Hold the meat: Luke breaks his silence

Earlier, I was on the couch, watching Judge Judy and trying to figure out what to write for this week’s column. Nothing was really coming for me, so I asked Luke’s advice.

“Honey, what should I write about for “Hold the Meat?”

“Why don’t you write about what hell it is to cook for you because you don’t like onions and peppers, and how I was going to make a Key Lime pie this weekend because the store had Key Limes, but I couldn’t because the recipe called for gelatin?”

Hmm. It was an interesting proposition, but since those are topics I’ve already touched on in this column and because I can’t really write about how it’s hell to cook for me because I find it pretty easy (I had a grilled Dubliner cheese sandwich for lunch. It was delightful.), I came up with a better idea. Why not have Luke write my column for me?

So if you’ve every wondered how an avid meat eater can live with a lifelong vegetarian, or you’ve just wondered what in the hell my life is like, what follows gives you a pretty good idea of what I deal with every single day. Enjoy!

Hello. My name is Luke. And I have a problem. A problem with meat.

I love meat. I love every last thing about it. From the salty, pink goodness of hot dogs, to the delicious buttery flavor of a perfect, medium rare, charcoal-grilled 12-oz. beef tenderloin, I love it all. I can’t get enough of it. If you put the legendary old 96’er in front of me, I will eat every last bit of the 6 lbs. of muscle, fat, and gristle in on my plate, and if I can’t finish it, they will have to forcibly carry me out on a stretcher with my belly distended and wracked with cramps. I have no ability (or, really, even the desire) to exercise anything resembling a modicum of temperance, decorum, or good judgment when it comes to the flesh of dead animals.

Like I said, I have a fucking problem.

Like most people with a problem, it’s been handed down from generation to generation. I remember, as a very small child, seeing my mother pick up raw handfuls of ground beef and pop them into her mouth while she was making hamburger patties. It’s in my DNA. I can’t not want meat. It’s hardwired.

So, you ask, how does a degenerate, dangerous addict like me end up having a child with and planning to marry a vegetarian? I mean, this news is kind of like going on Perez Hilton and seeing a video of Amy Winehouse and Nick Jonas in flagrante delicto, isn’t it? The mind recoils in both shock and sheer wonder.

On its face, yeah, it’s bizarre and strange. But the truth is, meat disgusts me. What? Yeah. As much as I love delicious, delicious meat, if I stop for one second to think about where it comes from and how it’s produced, I want to vomit out every steak, ham sandwich, Big Mac, and deep-fried pork tenderloin that I’ve greedily and lustily devoured over the last 35 years.

Let me tell you a story. Last Thanksgiving, I was making hickory-smoked baby back ribs. (Ribs are for any occasion, don’t you know?) Many of you reading this column are probably vegetarians, and even those of you who are carnivores probably aren’t into the minutia of preparing meat for smoking. So, let me dump a little basic information on you about the preparation of smoked back ribs.

In order for the smoke to best penetrate the meat of back ribs, and to make them most tender and delicious, you should remove the membrane from the underside of the ribs before you load them into the smoker. Now, as someone who’s taken a few science classes, I know that this is called the pleural membrane. It is the smooth, tough surface which allows the lungs to expand and contract smoothly inside of the ribcage. Now you know that, too.

So, as I’m cutting loose and ripping this tissue from these ribs, I’m thinking that, some 48 to 72 hours ago, a pig’s lungs rode effortlessly across it, allowing it to continue breathing for the last few hours of its short and meaningless life. As I listened to the tearing, much like the tearing of heavy paper, nine fucking times (once for each slab of ribs, of course), I felt disgusted. Even more so, I felt ashamed.

It probably doesn’t make much sense to most people. I’m clearly not an animal rights activist, and I still think and will always think that PETA is a political organization which leverages the zealotry of a bunch of whackjobs to serve the god of Mammon, not, as they claim, to protect animals or make us better people. But, I felt a true and abiding sense of shame as I ripped that animal apart in order to make food, regardless of how tasty.

Although I was able to cook and serve the ribs, and who knows how much meat before and since, I have an ongoing crisis of conscience about it. As higher, fully sentient moral beings, shouldn’t we have the compassion to not torture, kill, and eat lower creatures if it’s not a matter of survival? And in today’s world, it’s not a matter of survival. There are plenty of healthier choices that don’t involve meat. Until the Zombie Apocalypse comes, that is, when those of us who aren’t driven underground can only choose between brains and delicious, delicious barbecued ribs; I know that there are plenty of other tasty things I can stuff in my maw.

So, that brings us back to the question of living with a vegetarian. It’s actually pretty easy. As you can probably guess, I fully respect that choice. I would even go as far as to say I admire it. And, I genuinely enjoy vegetarian food. The meat substitutes available today are delicious in their own right, and to be honest with you, I would kill you as soon as I’d look at you if there was a good grilled Portobello sandwich for me in it.

All of these things considered, I have a distinct, nagging feeling that sooner or later, I will give up meat, even if I have to explain it to my other carnivore friends as being “for health reasons.” Meat just bothers me too much. There’s also the nightmare I had that follows me around like an 800 lb. gorilla. The leap would be so much easier if Kona could get over her inexplicable ambivalence about tomatoes and aversion to peppers and onions … but that’s another rant for another time.

Clacked by Kona Gallagher
on May 13, 2009 @ 15:00 EST5EDT