My grandmother raised Angus cattle east of the mountains, outside
Sunnyside. We often went over on weekends. We mended fence, and we took
the cattle from pretty pastures out to prettier sagebrush and back in
the ancient International Harvester truck, which I learned how to drive
at a very young age. When we branded—heating the branding iron to
red-hot over a fire in the corral, guiding the cattle through a
labyrinth of fences with more yells than whipping, squeezing them tight
one at a time in the metal-barred chute—my job was to clip off
the fur on their sides in a square so my dad or brother could apply the
iron. It smelled pretty bad, and the cow would bellow mightily, its
eyes rolling back in its head. Then, released, it would forget
instantly, walking away calm and docile.
Aside from that, they only had one bad day, those cows. They’d go
away—killed and butchered elsewhere, by those whose job that
was—and come back in pieces, wrapped in white paper. We were not
well-off when I was a child, but we always had a large quantity of beef
in the freezer. After I left home, I hardly ate beef at all for several
years. I was sick of it—even steak—and when I did have it
elsewhere, it tasted terrible.
When she was mending fence or bucking hay or hauling cattle or
branding, my grandma wore an old bandana on her head with a cowboy hat
on top of that, rubber boots, utilitarian clothes. As she got old, when
it was cold, she wrapped and pinned rags around her arthritic wrists.
She raised cattle pretty much by herself into her late 70s (and lived
alone on the ranch until she died at 96). The only cow that ever had a
name was the last one, a blind steer that I took to calling Ray
Charles. He stayed in the pasture by the house and liked to be near the
fence; maybe he was bored or lonely. His eyes were like a cat’s caught
at night in bright light, discs of beautiful mirror. Eventually, we ate
him. He was extra tasty, maybe because he didn’t walk around a lot,
maybe because he was the end of the line for family beef.
My grandmother had a very low tolerance for any kind of foolishness.
I’m pretty sure if I could tell her about a bunch of city people paying
$50 a head to stand around in the mud and watch a pig die, she’d say,
“Oh, for god’s sake.” And the rhetoric that Culinary
Communion—the Seattle cooking school that put together such an
event at a farm in Port Orchard in January and is doing so again this
Sunday—has bandied about gives me much the same reaction. They’ve
called it a “sacrificio,” invoked “ancient tradition,” made much ado
about community, named the pig (Hector the first time), given a
subsequent dinner a title worthy of a grad-school thesis (“Snout to
Tail/Celebrating the Demise of Hector; Long Live Hector”). It’s
profoundly indulgent, both over- and under-intellectualized,
arguably voyeuristic, and plain old disturbing, and not in a knee-jerk
PETA way: When we’ve arrived at slaughter-as-edutainment for the
well-off, while the regular food supply is contaminated regularly and,
still, all those people are starving, is the end of days far away?
That said, Culinary Communion’s pig kill in January was marvelous.
The farm was antipicturesque, with piles of both figurative and literal
crap everywhere, the mark (my grandmother would agree) of a real
working farm of the you-never-know-when-you-might-need-it variety.
People brought their children, who jumped up and down in mud puddles,
which was picturesque. It was cold but sunny, and the mulled wine
provided straightaway in the early morning was sour and bracing. The
pig, meanwhile, had a last meal of fine slop: rice, old hamburger buns,
and melting ice cream. The killing part of the gathering was solemn and
respectful. Culinary Communion head chef/main man Gabriel
Claycamp—not a regular gun-shooter, looking pale and
grave—thanked everyone for coming “to celebrate the life and
demise of Hector,” crouched down to look the pig in the eye, and then
got a very clean, close-range shot to the pig’s head with a .22. No one
cried but me, and I thought of my grandmother and quickly cut it out.
Claycamp got kicked in the ear hard during the pig’s (brief, silent)
death throes. (Revenge!)
Then the pig was bled, the blood saved for blood sausage. The hair
was singed off the carcass. Gutting and sawing ensued. The kids were
front and center for all of this, completely captivated and not at all
grossed out. At one point, the saw-wielding man—a professional
who travels with a killing/butchering truck brought in to do the heavy
lifting—asked Claycamp, “You want me to saw through the head?”
Before Claycamp could answer, a kid yelled, “YEEEEAAAAH!”
Then Claycamp did the breakdown—dismantling the pig while
explaining every piece, giving a whole new perspective on bacon, ham,
guanciale, etc. Anyone who wanted to could help with the butchering and
charcuterie, and many people joined in, with varying degrees of knife
skills (“I mangled the ham!” said one man with furrowed brow). The kids
loved this, too. Everyone kept saying that the texture of the meat was
extraordinary, which it was: all jellylike, more akin to raw tuna than
the rigor-mortis meat one usually handles. And it was still warm.
Annoying rhetoric it may be, but it’s true: A temporary community
was formed. Only the couple who arrived postslaughter never really
joined it; they stood clinging to each other and drinking wine at a
safe distance from the carcass. They were at my table at the dinner the
next night, looking much more comfortable, talking about being lawyers,
and using the name “Hector” a lot. Watching a pig die was vastly more
interesting than dining with these people in Culinary Communion’s
lovely dining room.
