The Sweet Just Ain’t as Sweet . . .
. . .Without the Slaughter
by Taylor Cocalis
Enlighten me for a moment. Imagine that you open your front door to find a box on your door step. You curiously open it up to find a plate full of food: tender juicy pork, crispy potatoes, and steaming starchy white corn. What do you do? Do you eat it?
I can see it now . . . all of you shaking your heads, thinking that I am crazy. Who in their right mind would eat a box of food left on their doorstep? From where did it come? How did it get there? It would be crazy to just go ahead and eat that. Right?
But the truth is that is what happens almost every day with the food that we eat. You may go to a restaurant and trust them to bring good food to your plate, but do you really know from where it came? Do you think that your waiter or your chef knows the person that cultivated that corn or that killed the pork on your plate? We don’t seem to be scared of that, but we do seem to be scared of knowing from exactly where our food comes . . . even (or especially) when it comes from the most natural source.
Let me explain.
When friends and family peruse my photographs from a recent trip to Ecuador, they always seems to have the same response, “I could have done without the pig pictures.” Despite that fact that they gush over the mountainous landscape, warmly note the colorfully dressed locals, and even relish in the crispy pork skin feast, nobody seems to enjoy the documentation of the pig slaughter. Except me.
Don’t get me wrong. Taking an animal’s life is never fun, but this was not merely frivolous slaughter. When most people view the pictures they immediately think of guts and gore. When I see them, I fondly remember the culture surrounding the whole process. Hopefully with a little insight, you’ll feel as warmly about the experience (and the photographs) as I do.
Part 2 of “The Sweet Just Ain’t as Sweet,” with photos, will appear on BioR tomorrow, Tuesday, April 8, 2008; Part 3 on Wednesday, April 9.
Taylor Cocalis manages Murray’s Cheese Course at Murray’s Cheese Shop in New York City. She is also one of the grooviest people I know.