Red Meat from an Unexpected Source

Those sentiments are more or less standard among people who like to hunt. The part about feeling “more connected” might be a little much for some people in rural Pennsylvania or Michigan or other places where the opening day of deer season is ­anticipated the way kids look forward to Christmas.

Being a hunter and feeling a love for the hunt and its rituals—including eating what you kill—would probably earn someone a fair number of points toward “deplorable” status on Hillary Clinton’s scorecard. For one thing, hunting almost always ­involves guns.

But the hunter in this case is Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder. Mr. Zuckerberg made the decision to get out of the digital wilderness and into what some think of as the real world a few years ago. He shared his thoughts about this in a recent 30-minute video. Among his props were a couple of grills that were in use, belching smoke and cooking meat. One was a Big Green Egg—the Rolls Royce of grills—the other was one of those where the firebox is offset so that the meat is not exposed to direct heat from the coals. Zuckerberg calls this one The General.

Many of Zuckerberg’s Facebook “friends” were probably bewildered or disappointed. He was, after all, talking about hunting and killing. And a lot of hunters were no doubt looking for something to mock or sneer at. But he didn’t give them much. He said, in fact, things they had probably said themselves. For instance, this, about hunting: “It’s a good way to feel connected to nature. I feel like if you’re going to eat meat then you should be a part of getting [it] .  .  . you should get to know where it comes from.”

Anyone who has taken the backstraps from a deer killed after a careful stalk and a skillful shot, let them age a bit, wrapped them in bacon, then put them on the grill over hot hickory coals .  .  . well, that person ­understands what Zuckerberg is talking about and agrees with him.

And “like” doesn’t even come close to describing it.