This Sunday, as back in January, a band will play and lunch will be
served, including some bits of the newly dead pig, which will be
delicious. (The rest of it, whatever its name may be, will become
prosciutto and other meat products, available for purchase by
participants only.) If you get the chance—if you’re not
squeamish—you should go.
I witnessed a pig roast for my brother’s wedding last week. I have always eaten meat and probably always will. If we want to be this high on the food chain, it should be a social responsibility to kill your own meat at least once in your life. My friend makes his kids eat any insect or animal they kill, and this also makes sense to me.
Oh, brother. If you’re going to eat the damn things, shut up about it. All this romanticizing and sanctimony. It’s nauseating. Never have people patted themselves on the back so heartily for indulging their appetites and failing to reconsider their habits.
Cruelty is romantic, and heinous habits are okay if we face them head on. How insightful of you.
What the hell is wrong with you people?
What the hell is wrong with you people?
Sorry for the double post, but this is exactly the kind of masturbatory, self-congratulating crap that allows over a billion (count ’em) animals to be oppressed, exploited and brutally destroyed each year in this country alone. This may come as a shock, but I feel pretty sure that Hector would have felt a great deal more “honored” by his continued survival, as opposed to the prospect of being turned into pork sausage for the momentary gastronomic pleasure of some moronic wanker. Just a theory.
I’m so tired of these pathetic attempts to feel OK about murdering animals. It’s murder. You are eating the dead flesh of a murdered being. Get over yourselves and admit it.
It’s true. It is murder. Delicious, delicious murder.
You naive, elitist, vegetarians are a product of a culture that has no relationship to the land or the beasts which we humans have had mutual bonds with for thousands of years.
You love your scarves and your records and your disembodied tofu from which you have no idea whence it came. You can have them…consumerists.
“You naive, elitist, vegetarians are a product of a culture that has no relationship to the land or the beasts which we humans have had mutual bonds with for thousands of years.
You love your scarves and your records and your disembodied tofu from which you have no idea whence it came. You can have them…consumerists. “
This is exactly the kind of romantic bullshit I’m talking about. Your mutual bonds with the beasts. Your noble non-consumerism. Yours is the true way.
Look, you’re a meat-eater because that’s how you were raised. It’s a habit. All this energy into defending a habit you never even knew you were adopting.
And… scarves?
And another thing! “Elitist”?
So all this meat you eat comes from these (somehow non-elite) boutique farms and old tyme butcher shoppes. Or… are you eating Ronald McDonald burgers? Which is it? All your meat had a name, or you’re eating meat every bit as anonymous as you say my tofu is.
Poser.
I think I’ve got it. Kind of like a hanky code only with scarves that describe our diets instead? I wish someone had told me about this earlier.
Well, if you want to fuck up the water supply on the inevitable march to a massive outbreak of mad-cow (or similar) type disease which will undoubtedly be covered up the meat industry until lots of people get sick, go right right ahead you righteous meat-eaters.
they won’t let my comment on from freemont library…
Dear ” know your food”,
Naive and elitist are two words that just don’t make any sense when being used to in the same sentence to describe a vegetarian.
Extrimist, maybe thats what youre going for?
Maybe being vegan like myself (I can define that also, if you’d like) is extreme for a naive, conformist like youself.
Look up naive and elitist in the dictionary, and tell us “vegetarians” exactly what it means.
Please.
…Because if it’s chosing between knowing exactly where my food comes from, my personal morals, and compassion for animals, and
adding one more cloned, selfish, CONSUMERSIT, MURDERER to the conformist chart..
Then i guess i really am a naive, elitist vegetarian.
Check all the words in your very limitied self-dictionary, before going straight to the “comments” link
for a ridiculous and obvious journalism mistake written for “one of the greenest capitols in the US”.
and.. if youre going to bash on what being green and your personal diet have to do with one another then
do your research.
Open your eyes.
Dear ” know your food”,
Naive and elitist are two words that just don’t make any sense when being used to in the same sentence to describe a vegetarian.
Extrimist, maybe thats what youre going for?
Maybe being vegan like myself (I can define that also, if you’d like) is extreme for a naive, conformist like youself.
Look up naive and elitist in the dictionary, and tell us “vegetarians” exactly what it means.
Please.
…Because if it’s chosing between knowing exactly where my food comes from, my personal morals, and compassion for animals, and
adding one more cloned, selfish, CONSUMERSIT, MURDERER to the conformist chart..
Then i guess i really am a naive, elitist vegetarian.
Check all the words in your very limitied self-dictionary, before going straight to the “comments” link
for a ridiculous and obvious journalism mistake written for “one of the greenest capitols in the US”.
and.. if youre going to bash on what being green and your personal diet have to do with one another then
do your research.
Open your eyes.
Dear ” know your food”,
Naive and elitist are two words that just don’t make any sense when being used to in the same sentence to describe a vegetarian.
Extrimist, maybe thats what youre going for?
Maybe being vegan like myself (I can define that also, if you’d like) is extreme for a naive, conformist like youself.
Look up naive and elitist in the dictionary, and tell us “vegetarians” exactly what it means.
