Yesterday I was looking through the Observer food magazine when I came across, oh horror, a picture of a pigs head. There it was with its bristles bristling and its piggy nose still slightly moist. Apparently this should have filled me with joyous apprehension for the approaching festive season. Actually, it just made me yearn for a nut roast and nut roasts are pretty awful too.
My repugnance earned me an exasperated reaction from J, the arch carnivore extraordinaire (I swear that if he was desperately hungry that man wouldn't balk at biting a lump out of a passing hedgehog or slow moving rabbit), who told me that my reaction was the result of conditioning and being removed from the process of food production.
He does have a point. My contact with food is mostly via Sainsbury's where meat is packaged and sanitised, with no need to think about where it came from and indeed what happens to the rest of the animal. I can totally see that it makes sense to use the whole animal. To slaughter a creature just to use only a part of it doesn't make sense on any level. Yes, I can appreciate this even if I'm not willing to suck on a pig's trotter myself.
Debates like this always makes me think of the scene in 'Jude the Obscure' where Arabella, Jude's wife, gets him to slaughter the pig. Jude is so 'sensitive' to the pigs plight that he ends up putting it through more distress, spoiling the meat and kicking over the bucket of blood that Arabella was going to put to use. Arabella, who is a viscerally practical woman behind her pert exterior , is furious and reading the book you can't help feeling for Arabella being married to Jude and having to cope with his finer feelings when as she says 'Poor folks must live'.
J's argument is that in the event of a nuclear holocaust he'll be a survivor as he's happy to eat all sorts of animals (not to mention his willingness to embrace Mother Nature as his personal en-suite). There won't be Linda McCartney veggie sausages come Armageddon according to Mr G. I do see that his Bear Grylls type propensities will serve him well should things go badly and indeed I'd quite like to have his company in this situation as I think he'd know what to do (although whether he would take me along with him whinging all the way is another thing).However I do have one major reservation. How do I know that when he's finished dining on all the local wildlife he won't turn to look at me in the firelight and see, not a woman, but a potential juicy snack? Every bit of me!
My repugnance earned me an exasperated reaction from J, the arch carnivore extraordinaire (I swear that if he was desperately hungry that man wouldn't balk at biting a lump out of a passing hedgehog or slow moving rabbit), who told me that my reaction was the result of conditioning and being removed from the process of food production.
He does have a point. My contact with food is mostly via Sainsbury's where meat is packaged and sanitised, with no need to think about where it came from and indeed what happens to the rest of the animal. I can totally see that it makes sense to use the whole animal. To slaughter a creature just to use only a part of it doesn't make sense on any level. Yes, I can appreciate this even if I'm not willing to suck on a pig's trotter myself.
Debates like this always makes me think of the scene in 'Jude the Obscure' where Arabella, Jude's wife, gets him to slaughter the pig. Jude is so 'sensitive' to the pigs plight that he ends up putting it through more distress, spoiling the meat and kicking over the bucket of blood that Arabella was going to put to use. Arabella, who is a viscerally practical woman behind her pert exterior , is furious and reading the book you can't help feeling for Arabella being married to Jude and having to cope with his finer feelings when as she says 'Poor folks must live'.
J's argument is that in the event of a nuclear holocaust he'll be a survivor as he's happy to eat all sorts of animals (not to mention his willingness to embrace Mother Nature as his personal en-suite). There won't be Linda McCartney veggie sausages come Armageddon according to Mr G. I do see that his Bear Grylls type propensities will serve him well should things go badly and indeed I'd quite like to have his company in this situation as I think he'd know what to do (although whether he would take me along with him whinging all the way is another thing).However I do have one major reservation. How do I know that when he's finished dining on all the local wildlife he won't turn to look at me in the firelight and see, not a woman, but a potential juicy snack? Every bit of me!
2 comments:
darling you are all woman and a juicy snack rolled up in a bun....er...already....X
That's nice. Does that mean you won't even cook me? xxxx
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