click to enlarge PHOTO BY MABEL SUEN

Beast Craft BBQ's big-cut pork steak — the Platonic version of the form.

No, it's not just your imagination — St. Louis really does eat more pork steak than any other city in the country.According to the National Pork Board, consumers in the Gateway City purchased a staggering 4.35 million pounds of pork steak during the one-year period running from February 2016 to 2017. That's more than three times the national average.Interestingly, this delicious fatty cut of the other white meat appears to be mostly popular in the middle of the country. National Pork Board statistics show that St. Louis is followed by New Orleans, Grand Rapids, Memphis and then Kansas City, respectively — making it clear that LA and New York wouldn't know a good cut of meat if their lives depended on it (and hey, here in St. Louis, they sometimes do ).So yeah, you go ahead and chow down on your St. Lunatic burger , sacrificing your weekly allotment of calories for a burger that's been coated in Red Hot Riplets, topped with Provel cheese and sandwiched by slices of Imo's pizza. Fortrue St. Louis experience, we'll go with a pork steak slathered in barbecue sauce, thankyouverymuch. We feel for those lesser cities that don't even know what they're missing.