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smokingbootI love a good horror story. Sometimes it helps to know it's a horror story in advance.
Whenlarians bought 'The River Cottage Meat Book' by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, I was prepared for my usual sneers regarding the author, a man whose tv series about his smallholding, 'River Cottage' down in Dorset, resurrects every Famous Five cliche except the dirty stinking low class villains who always get caught in the end. His is a pure sweet Dorset populated by men with cider enhanced sideburns and their practical peahen wives, incubated in jam jars at the local women's institute. There are no children in Dorset; people are born at the fine age of 53, safe from new ideas, loving the old and playing skittles when they feel daring.
I watch the show with a kind of dreamy contempt that veers between wanting a smallholding of my own full of fine fat pigs and lambs, and obliterating the whole smug little fib with a death ray from Mongo. I am a fan.
So then, this book. I was expecting an homage to darling Dorset, far from the evils of the city. Well, now I know.
It's about meat, different types and cuts of meat and what they are good for...and with great passion as well as rationality, it talks about what we are getting in our supermarkets. Now of course, as a smallholder he is going to talk up the little guy against those massive corporate villains Tescos et al. But the truth is, I find myself convinced by his arguments. For a man who is arguing the case for real meat, he is very close to sending me back to vegetarianism.
Of course, that's not what he's trying to achieve. His argument is that good meat less often is surely preferable to bad meat every day. By good meat he means that which is organic, ethically maintained, and therefore more expensive and asks us to look towards our farmers markets etc, etc. By bad meat he means that which is intensively farmed, unethically maintained and therefore very cheap indeed. Of course, the former would cost a mint, but he argues that there are ways of making it more economical...
larians and I are taking it pretty seriously, and we're going to see what we can do about buying better meat. For me the big one is pork. I have issues with it anyway, because the pig is an intelligent creature and I just don't know if it's OK to eat sentients. Also, the most intelligent farm species (excluding us) is by far the most badly kept. The book is full of recipes and information I appreciate. But Hugh's tales of what intensive farming is really all about is the nastiest horror story I've ever read. So I guess it's time for change.
When
larians bought 'The River Cottage Meat Book' by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, I was prepared for my usual sneers regarding the author, a man whose tv series about his smallholding, 'River Cottage' down in Dorset, resurrects every Famous Five cliche except the dirty stinking low class villains who always get caught in the end. His is a pure sweet Dorset populated by men with cider enhanced sideburns and their practical peahen wives, incubated in jam jars at the local women's institute. There are no children in Dorset; people are born at the fine age of 53, safe from new ideas, loving the old and playing skittles when they feel daring. I watch the show with a kind of dreamy contempt that veers between wanting a smallholding of my own full of fine fat pigs and lambs, and obliterating the whole smug little fib with a death ray from Mongo. I am a fan.
So then, this book. I was expecting an homage to darling Dorset, far from the evils of the city. Well, now I know.
It's about meat, different types and cuts of meat and what they are good for...and with great passion as well as rationality, it talks about what we are getting in our supermarkets. Now of course, as a smallholder he is going to talk up the little guy against those massive corporate villains Tescos et al. But the truth is, I find myself convinced by his arguments. For a man who is arguing the case for real meat, he is very close to sending me back to vegetarianism.
Of course, that's not what he's trying to achieve. His argument is that good meat less often is surely preferable to bad meat every day. By good meat he means that which is organic, ethically maintained, and therefore more expensive and asks us to look towards our farmers markets etc, etc. By bad meat he means that which is intensively farmed, unethically maintained and therefore very cheap indeed. Of course, the former would cost a mint, but he argues that there are ways of making it more economical...
larians and I are taking it pretty seriously, and we're going to see what we can do about buying better meat. For me the big one is pork. I have issues with it anyway, because the pig is an intelligent creature and I just don't know if it's OK to eat sentients. Also, the most intelligent farm species (excluding us) is by far the most badly kept. The book is full of recipes and information I appreciate. But Hugh's tales of what intensive farming is really all about is the nastiest horror story I've ever read. So I guess it's time for change.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2008-01-23 04:38 pm (UTC)I went veggie for a few years, after a mystery lump appeared in one of my breasts, and my mother waved a study at me which implied that Northern European women suffered more lumps, benign and otherwise, than their Southern counterparts. It went on to speak of test situations in which women ate no meat or dairy, and their lumps disappeared. That's what happened with mine. A month after I gave up meat and dairy, the day came for the lump to be excised and the hospital sent me home because they couldn't find anything to cut out...I was veggie for 5 years after that. But I wasn't very good at it either, being a carnivore at heart!
I am more sentimental than I realise. One of the series episodes is about Hugh trying to get his chickens laying - his cockerel wasn't doing his business, so into the pot goes crapcasanovacock! I couldn't help my indignation!
The book has photos of the cow from death in the abattoir to hanging meat, and it's not trying to be shocking or put one off - Hugh's very into his meat - but to give one a sense of respect for the animal and also the reality of any farming. Weird how closeted I have been because the photo of the cow with the abattoir gun/bolt thing to its head really upset me.
I'm often oblivious to the world around me. Sometimes that's a good thing, but more and more I begin to think it isn't.
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Date: 2008-01-23 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-23 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-23 07:08 pm (UTC)Probably. Well, it is nearly Chinese New Year. Having said that, soy sauce allegedly causes cancer... so I'm not convinced there's a winner anywhere except in variety.
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Date: 2008-01-23 08:29 pm (UTC)Year of the Rat on its way, isn't this your year sign? Gregarious, smart, always sparky?
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Date: 2008-01-24 02:45 am (UTC)Besides, they make me sound far more interesting and exciting. ;-)