I don’t know how to explain Fox News host Jesse Watters to regular people with good hearts and heads screwed on tight, as the saying goes.
I have so many friends and family who are busy with their lives — stressful jobs, family dinners, weekend hikes, movie dates, church choir rehearsals, etc. I don’t bring up Jesse Watters with them because they’d look at me as if I asked if they’d seen Sasquatch.
“Who?” they’d inquire, and I’d have to explain there’s this guy on cable news who says things that are supposed to make a particular group of people — mostly men who wear their sunglasses on their heads like tiaras — feel good about themselves at the expense of others.
His name is Jesse Watters, and he has the confidence of a country club tennis coach and the wit of a dive bar drunk who can handle only beer or wine. He’s rich and famous and has no idea I exist. He annoys me, and I admit that is entirely my problem.
Recently, he said something so outrageous that I gave myself little choice but to angrily type these little internet words you’re reading. This happened last week? Unless I hallucinated it.
So former Democratic Vice Presidential candidate and current Minnesota governor Tim Walz was on California governor Gavin Newsom’s new podcast (hot take: it should be illegal for politicians to have podcasts) and said the GOP and Fox News were obsessed with his masculinity during the campaign. He had examples of this obsession, including Fox News mocking him for having drunk a milkshake with a straw.
This prompted Watters to rattle off a series of rules for men on-air during a popular Fox panel show. Here’s the quote:
“You don’t eat soup in public. You don’t cross your legs, and you don’t drink from a straw. And one of the reasons you don’t drink from a straw is because the way your lips purse. It is very effeminate. And his excuse was, ‘I was drinking a milkshake.’ Again, you shouldn’t be drinking a milkshake. Milkshakes are for kids.”
Every single male host on Fox News puckers up and kisses President Trump’s ass daily, so I don’t quite get what Watters is thinking here, and it doesn’t matter. None of this matters. I get it. One day, we’ll all be dead.
But men shouldn’t eat soup in public? What the hell is that?
Eat soup, men. That’s my rule. My only rule. For now. Every man should have a signature soup the same way every man should have a favorite baseball team and Led Zeppelin song.
Mine is New England clam chowder, the Cadillac of canned soups. Yes, canned soups. I won’t argue that homemade soup isn’t usually preferable to slime from a can but there’s something about Campbell’s brand clam chowder that really satisfies me. Is it the bits of gristly clam meat? The small potatoe cubes? The intense amounts of salt? Yes.
I have fond memories of buying groceries on a tight budget when I was a young man, and Campbell’s New England Clam Chowder was a dependable feast, especially with a sleeve of saltine crackers. Rich, creamy, decadent.
The three manliest foods can be categorized thusly: sandwiches, meats, and soups. The most important part of a sandwich is it’s inherent portability, which makes it perfect adventure food. A steak is manly for many reasons, one of which is that you need a big sharp knife to eat it with. And then there’s soup.
Vikings cooked meaty soups in huge cauldrons over open fires. Conquering Roman Legionnaires ate a kind of soup, or pottage called ‘puls,’ a bowl of farro boiled in water, flavored with spices and meat scraps. Pottage is an old timey word for stew. Were I a knight errant, I would likely sustain myself on pottage during long quests.
Japan’s Sumo Wrestlers bulk up on a special, ancient stew called Chankonabe, which is full of, well, everything, vegetables and fish and chicken and tofu. The American Revolution ran on pepper pot soup, which was made from chewy tripe and loads of pepper.
What happens if you’re not a man who eats sandwiches, meats, and soups? Absolutely nothing. It’s just food. Gender is not a Newtonian law of physics — the way humans express their identities is subjective, and it changes, constantly.
The GOP is, to paraphrase Walz, obsessed with masculinity because all political parties sell religion, and Republicans specifically want their faithful to believe God Himself carved rules for men into stone. But He did not. There are no rules. Fifty years ago, men with long hair were the end of the world. We’re fine.
If I had to assign a single virtue to masculinity, it would be perseverance. The ability to push forward despite setbacks, to strive against the odds, and to refuse to give up is something the men who raised me — who taught me right from wrong — would agree that perseverance — fortitude, grit, backbone — is manly. A man tries and if he fails, he tries again. I’d like to think those same dudes who also back me up on this statement: you are what you eat, and after a long day of working hard to make your dreams come true, nothing beats slurping up a bowl of chili.
