A very controversial subject, wouldn’t you say? My blog name is taken from the very eye-opening book by Johnathan Safran Foer (Penquin Books – I have to say that, I think), Eating Animals, which mama bought because her step-grandson became a vegan and she wanted to know more about what he thinks. I read it and it is definitely, well, food for thought.
So I’m sitting here, minding my business, when the smell of mama’s cooking hits my little pink nose and I’m practically bonkers with the perfume of it—fresh rosemary, a little thyme, I think, probably some onion, carrot, and I’m pretty sure, a nice slosh of red wine, but of course, all of these things are tucked around a couple of pieces of— meat.
Okay, I’ll tell you: lamb shanks. Papa is a meat eater and mama has not yet been pushed over to the other side, in the sense that she will cook and eat meat but really prefers things from the sea, or even birds like those pea-brained chickens I see running around in our neighbor’s yard. She says that a chicken is not going to become a brain surgeon plus it’s easier to look into a chicken’s eyes than a cow or a pig or a lamb. Fish are easy to look at too, mama says, but she says that if she SEES the animal (in the flesh, so to speak), it’s hard for her to eat it.
Okay, call her chicken (haha, no pun intended), but there are lots of people still on the fence about eating meat and she’s one of them. She’ll get there in due time, I’m pretty sure, and even her stepson (an avid meat-eater) says that one day, everyone will be a vegetarian, and perhaps he’s right, but the people still trying to make up their minds are not to be chastised for not moving quicker.
I’m only bringing up issues here—I’m not advocating one or the other, because kitties eat cat food, right, and cat food is often made from meat (even though mama buys only the fish kind because she thinks it’s better for me just as fish is better for papa and her).
If we kitties did not get food placed before us twice a day, we would be out in the world hunting things to eat, things most likely made of MEAT, just as anthros did long ago. Or we would be hanging around that big fish market in the next town waiting for scraps (maybe that’s a better place to be, but some kitties don’t have the choice). So we are, in short, meat eaters and can’t really proselytize about not eating animals, but we CAN bring up the subject and let our blog readers think about it.
Meanwhile, I hope mama saves me a little of that jarret, which is French for you-know-what-shanks because I’m not converted just yet.
And
I’ve seen a lot of people who say they are vegetarians wearing some pretty spiffy shoes…
