An Excerpt from the Upcoming Book: Man vs. Inevitable Diabetes

Welcome to Inside The Stoves by Jason Kessler. Each week Kessler will look deep within the soul of food media and come out with fake excerpts from fake books that are absolutely, positively not real. Basically, it's foodie fan fiction.

The room was cold. It wouldn’t be so cold if the doctor had let Adam keep his In-N-Out shirt on, but she made him take it off. Apparently, you can’t hook up electrodes through a t-shirt and faux army jacket. So now Adam Richman sat there on crinkly sterile paper, mostly naked and entirely cold, waiting for the doctor to tell him why he couldn't fall asleep anymore without smelling meat.

It’s not all that surprising. After so many challenges featuring six-pound sandwiches and 72 oz. steaks, you’d think that meat would haunt the Man v. Food host for the rest of his life. You’d be right. Stomachs are like elephants and assistant principals – they never forget.

Adam stared at the doctor’s degree from NYU Med School on the wall and wished he had used his own Yale drama degree for something less gluttonous. He could have done Shakespeare in a park somewhere. Now the only shakes he gets are of the milk variety.

The doctor entered in the room and pulled up a chair. Adam looked at her, trying to suss out what the news might be. She was completely poker-faced. “I bet I could have played a good pediatrician on TV?” Adam thought. The doctor stared down at the chart, trying to figure out the best way to break the news. Finally, she looked Adam in the eye. “Well, I have a diagnosis.”

“Lay it on me, doc.” Adam expected the worst. He had taken down some of the spiciest hot wings on the planet and lived to tell the tale, but you don’t eat in the devil’s kitchen without leaving a bit of yourself as a tip. It was time to pay the piper.

The doctor took a deep breath. “I’ve never seen anything like this before, but we ran some tests and – I can’t believe I’m about to say this – you literally have pork running through your veins.”

Adam was stunned. He didn’t know what to say. His mind drifted and he imagined himself at a fake press conference wearing sunglasses and humbly gloating about the number of cupcakes he had just eaten. The doctor’s calm, precise voice snapped him back to reality.

“So, basically, I’ve surmised that you have a rather rare condition. I’m going to call it carnivorous hyperhidrosis.”

“I have a master’s in theatre, doc. I have no idea what that means.”

The doctor stared at Adam with a look that can best be described as pity mixed with disgust. “Adam, I’m sorry. It means that you have a permanent case of the meat sweats.”
·All Inside The Stoves Coverage [~ELA~]
— Jason Kessler

*Jason Kessler writes The Nitpicker column for BonAppetit.com as well as "Heart Attack" for FoodRepublic.com. He also writes things for television.