Gender should be fun, and saying things like “soup is manly” or “salads are for ladies” is an extremely silly way to spend one’s time. I love silliness, and so I will continue: soups are manly for many reasons, one is that they’re a sloppy, noisy food. For instance: BBQ ribs are a manly food because you cannot eat them properly unless your face ends up looking like a crime scene.
Soups are meant to be slurped and slurped loudly because men are noisy. We love chainsaws and heavy metal and fireworks. The louder, more passionate, the wet mouth sounds, the tastier, and manlier, the meal. Soup is meant to be eaten greedily, and quickly. It is food for those in a hurry, or ending a shift. The louder the sucking sounds, the better. I’m a firm believer that you ain’t a real man unless you soak your mustache in broccoli cheese soup.
The French have such elegant names for soups: consommé, vichyssoise, bouillabaisse. One may think that such soups are for dainty snobs, but consider lobster bisque: it is the alpha soup of fancy restaurants, but it was invented by someone who was very hungry and very broke and had just a few pantry ingredients like onions and carrots, maybe some butter, some cream, and lobster shells.
The rich have always eaten the best meats and produce and thrown away the bones and shells, leaving those parts to be boiled and turned into stocks and soups. Lobster bisque is one way to stretch a small amount of lobster. A bowl of that rich, creamy, shellfish-y soup is hearty and satisfying, especially if you struggle to fill your belly. The very best of French cuisine is scrappy and simple, like French onion soup, which is just beef broth, an obscene amount of onions, and cheese, lots of cheese.
What’s the difference between soup and stew? Well, they’re both served in a bowl and eaten with spoons. They’re both economical, too. Stew is traditionally chunkier, like a chowder, and soup is more broth-forward. One of my favorite soups is broccoli cheddar, which isn’t a stew, but it’s thick. And chicken noodle soup isn’t a stew, but it’s hearty. I think stews are probably more inherently masculine because they’re like a soup with muscles.
While we’re on this topic: is there a difference between a bisque and a chowder? Yes. It’s subtle, but a bisque is smooth, velvety, and a chowder is heartler and usually has root vegetables.
My favorite stew is beef chili, which is a stew. I wonder what Jesse Watters thinks of cowboys hunched over steaming bowls of chili after a long day on the range. If freedom was dinner, it would taste like chili.
I think every dude should know how to make chili, and chili is one of the great improvisational dishes — there’s literally no wrong way to make it. Now, Texans can be very particular about their chili; I’ve known plenty who think chili is just slow-cooked chunks of beef, with some onion and chili powder and a kiss of cumin. I respect traditional Texas chili, but brother, I’m a bean man myself.
My chili is radioactive — I use fresh serrano peppers — and chock full of pintos, my favorite frijole. I’m also a cumin freak, I can’t get enough. Chili is chili powder and spices, a meat of some kind, or no meat at all, some tomatoes, and broth and a few hours of heat. Or less. I have been known to make vegetarian chili for my in-laws, which is basically a bean party (I invite kidney and black beans). Chili is filling and cheap, and it makes excellent leftovers. That stew has gotten me through more than one lean winter, back when I was broke and hustling.
This country was built by men fueled by soups and stews: oyster, oxtail, chicken and dumplings. Matzo ball soup. Pozole. Borscht, blood-red and delicious. Soups loaded with cabbage or lentils or rice. America runs on soup. And caffeine. Booze, too. But yes, soup.
When I’m feeling under the weather, I love takeout hot and sour soup from my corner Chinese food restaurant. Have you ever seen truckers eat huge bowls of pho? I have, at a Vietnamese restaurant off a highway exit in rural Oregon. Those guys hoovered up ropes of rice noodles like they were being paid by the hour to do so. Is gazpacho basically ketchup soup? Yes. It’s fine. A lesser soup, to be honest. But tomato soup? One spoonful and I’m ten, and it’s snowing.
I can’t think of a soup I wouldn’t eat. All soup is good. Soup is honest food. It is food for the hungry and it makes me wonder how Jesse Watters eats a slice of pizza. Or a taco. Or barbecue. I wonder if he’s ever truly been hungry, or yearned for something more. At the end of a long day, has he ever sighed and tucked into a hot bowl of chicken noodle soup? Has he ever even had a long day?
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of John DeVore's work on Medium.