Jan. 16th, 2003 09:23 pm
Respect your food
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muckefuckI finished reading A cook's tour this afternoon. As I got near the end, I was trying to pace myself in order to make the remaining chapters last. But I've been sick in bed for two days and couldn't resist polishing the book off, even down to the borderline-homophobic critical blurbs on the first page. (In case you were worried that reading a book on cooking--COOKING, for Chrissake--is just TOO FAGGY, well, rest assured, there's nothing "prissy" or "limp-wristed" about this one. Whew!) For all his macho swagger, you won't see that attitude from the author. His outspoken opinions always struck me as informed, even when I didn't agree with them.
The chapter I saved for last dealt with the slaughter of a pig in Portugal. To my mild surprise, it's the first time this religiously carnivorous chef had been present at the death of something he ate. It recalled for me an online discussion from years ago where a participant claimed it was immoral to eat meat if you weren't willing to kill it yourself.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lhn argued (quite successfully, IMHO) that squeamishness was no basis for a moral system and you wouldn't claim it was immoral for someone to benefit from bypass surgery if they weren't willing to watch it performed.
Still, there's no denying that witnessing an animal die to serve your needs affects your attitude towards eating. Bourdain, a hardened gourmand, isn't about to give up eating and serving meat after hearing the teeth-rattling screech of a dying hog--but his determination not to waste a single scrap of hogflesh in his kitchen is renewed and strengthened. When I saw the film Le sang des bêtes, it didn't put me off my feed. If anything, I was amazed at the beauty of some of the images (particularly the musculature of a skinned horse), but it did increase my respect for the men who do the filthy work of slaughtering. (According to the presenter at the screening, was exactly the filmmaker's intention). The terms Bourdain uses to express his respect for the beasts' sacrifice recall those of Owlet when relating how she responds to vegan criticisms. As a pagan, she doesn't have the Abrahamic belief that these critters exist primarily to serve her needs; she believes that to respect life doesn't mean never taking it, but never taking it lightly and not wasting the products. After all, killing a plant is still taking a life. And even the Buddha ate the flesh or animals who died willingly to nourish him.
A while back, my ethical humanist stepmom asked me what a "Buddhist grace" would be like. I immediately thought of Thich Nhat Hanh's remarks on "interbeing", since his The heart of understanding has been my most significant introduction to Buddhist thought. He suggests that when you read the words on a page, you consider the fact that the page could not exist without the logger who cut down the tree to make the paper. He also talks about the sunshine, without which the tree cannot grow, nor the wheat that feeds the logger, an so forth, stressing the interconnectedness of all things. After reading that, I tried to consider the effort that went into producing my lunch each day. The migrant labourers who picked and sorted the vegetables, the truckers who transported them, the low-paid employees who cooked them, etc. I may not have taken a village to raise me, but it takes several just to feed me. When I told her this, she said, "That's very humanist." That's true, and not just in the positive way she meant it. But it's easier for me to contemplate human contributions to my subsistence. What kind of debt do I owe to a broccoli plant or the sun and earth that produced it?
Plenty of people answer this by saying the proper response is to live with as minimal an impact on the earth and its creatures as possible. But, simple though my lifestyle is, I'm not prepared for that degree of asceticism. I gravitate more toward the "pagan" philosophy that respect is shown not by withdrawing, but by appreciating to the fullest. So it's not the most tender chicken in the world; a living being still died so you could dine on it. So you didn't want rain today; without it, nothing that sustains you could survive. Like it or not, you're part of a web of being and your continued existence tugs on it. Fortunately, Buddhism also teaches that there is no death, just transition between forms of existence. That potato you eat becomes a part of "you" (another illusion) and, when you die, you'll become part of some potato. It doesn't waste or disrespect what it gets from you, so show it the same courtesy.
The chapter I saved for last dealt with the slaughter of a pig in Portugal. To my mild surprise, it's the first time this religiously carnivorous chef had been present at the death of something he ate. It recalled for me an online discussion from years ago where a participant claimed it was immoral to eat meat if you weren't willing to kill it yourself.
lhn argued (quite successfully, IMHO) that squeamishness was no basis for a moral system and you wouldn't claim it was immoral for someone to benefit from bypass surgery if they weren't willing to watch it performed.Still, there's no denying that witnessing an animal die to serve your needs affects your attitude towards eating. Bourdain, a hardened gourmand, isn't about to give up eating and serving meat after hearing the teeth-rattling screech of a dying hog--but his determination not to waste a single scrap of hogflesh in his kitchen is renewed and strengthened. When I saw the film Le sang des bêtes, it didn't put me off my feed. If anything, I was amazed at the beauty of some of the images (particularly the musculature of a skinned horse), but it did increase my respect for the men who do the filthy work of slaughtering. (According to the presenter at the screening, was exactly the filmmaker's intention). The terms Bourdain uses to express his respect for the beasts' sacrifice recall those of Owlet when relating how she responds to vegan criticisms. As a pagan, she doesn't have the Abrahamic belief that these critters exist primarily to serve her needs; she believes that to respect life doesn't mean never taking it, but never taking it lightly and not wasting the products. After all, killing a plant is still taking a life. And even the Buddha ate the flesh or animals who died willingly to nourish him.
A while back, my ethical humanist stepmom asked me what a "Buddhist grace" would be like. I immediately thought of Thich Nhat Hanh's remarks on "interbeing", since his The heart of understanding has been my most significant introduction to Buddhist thought. He suggests that when you read the words on a page, you consider the fact that the page could not exist without the logger who cut down the tree to make the paper. He also talks about the sunshine, without which the tree cannot grow, nor the wheat that feeds the logger, an so forth, stressing the interconnectedness of all things. After reading that, I tried to consider the effort that went into producing my lunch each day. The migrant labourers who picked and sorted the vegetables, the truckers who transported them, the low-paid employees who cooked them, etc. I may not have taken a village to raise me, but it takes several just to feed me. When I told her this, she said, "That's very humanist." That's true, and not just in the positive way she meant it. But it's easier for me to contemplate human contributions to my subsistence. What kind of debt do I owe to a broccoli plant or the sun and earth that produced it?
Plenty of people answer this by saying the proper response is to live with as minimal an impact on the earth and its creatures as possible. But, simple though my lifestyle is, I'm not prepared for that degree of asceticism. I gravitate more toward the "pagan" philosophy that respect is shown not by withdrawing, but by appreciating to the fullest. So it's not the most tender chicken in the world; a living being still died so you could dine on it. So you didn't want rain today; without it, nothing that sustains you could survive. Like it or not, you're part of a web of being and your continued existence tugs on it. Fortunately, Buddhism also teaches that there is no death, just transition between forms of existence. That potato you eat becomes a part of "you" (another illusion) and, when you die, you'll become part of some potato. It doesn't waste or disrespect what it gets from you, so show it the same courtesy.
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