Studying the Thenar Eminence of Amateur cooKs (STEAK) study: a double‐blinded, cross‐sectional study

Objectives: To evaluate the reliability of using the thenar eminence to determine steak doneness. Design: Double‐blinded, cross‐sectional study. Setting: Various home kitchens in Melbourne, Australia. Participants: Amateur/home cooks. Main outcome measures: The accuracy of the finger test (the tenseness of the thenar eminence in different hand positions) for determining how well a random beef steak has been cooked (rare v medium‐rare v medium v well‐done). We also examined whether participants improved with practice and whether the accuracy of the finger test was correlated with age, sex, cooking experience or self‐rated steak‐cooking ability. Results: Twenty‐six participants completed the study, and showed that they could accurately determine the doneness of a steak with the finger test better than chance (χ2[1, n = 156] = 9.88; P