When I was in sixth grade I very clearly remember sitting at the dining room table cutting into a steak when it suddenly began to move. I sat and watched it slowly pulsating, as though it was breathing. It was very similar to the episode of the Simpsons when the lamb says, “Liiisssa. Dooooon’t eeeat meeee.” Pushing the plate away from me, I announced to my mother that I wasn’t eating meat anymore.
For the next five or six years I didn’t. Much. Occasionally I’d eat some chicken and I remember a very drunken 7-11 hot dog experience in high school, but for the most part I stuck to my proclamation, subsisting primarily on Cap’n Crunchberries, grilled cheese sandwiches and the #2 from McDonalds- please substitute the meat for lettuce and tomato.
My second year of college changed everything. After a year of the college meal plan and the ensuing 10 pound weight loss, I found that I was really, really hungry. My roomate Kate decided to take me out to breakfast. She bullied me into ordering the platter that came with pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage and an enormous ham steak. I ate almost everything on the plate and spent the next several hours in the bathroom. Deciding that my suffering shouldn’t be for naught, I continued to eat meat as often as possible. Ironically, Kate stopped eating meat shortly after that breakfast.
Now I eat meat. All kinds of it. I enjoy chicken, beef, sausage and the occasional veal cutlet. I love ribs and bacon. I’m not so fond of pork or ham and I can’t stand fish, but I am definitely a meat eater.
I’ve never understood people who will eat meat, but only if it’s unrecognizable as such. For example, I’ve had several friends who will eat bacon cheeseburgers and chicken cutlets with abandon, but won’t eat ribs or wings because of the bones. One friend told me, “I can’t eat anything on the bone because then I remember where it came from. A hamburger could be anything. A roast chicken is too… Chickeny.” Chickeny? When I go to the supermarket and see the sterilized packages of steak and boneless chicken breasts I don’t stick them in my cart blindly. I know that I’m eating a dirty nasty, clucking chicken or big-eyed Bessie the cow. When I eat ribs I know that they’re just that- an animal’s ribs. I’m not thrilled about it, and though I may someday, I have no interest in changing my eating habits at this point in my life.
With that said, I had the most bizarre experience the other night. Twice a week I’ll make a big hunk of meat, usually a roast chicken or meatloaf. My last trip to the supermarket, rather than buying a genetically modified, god knows what hormores you’re eating purdue roaster, I bought a kosher chicken. I let the chicken brine for 24 hours in the fridge. When I took it out of the stock pot, dried it and began to rub it with seasoning, I realized that the chicken still had feathers.
What a pain in the ass. In my sheltered life, it never occurred to me that I’d have to pluck a chicken’s feathers. It was incredibly difficult. I tried to pluck them with my fingers to no avail. I thought about pliers, but didn’t want to get raw chicken all over them. The only other thing I could think of was tweezers. It was a painstakingly slow process. I had to pluck one at a time and they were concentrated around the wings, which made them hard to get to. Raw chicken is really fucking slippery. So I gave up. The majority of the chicken was featherless, so I told Boyfiend not to freak out if he got a mouthfull of fuzz. Wondering what that was all about, I checked out the website and learned that it’s not unusual. I guess a couple of feathers aren’t going to kill you.
Even with the feathers, Kosher chicken is far superior to most of the frankenchickens they sell in the supermarket. I’ve also found that it’s tastier than the free range chickens they sell at Whole Foods. I just wish they could do something about the feathers.
In other bird news, Go Eagles!
Anonymous | 23-Jan-05 at 7:57 pm | Permalink
Oh god I hope your not talking about me. If so, for the record, I just don’t enjoy bones. Chicken espically. Which is why I don’t eat wings. 1, they are too damn little, what a pain in the ass. 2, I usually hate the spicy sauce. As for meat, give me a filet mignon, or a nice Chicken Parm, and I am happy
As for the feathers, when I was a kid my school had “Chicken Plucking Day”. I am sure you can imgine the grusome details (Ax, blood, etc)
I did learn one thing, the trick to plucking feathers is to dunk the chicken in a pot of boiling water. It makes it easier to pull them
E
girlfiend | 23-Jan-05 at 7:59 pm | Permalink
I went to the website too late to get that piece of advice. Boiling water seems so obvious in retrospect.