Please.
…Because if it’s chosing between knowing exactly where my food comes from, my personal morals, and compassion for animals, and
adding one more cloned, selfish, CONSUMERSIT, MURDERER to the conformist chart..
Then i guess i really am a naive, elitist vegetarian.
Check all the words in your very limitied self-dictionary, before going straight to the “comments” link
for a ridiculous and obvious journalism mistake written for “one of the greenest capitols in the US”.
and.. if youre going to bash on what being green and your personal diet have to do with one another then
do your research.
Open your eyes.
I was informed after eating some pork at a cooking class that it was, in fact, Hector….I was shocked!
Shocked how dog gone tasty he was!
Wish I could make it tomorrow, I will make it one of these. what a noble undertaking.
Eating your pig or your dog or your cat or your neighbor. Eating fellow creatures – it’s all cannibalist. Not only grotesque and offensive but unnecessary.
I will NEVER pick up another copy of the Stranger nor will I support businesses which I remember advertising there.
Peggy
“Eating your pig or your dog or your cat or your neighbor. Eating fellow creatures – it’s all cannibalist. (sic)”
Hahaha. Please. I hope you’re not the spokesperson for the vegetarians here.
Eating pork isn’t “cannibalist.” It’s delicious. And it’s another species. Look up the definition, drooler.
You can choose not to eat meat, for many fine reasons, but don’t accuse meat eaters of cannibalism.
That’s just silly.
Somehow, it made me feel like the pig was made to be an object. It may have had a name but that name was exploited & it’s life & meaning lost. All that we eat should have more meaning than what it whispers to our tase buds.
I’ve always felt your news paper was against animals, (with a single-minded vision and mission for life sans prejudice for the homosexual community) but this has thrown it in my face yet again like a ice cold coctail. Thanks for the reality check people, and I’ll be sure to pick up far more well rounded “Seattle Weekly” from here on out. You literally go against my greatest passion. Keep up the wonderful work.
Thanks –
I was just doing research on your paper, interested in doing advertising.
You have completely turned me off.
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” – Ghandi
“I believe I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn’t. To know that the results are profitable to the human race would not remove my hostility to it. THE PAIN WHICH IT INFLICTS UPON NON-CONSENTING ANIMALS is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.” – Mark Twain
There is no reason to murder an innocent animal. There is nothing respectful in looking a pig in the eye and then shooting it in the head. If you look deeply into an animal’s eyes you will see that they needed love and compassion, not to be objectified and violently killed, with an audience as well. I’m so disgusted with this aspect of the human race, this practice and this article.
Needless to say, you’ve lost a reader and an advertiser.
Be a protecter of animals not a predator. Find another reason for a communal gathering.
EVOLVE.
Oh, boy. Gabriel is being an a**hole again, piously sanctemonious as he murders an animal for fun. What a jerk.
Pigs were killed way before white people turned it into the sport of the rich. They were killed and eaten out of necessity by poor non-white people. The writer did a great job of describing both sides of the fence, as well as presenting her poor, farm background as extra collateral. Still a fan.
I’ve never been convinced being a vegetarian should be mandatory, no matter what the circumstances because I’ve never been convinced that death is the worst of all possible fates.
I don’t think it’s morally wrong for a pig to kill and eat a human either… though it might not work out practically for the pig.
For that reason, I’ve always assumed vegetarians who are protesting meat eating in a general sense, rather than inhumane farming conditions (for which I applaude them), or the like, were rather elitist… they think humans are ‘better than’ other animals which kill to eat simply because thats the way the ecosystem works.
Of course, this is an argument for a perfect world, in which you do know where your meat comes from, that it had a decent life, that its existence didn’t pollute the world, etc.
In that perfect world, I would eat meat, because I would rather be of the world, than apart from it.
Um, aside from all that grand rhetoric, I thought the article was very well written and balanced. Well done 🙂
Why do people whine about killing animals for food?. Vegetarians kill plants don’t they?. Don’t plants have just as much right to their lives as animals?. And don’t trot out that crap that they don’t feel pain. How do you know?. Did one tell you?. Just because they can’t tell you in a way that you understand, doesn’t mean that each and every individual cell doesn’t want to keep on living. I bet if you asked one it would deny that it wanted to be your dinner. The point is that to live we all must kill something, we cannot eat rocks. So all of us are murderers in one way or another. Screw this crap, I’m going to go have a ham sandwich.
Thanks for this article. I’ve forwarded it to the A.L.F.
Veg*ns have been uppity and sanctimonious about their dietary choices since time began. What’s to say we omnivores can’t do the same?
It wouldn’t be the first time a creature has died for the sake of human mollification, and it won’t be the last. I’d rather eat a creature I’ve known and loved than some faceless factory farm moo-machine. The problem with meat eating isn’t the meat itself, it’s the husbandry (or lack thereof) resulting in a disconnect between the person doing the farming and the person doing an eating. Respect is not equal to reverence.
Every omnivore should have to butcher their own meat at least once. If it’s that emotionally traumatizing, you’re welcome to hop on the tofu train. As for me, I’ll keep putting the locker beef through the bandsaw.