Gold - The shameless carnivore: a manifesto for meat lovers

CONTENTS

PART I
All Creatures, Great and Small

PART II
The Tour de Boeuf

For
Harriett Goldberg,
and the memory of
Melvin Goldberg

And for the
City of New Orleans
Wherever I am, you will always be home.

Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.

The Selkirk Grace, attributed to Robert Burns (17591796), Scottish national poet

Vegetarians are cool. All I eat are vegetariansexcept for the occasional mountain lion steak.

Kill It and Grill It, Ted Nugent (1948 ), Motor City Madman

PROLOGUE

I am the great and mighty warrior Beowulf, bravest of the Geats, a hulking, sweaty tower of muscle and masculinity feared by man and creature alike. After days locked in battle with a pair of vicious monstersthe murderous Grendel and his equally bloodthirsty motherI have returned, weary but victorious, to Heorot, the majestic mead hall of King Hrothgar. The king himself seats me at the head of the Viking warriors long table, so that I might lead them in a meal of exultation so vast it will become known as the feast to end all feasts.

My appetite is profound.

With a clap of the kings hands, I am beset by voluptuous serving women, their silken tresses flowing as though on currents of enchanted air, each bearing a hefty pewter tray with a different delicacy: magnificent racks of lamb and legs of mutton, dripping with fat; whole sides of slowly roasted beef, the tender meat almost falling from the bone; massive flanks of wild oxen; smoked loin of venison; suckling pigs brought right from the fiery spit; a host of broiled and roasted foulplump and juicy turkeys, chickens, guinea hens, pheasants, and peacocks; goat and yak meat cubed and skewered; mountains of plump sausages; a dizzying variety of strange and exotic animalssnake, alligator, ostrich, even llamaall served succulent and steaming.

I devour everything, using bare hands to tear into each new, savory delight. The fragrant juices drip down the side of my face, deep into my beard and down my chest, and I smile a broad smile. The Viking warriors around me bellow lyrical odes to battles fought and friends lost, and we slake our thirst with barrel after barrel of the countrys finest mead, celebrating the victory of our lives. At this moment, everything comes to a vertiginous, heady crescendo. The meat, the comradeship, the women, the drink: in all of creation, there has never been a moment finer than this.

Then I wake up.

I blink a few times, survey my surroundings, and realize that I am not, in fact, the great and mighty warrior Beowulf. I am a pale, bespectacled publishing grunt who spends most of his days inside underneath fluorescent lighting. Hell, I dont even have a beard. And my small Brooklyn studio apartment is, sadly, a far cry from a Viking mead hall (though I do have a worn folding-leaf table from Ikea). I sigh, wipe my bleary eyes, and have a nice long yawn and a stretch.

Then I go to the refrigerator in search of bacon.

Hello. My name is Scott, and I am a carnivore.

I love meat. I always have. You could plunk me down on the therapy couch and have the shrewdest analyst drill into my memories like a deranged Texas oilman, and I doubt hed uncover a single time in my life when I havent delighted at the thought of a perfectly grilled filet, a slab of ribs, or even just a good old-fashioned hot dog. For years, Ive harbored this passion like some sort of dirty secret. It didnt keep me from enjoying the occasional half-pound hamburger or barbeque brisket platter, but these days, if youre looking to make a good impression, youd be safer ordering a salad than a fourteen-ounce T-bone. Sadly, I can count on one hand my friends who regularly patronize a butcher shop. (Can you name the butcher shop nearest your home?) And no, the meat section at your local McGroceryStore doesnt count. Im talking about an honest-to-God butcher shop, the kind of place that proudly displays slaughtered animal carcasses in the front window, where you can ask for hearts and blood and entrails and theyll answer you, straight-faced, with What kind and how much?

I dont get it: where at one point in American history a vegetarian would have been branded as a godless communist and advised to return forthwith to the CCCP, abstaining from the consumption of animal flesh these days is largely viewed as an enlightened life decision, even though its not what most of us do. And to make things worse, we have to deal with the admonishments of anemic, skeletal celebrities who try to pass off the notion that its perfectly okay to subsist on a diet of cigarettes, croutons, and energy drinks while pumping botulism toxin into their faces, so long as we dont eat the defenseless animals. Im loath to criticize anyone for limiting their diet because of sincere religious convictionsIm Jewish after all, though my love for pork products, cheeseburgers, and shellfish will forever trump my fidelity to the laws of kashrutbut it must be said:

The defenseless animals taste really, really good.

So this is my rallying cry. A call to arms. I believe that theres a veritable army of carnivores out there, ready and waiting for someone to come forth waving that blood-red banner high, unabashed, in true carnivorous splendor. And if, as I suspect, that armya legion of honest, meat-loving individuals who are made to feel morally lacking simply because they consume in a way thats so natural and elementalis longing to be vindicated, and should you, gentle reader, be among them, Im here to say that you are not alone.

Repeat after me: I am a carnivore, and Im damned proud of it.

INTRODUCTION

Carnivorism: A Philosophy

It doesnt take a genius IQ to arrive at the realization that we are living in a nation obsessed with meat. Its not just that Americans consume 218.3 pounds of beef, chicken, turkey, and pork per person annually ; the whole idea of meat has invaded the public consciousness with staggering zeal. Judging by what many believe to be the cultural barometer of meat eating in Americathe fast-food industrythe year I began working on this book, 2005, may well be viewed as a banner year for carnivorous excess.

There was Paris Hilton in that infamous Carls Jr. advertisement, bikini clad and slick with suds, sexing up a Bentley while holding a cheeseburger approximately the size of her heada direct appeal to that glorious trifecta of the American male id: sexy girls, fast cars, and, of course, red meat (Im still wondering why they didnt decide to show SportsCenter somewhere in the background). Burger King introduced its Meat Normous Omelet Sandwich, a gargantuan breakfast offering filled with sausage, bacon, ham, two egg patties, and cheese. Not to be outdone by the King, Hardees unveiled its Monster Thickburger, which manages to incorporate two third-of-a-pound slabs of Angus beef, four strips of bacon, three slices of cheese, and mayonnaise on a buttered sesame seed bun (1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat), prompting the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocate for nutrition and health, to coin the term food porn. And then, in a display of the free market one-upmanship that made this country great, a humble Pennsylvania eatery called Dennys Beer Barrel Pub decided that even Hardees had undershot the mark and unleashed unto the world the Belly Buster, a fifteen-pound cheeseburger with enough caloric content to feed thirty to forty people (a cup and a half of relish; a cup and a half each of mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup; a head of lettuce; two onions; three tomatoes; and twenty-five slices of cheese atop ten and a half pounds of ground beef and a bun specially crafted by a local bakery)eat it in under five hours and you get the meal for free, plus $350, a T-shirt, and your name on a wall-of-fame plaque. Ill hazard a guess that the T-shirt is of the XXXL variety.