white rivers running through the middle, dividing one muscle from the next. That is the spinalis separating from the eye, and the spinalis is the finest piece of beef on the animal. Cut it away, eat it on its own, and you will understand why butchers quietly keep that bit for themselves. The marbling. The fine web threaded all the way through the red, like frost on a window in January. That fat sits inside the muscle, so it cannot be trimmed off and it cannot leak away. It melts as the steak cooks, from within, and it is the entire reason a ribeye is juicy while a fillet is merely polite. Flavour lives in the fat. Not in the protein, not in the sear. Almost every aroma compound your nose picks up when beef hits a hot pan comes out of the lipid, which is precisely why a lean cut tastes of very little and needs a sauce sent in to rescue it. Fat is where the vitamins are. A, D, E and K2 will not dissolve in water and they do not travel in lean muscle. Trim the fat and the delivery system goes in the bin with it. Fat is where the fullness comes from. It is what shuts appetite down and keeps it down, which is why a lean meal leaves you rummaging two hours later and a fatty one does not. Fat is what keeps everything moving. It carries the bile, it lines the tract, it is the reason a fatty meal goes through you like it was designed to. Fat is the energy. Nine calories a gram against four, burning clean, no spike, no crash, no dip at three in the afternoon. Fat is the fabric. Every cell membrane you own, the sheath on every nerve, sixty per cent of your brain by dry weight. This one has all three markers. Cap on, seams open, web running edge to edge. Most of what sits in a supermarket chiller has a shaved cap, thin seams and almost nothing running through the middle. Even a ribeye this good comes in at about 1.2 grams of fat to 1 of protein, which is barely over the line. So finish it in butter anyway. Fifty grams in the pan at the end, off the heat, spooned over until the whole thing is glossy.  

Then eat it slowly, because you will not want anything else for the rest of the day, and that is the point.