Anonymous | 23-Jan-05 at 8:24 pm | Permalink
This makes me think of my fave bumper sticker: “if we’re not supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat?”
E2
Frally | 23-Jan-05 at 9:11 pm | Permalink
I understand where you’re coming from. I was a most-of-the-time vegetarian too. I thought eating fish was the one meat I could handle. I went out to a spanish restaurant and ordered the fish only to be presented with a whole fish, eyes and all. How could I eat dinner that was looking at me? I took a few bites to be polite and let my husband finish the rest.
I’m now a fully fledged carnivore though. My iron levels were too low. If the doctor says I gotta eat it, then I guess I gotta eat it.
Kamran | 23-Jan-05 at 10:34 pm | Permalink
I think it is horrible that people eat meat when there are plenty of viable other means to having a healthy diet. But I love eating meat, so my philosophy is that I should at least eat meat with integrity. That means that everytime I eat meat, I imagine the animal living a life with a single purpose: to feed me. I try to imagine the animal leading an ordinary animal life and then being slaughtered, butchered, packaged, and shipped to my grocery store. I try to shed a tear for the creature before I sink my teeth into its flesh. This may sound gruesome, but now I feel like an authentic monster instead of an inauthentic monster.
mojo shivers | 24-Jan-05 at 12:21 am | Permalink
I like eating meat. I mean–I understand the implication that an animal had to do in order to get this piece of filet mignon on my table or that lobster tail, but eating something that tastes good makes me happy. And, as they say, if it makes you happpy it can’t be that bad.
I Am The Walrus | 24-Jan-05 at 1:50 am | Permalink
You busted me royally, but I’m glad to know that there are others like me. I admit it, I’m one of those animal eaters that don’t want my meat to look like an animal. So, hamburger, hot dogs, brats, chicken breasts (boneless, skinless) are my meat du jours. Please don’t hate me…but bones just creep me out…
Anonymous | 25-Jan-05 at 2:22 am | Permalink
My sister used to freak out when she saw the bones in meat. She said she got squeamish. Then again, talking about any body part would freak her out — I used to run after her yelling, “Blood! Blood is running through your veins while your muscles are contracting!”
My sister was also a vegetarian by declaration, meaning that she announced that she was a vegetarian when my mom made food she didn’t want, and then went to Skyline Chili the next day.
Unfortunately, she’s not that easy to make fun of anymore as she’s grown out of both of those phases. *sighs*
Brooke
http://www.positivelysomewhere.com
Perdita | 25-Jan-05 at 8:14 pm | Permalink
I’m a lapsed vegetarian too, but I avoid feeling guilty because I was raised on a farm, and I’ve actually butchered chickens.
One time this one got his/her head cut off just right (? that reads funny) so that when you squeezed it, the voicebox still squawked. I regaled my family with selections such as “Jingle Bells” and “twinkle twinkle little star” until my father said “Put that fucking chicken in the water, for the love of Christ!”
I could have been a big hit at the circus working in the geek tent.
girlfiend | 25-Jan-05 at 8:26 pm | Permalink
Perdita, you just left the best comment ever. Thank you.
Tom L | 26-Jan-05 at 3:42 pm | Permalink
My wife really enjoys chicken simply because she was flogged by them as a child.
girlfiend, don’t feel bad about your conversion back to the animal world, it is truly the proper way to eat.
check out http://www.neanderthin.com for an intro to the paleo-diet. e-mail me for other resources, if’n yer interested. You’d be amazed at what eating grains can do to you.
Ta,
Anonymous | 26-Jan-05 at 8:23 pm | Permalink
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