Smells of steaks in passageways

The above phrase from T.S. Eliot's early poem Preludes puzzled me when I read the poem as a small, rapidly growing teenager who ate steak as often as possible. Later I learned that in 1917 the lower classes ate steak, a cheap cut of meat at the time. Still, "smells" didn't mean much to me.

The other night I picked up two nice ribeye steaks for two nights' dinners. My fiancée likes her steaks cooked to death. These were thick cuts, so death was a slow process. I, liking everything rare, didn't have any experience broiling something for that long, and managed to start a small grease fire.

Lessons - trim the fat from her steak; when dividing, cut the longer-cooking half more generously because it will shrink to an embarrassing degree; line the grease pan with foil; stay vigilant; go reread Eliot.