Grilling as a Rite of Passage

This is what Stauffer men do. I'm a Stauffer man. So, I grill.

Dad is “licensed to grill,” and this is how we do it.

Growing up as a young man, my family never had any serious “rites of passage” from childhood to manhood in almost any sense. We never had any rituals I can think of, and there were no particularly special birthdays that served as markers for passing from being a child to an adult. There wasn’t anything that showed a line of demarcation between the boys and the men.

Well, that is, except for one weird thing: grilling.

In our family, for years, even centuries, perhaps, young boys would go outside with their fathers when it was time to “grill” for dinner.

The Stauffers, for generations, have continued our German tradition of grilling bratwurst and other various forms of sausage, then bringing them inside the house and piling them high with sauerkraut and brown mustard.

During family get-togethers, the men—always the men—would go outside to grill dinner in the late afternoons. They’d drink beer while talking and laughing, crowded around the grill, making sure the main dish was cooked to perfection on an open flame as the women stayed inside making fruit salad, and all manner of potato sides: potato salad, potato casserole, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, or Potatoes au Gratin.

Over the years, this changed a bit, and as we became more American, this traditional grilling of sausages grew to include other things like chicken, fish, kabobs, and steak.

Especially steak.

For as long as I’ve been alive, in every memory I’ve ever had standing near the grill, it was always the men doing the grilling. That’s how we do our thing, and boy, are we good at it.

Our family’s favorite item to grill, after bratwurst, was tri-tip steak, and we were well-known for it. People would come from far and wide—literally from all over the state—to visit our house on holidays because they knew we’d be grilling steak and that it would be fantastic.

Stauffers will grill 365 days a year, come rain or shine.

Because I grew up with our well-marinated tri-tip steak, and that seemed normal to me, I always thought it was good. But I had no idea just how good it was. I remember the first time I learned about this.

I was spending the night at a friend’s house, and for dinner, the mother—a woman—grilled T-Bone steaks. We sat down at the table, and I used the knife I was given (not a steak knife) to attempt to cut into the charred mass that looked like a brake pad on my plate.

It was awful.

I couldn’t understand why this family had chosen to serve this for dinner, especially when they had dinner guests. I was further confused when my friend’s sister said, “Hey, mom, this steak is really good!”

I saw there, mystified, looking at her plate, wondering if she’d been given something different than I had. She hadn’t. We both had the same stiff, overcooked hunk of cheap beef on our plates, and I had a real-life epiphany right then, right there, as a ten-year-old boy, for the first time ever.

These people have no idea how bad this is: they don’t know what good steak tastes like.

I felt bad. Because I felt like I was being an ungrateful jerk, but I also because I wanted them to taste what a good steak tastes like.

“I can’t imagine what they’d say if they tried the steak that we grill at home,” I thought.

As I got older, I was given more responsibility around the grill: I could stack the charcoal, light it on fire, fan the flames, and perform some of the other tasks. But the grilling itself—that was always reserved for the men. Only my grandpa, my uncles, and my dad did the grilling.

One day, when I was close to becoming a teenager, one of my uncles gave me a version of the “Someday, son, this will all be yours” speech. He said:

“Pretty soon, Ron, you’ll be able to use the grill. You’ll even be able to grill without needing any help.”

WOW! I can’t believe it! I thought, my eyes bugging out of my head at the mere idea of being able to do something of such importance to the family.

“I’ll be able to grill?!” I asked, unsure that I’d heard him correctly.

“Oh, yeah. In a few years, I’ll bet you could even do it all yourself.”

“Really?” I asked, incredulous and wanting to make sure I understood what he was actually saying. I doubted that this would ever actually happen.

“Sure! Just think: your dad will say, ‘Hey, Ron, why don’t you grill the steaks tonight?’ and you’ll be able to take care of the whole thing.”

I started my oldest son in the very early days. He did great.

Wooooooowwww….. I thought, in utter astonishment, nearly drunk with power on the thought that I could actually run the grill myself and make dinner for the whole family.

Fast forward a few years, and that day finally came. My uncle’s prediction had come true: I became the king of the grill, expertly running our old Weber charcoal grill long past its expiration date, cranking out one delicious, hot, sizzling steak after another to grateful family members.

I felt like a young man who had inherited unbelievable riches and was working hard to keep the family tradition and lineage alive.

A few years after we moved from California to Colorado, when I was around 17 years old, I invited two friends, teenage boys slightly older than me, over for a sleepover. For dinner, I grilled our family’s famous garlic-stuffed, teriyaki-marinated tri-tip.

