We'll Meat Again
I've loved fishing ever since I was a kid and one of the pleasures of being an adult is being able to afford your own fishing gear. It's great to be able to go to the water when you want and not when someone has time to take you.
In my thirties I fell in with a group of friends who loved to fish. I enjoyed nothing more than to pack my custom built beach rod, Alvey reel and Esky containing a beer and a chicken and avocado sandwich. The West Australian coast line is long and the fish are hungry. To be able to stand on the beach bare footed with your toes digging into the sand, the warm waves washing up to your knees and the orange sun dropping off the horizon is something wonderful I can only dream about these days.
Let me tell you about Ken. He was an excellent fisherman, but hated work and married only women who could and would support him in grand style. We seldom came back from any trip wihout a bucket of silver herring or sharp tooth tailor. I even enjoyed gutting the fish and preparing them for the freezer. Ken always caught the most fish but would never take any home to eat. He didn't like chicken either. The only food he wanted to eat was meat, roast or steak, and we wanted it every day. I asked him one day why he wouldn't eat fish or chicken, he didn't have a reason except that he preferred meat.
The Neighbour from Hell wanted her steak premium, expensive and rare and would not accept my dinner invitations unless I assured her that what she wanted would be provided. On one ocassion I bought two steaks, one slighty bigger than the other, and after she poked around with the bigger portion, I said, "It's okay Rose, you can have the bigger one".
She flapped her hand very affectedly and said in her twangy American accent, "Well that fine, you can always buy a steak whenever you want and I can't so I'll haved the bigger one". While the thought of bird flu made her aprehensive about eating Soya Chicken in Sesame Sauce from the Jumbo Chinese take away, the prospect of Mad Cow didn't bother her one bit.
I can understand why you'd want a piece of steak at a restaurant, especially if meat is not something you'd eat in the home. Another friend of mine lives for her steak lunches. On Good Friday this year it was a toss up between fish and being a good Catholic, and a nice juicy sirloin - the fish never had a chance.
I recently read an article on the "supersizing" of America which could well apply to Australia. It claimed that the steak house was the ultimate in masculine cuisine - to order a big steak was a sign to everyone that you were successful and masculine. I can understand the cultural effects to some extent; while I've seen advertisement on TV with a hunk exhorting viewers to "Feed the Man Meat", I've never see a macho type extolling the virtues of vegan.
Is our desire for spare ribs a hangover from our cave man ancestry where the brightest and best conquered the mastadon and bought home a haunch to be shared by the fireside? Did this induce the females to breed with the male who could provide the most regular supply of haunches? Did the luckless caveman who presented fruit or a handful of nuts have a chance against the hero hunter?
I never understood why poor old Cain got his offering of grain rejected while Able's fat portions were far more acceptable. Poor Cain couldn't help being a farmer. Obviously, God loves the smell of a BBQ - who doesn't?
Meat costs more, helps you put on more kilos (especially if you eat the huge American serving), and is harder to digest and yet some people prefer it above chicken, fish, vegetables and fruit. Taste is a onviously a part of it, but I wonder if there is some hardwired DNA programming that encourages us eat meat to satisfy our primal urges?
In my thirties I fell in with a group of friends who loved to fish. I enjoyed nothing more than to pack my custom built beach rod, Alvey reel and Esky containing a beer and a chicken and avocado sandwich. The West Australian coast line is long and the fish are hungry. To be able to stand on the beach bare footed with your toes digging into the sand, the warm waves washing up to your knees and the orange sun dropping off the horizon is something wonderful I can only dream about these days.
Let me tell you about Ken. He was an excellent fisherman, but hated work and married only women who could and would support him in grand style. We seldom came back from any trip wihout a bucket of silver herring or sharp tooth tailor. I even enjoyed gutting the fish and preparing them for the freezer. Ken always caught the most fish but would never take any home to eat. He didn't like chicken either. The only food he wanted to eat was meat, roast or steak, and we wanted it every day. I asked him one day why he wouldn't eat fish or chicken, he didn't have a reason except that he preferred meat.
The Neighbour from Hell wanted her steak premium, expensive and rare and would not accept my dinner invitations unless I assured her that what she wanted would be provided. On one ocassion I bought two steaks, one slighty bigger than the other, and after she poked around with the bigger portion, I said, "It's okay Rose, you can have the bigger one".
She flapped her hand very affectedly and said in her twangy American accent, "Well that fine, you can always buy a steak whenever you want and I can't so I'll haved the bigger one". While the thought of bird flu made her aprehensive about eating Soya Chicken in Sesame Sauce from the Jumbo Chinese take away, the prospect of Mad Cow didn't bother her one bit.
I can understand why you'd want a piece of steak at a restaurant, especially if meat is not something you'd eat in the home. Another friend of mine lives for her steak lunches. On Good Friday this year it was a toss up between fish and being a good Catholic, and a nice juicy sirloin - the fish never had a chance.
I recently read an article on the "supersizing" of America which could well apply to Australia. It claimed that the steak house was the ultimate in masculine cuisine - to order a big steak was a sign to everyone that you were successful and masculine. I can understand the cultural effects to some extent; while I've seen advertisement on TV with a hunk exhorting viewers to "Feed the Man Meat", I've never see a macho type extolling the virtues of vegan.
Is our desire for spare ribs a hangover from our cave man ancestry where the brightest and best conquered the mastadon and bought home a haunch to be shared by the fireside? Did this induce the females to breed with the male who could provide the most regular supply of haunches? Did the luckless caveman who presented fruit or a handful of nuts have a chance against the hero hunter?
I never understood why poor old Cain got his offering of grain rejected while Able's fat portions were far more acceptable. Poor Cain couldn't help being a farmer. Obviously, God loves the smell of a BBQ - who doesn't?
Meat costs more, helps you put on more kilos (especially if you eat the huge American serving), and is harder to digest and yet some people prefer it above chicken, fish, vegetables and fruit. Taste is a onviously a part of it, but I wonder if there is some hardwired DNA programming that encourages us eat meat to satisfy our primal urges?
posted by Jacqueline Smith at 1:43 PM
1 Comments:
We have the teeth and digestive tract of vegetarians. Meat can be a short cut to proteins and we have evolved to be able to digest it somewhat, although it's much easier for us if it's cooked. Fish, especially oily fish, however, is really good for us.
I must admit that I could happily eat fish everyday.
My wife was vegetarian for many years, and although I wasn't, it was much easier to live a primarily vegetarian diet for practical reasons. I did find though, that if I'd gone a couple of weeks without meat I would start craving it.
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