Friday, May 26, 2006

It's All Sausage

On my way to work two days ago I saw a freshly-killed possum on the side of the road. Yuck. Then I immediately passed a convenience store that was apparently selling breakfast; the smell of sausage and toast wafted out the door. It made me think about how seeing a dead animal makes me lose my appetite. But I eat dead animals almost every day. I thought, maybe it is because when you come upon a dead animal it's not a good idea to eat it--better to kill it yourself because then you know it's fresh. Okay, but seeing a live rabbit or deer or even a cow or chicken doesn't make my mouth water. Contrast that with the sight of a strawberry or a plum, or even a pecan or a peanut. I'm becoming convinced that my basic nature is vegetarian.

Now, I have to say my friend Setsuko has told me that when she goes to an aquarium the fish look yummy to her; she always thinks about eating them. But she doesn't feel that way about cows or chickens.

We use sausage as a metaphor for many things: you may enjoy the end result, but you don't want to know the details of how it was made. I see now that that applies to meat products of various kinds. To kill the animal, skin it, take out its intestines, cut it up and cook it is not at all an attractive prospect to me. I'm relatively certain that if I had to do that myself, I would be a vegetarian. As it is, I guess I'm just a species of hypocrite.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

welcome back.

Yes, much better to have little interest in sausage manufacturing.

butcher's son

yellojkt said...

Road Kill Cafe. Makes me think of that Hiaasen character that scavenges for food.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for visiting, and thanks for commenting!

Don't expect anything prolific in the off-season, but this weekend I will be launching a website, and I'll explain it here in detail...stand by...

Anonymous said...

Otto Von Bismarck: If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made.