It took a long time to get the grill just right, and I had started it too late in the day. I became nervous, fanning the fire after the sunset until the flames died down and the coals started glowing that beautiful, deep, raging orange.

I threw the steaks on the grill and tenderly butterflied them while holding a flashlight in my mouth, trying to see everything and hoping beyond hope that I hadn’t burned them.

When I pulled the dripping red beef off the grill, the delicious, smoky, caramelized smell of garlic and teriyaki followed the big steaming plate as I went inside. I set it on the table, lifted the aluminum foil, and my friends dug in.

They made nearly orgasmic sounds, vacillating between being speechless and pouring profuse praise over my handiwork.

“This is the best steak I’ve ever had in my life,” one said.

“This is better than the Steaksmith,” the other said.

I wore a massive smile. I felt so proud. I felt like a man.

Many years later, after I’d grown up and gotten married, I actually tried steak from the legendary Steaksmith—that restaurant that people in Colorado Springs used as a barometer for measuring the definition of “good steak.”

I was shocked to find out that my steak was better. Way better.

The tri-tip my family had been making for decades in our humble backyard was, in fact, much better than the steaks people were paying $30 to $50 dollars a piece for at a premiere steak house.

What?!

Much later, in the 2010s, I was able to put what my family grill had produced to the test against an even more formidable opponent. At work, I won a gift certificate to “The Famous” — a steakhouse downtown known for fancy steaks and fixings.

We made an evening of it: my wife dressed up for the occasion, with a nice new dress, and I even put on a suit coat. It was all so very fancy.

There was a piano player. We started with crab cakes for an appetizer. Maryland Blue Lump Crabcakes, in fact, with Dijon Aioli. Ooooh… everything was fancy, fancy, fancy.

We ordered the fanciest steaks on the menu. When they came to the table, we took the first bite and… were disappointed.

“Is that it?” my wife and I both wondered at the same time.

It wasn’t bad steak, to be sure.

But really, this was what fancy and expensive steaks tasted like at a fancy and expensive steakhouse, where our server wore a suit and tie and cleaned off our table with a crumb sweeper?

When it was done, we spent over $175 for dinner, and we agreed that the steak was good.

Not incredible. Not excellent. Not even great. It was just good.

That’s the last time I’ve ever spent big bucks on steak. It’s so hard to justify doing so when I know that what I can grill myself is just so much better.

As I mentioned, this is not just me saying it’s better: most people who have come to our house for steak tell us it’s the best steak they’ve ever had, and I have to agree with them.

It’s just a fact.

These days, I still grill on a fairly regular basis, but I grill ribeyes instead of tri-tip. That’s my own personal twist on the family tradition. And, recently, I’ve recently started using dry rubs instead of marinades.

It just keeps getting better and better.

My oldest son is doing pretty well these days.

My wife and I are getting better at choosing better cuts of meat. We’re getting better at preparing the meat. And I’m getting better at grilling it. We make a good team. She prepares it, and I grill it.

When I stand in my backyard with a beer in hand, just like my father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, and who knows how many more Stauffer men going back to our earliest days in this country, I never feel more American.

Also, on a side note, I always take a “grilling buddy” with me when I grill, just like my dad did. But unlike in previous generations, I let my daughters grill as well. They aren’t hard-core about it like I was when I was their age, but they have been interested in trying it out.

My oldest daughter tries grilling hamburgers.

We’ve started smaller with easier items like hot dogs, bratwursts, and hamburgers.. and maybe we’ll get to steaks someday. It’s still a little bit weird for me to see girls working the grill—I never saw that growing up. But I like it. I like including my daughters in the family tradition, even if they only have a passing interest.

When I get ready to grill, I’ll make an announcement to the whole house:

“I’m going to go grill some steaks for dinner. Who wants to be my grilling buddy?”

Usually, my sons fight over who gets to help, and I like the competitive nature of it. I like that they want to be part of the family tradition. And I like that my girls also want to be a part of it sometimes.

My second-oldest daughter tries her hands at grilling steak.

But regardless of who’s going to help me, if anyone even does, here I’ll be, for the rest of my life, doing my Stauffer man thing: standing by the grill, beer in hand, making dinner for my family.

That’s what Stauffer men do. I’m a Stauffer man, and this is the one lone tradition we’ve passed down from generation to generation.

If you’re ever in the area, feel free to drop by and give our steak a try. If you’re like everyone else, you’ll love it.