Dear Amélie,
Daddy is a duck killer. And it doesn’t stop there.
There is an entire array of animals.
Innocent, yes.
But always the happiest and raised with the outmost respect. Killed out of affection for food- a pleasure you shall find irresistible.
You see dear, food comes at a price. One that dollars signs would have a difficulty assigning value to. There is love in food. There is pain and there is sacrifice. All of which are important in order to truly appreciate the nature of things.
In this at times sad world some kill for pleasure. Some do it for sport. And there would be no wrong in that if the kill were put to good use. I will not tell you that it is a simple to follow lesson. There are not many of us who see animals as equal.
I’ll spare you from the religious spill. That is for you to learn on a later date. Perhaps someone more qualified than I to fill you with a spirituality built of good morals. But what I will preach to you is the importance of respecting what has been given to you.
Food is substance beneath all the glamour. Gussied up with bows and bells to cause a distraction. A distraction that is much needed, in my opinion. That distraction keeps people like me from living under a bridge.
The theatrics of food are captivating. The kitchen is a stage where the main character always meets a tragic end. An entertaining spectacle where the puppet master is often given too much credit. The curtains fall and the puppet master takes a bow, never so much as recognizing that without the puppet there would be no show.
Is it this fashion of entertainment that allows myself, and the like-minded few to earn a dicent living through proper manipulation and a couple chemical reactions.
It would be proper for me to say that I hope you get everything you ever wanted. But that would be one sure way to guarantee that you’ll never really appreciate fully the quality of a good ingredient.
It is true, in food at least, that necessity is the mother of innovation. You take what you have, use it wisely and fully so that there is the least amount of waste.
Growing up, this was a lesson my parents made sure I understood well. I cannot think of a time when looking out into the backyard there was not a future meal inhibiting the field. It wasn’t a gesture of rebellion against ill habits of the industry. And long before the activist trend towards better practice arrived.
It was just how things where.
If it was poultry, beef, pork, or vegetables that you wanted- you grew them.
It was the nature of things.
You spent time each day making sure your food came to good health. And when came time for slaughter you remembered all that time spent by using up everything that could somehow provide some sort of substance.
On some distant subconscious level, I like to believe that the animal knew this as well. Allowing its master to nurture it to full capacity.
Knowing that it would be treated well.
Dying in good favor to provide the substance needed.
Dying in content.
It’s flesh, tasting of time well spent.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 1 comment }
Very nicely put, I too was raised like this…we ate what my father caught in the sea or my grandfather raised or grew in his acres of vegetable farm. If i could have one more meal from my grandmother it would be slow roasted teal (killed on a Saturday morning hunt), field peas (grown from the garden) with fried sweet potatoes (from the garden). Then we would take a nap on the pillows made from the down of the ducks.
It was a beautiful way to grow up and I consider myself as you do very blessed.
Respect the land, respect the animals and they will give back to you
Comments on this entry are closed.