I have always known, in my heart of hearts, that I am a hypocrite.
Although it has lurked at the corner of my consciousness, I’ve managed to avoid
its accusing eye.
So when I came face to face with it, it was a tremendous
shock, like turning a familiar corner and running into the school bully from
your childhood, whom you’ve successfully avoided for years.
On Tuesday I was taking my afternoon stroll with the dogs
and found a discarded bird’s nest, into which the builder had artfully woven
long strands of the bags that my anthracite comes in. I save these bags to
cover frost-tender plants in during the colder months, and was astonished at
the cleverness of this little bird. I remembered that my father had left long
strands of differently coloured wool out once, to see the pattern it would
create and so discover how they put these nests together.
At that minute, Wagner, the young man (more of a friend now) who rents my
cottage, arrived and I walked up to show him my find. He studied it with
interest.
As a tracker, he knows everything there is to know about
wildlife.
“This is made by a type of finch – hard to say which one,
though. Could be a green finch.. They often do this, I’m told, although this is
the first time I’ve actually seen it”. He beamed at me. “Now come and see what I’ve got!”
I’d never seen him so excited. He strode back to his bakkie
(pick-up) through a surging sea of equally excited dogs. I have six and he has
four, so between them, they form quite a pack.
My sore knee still has me at express snail speed, so I
hobbled up more slowly, to find him standing proudly next to his bakkie and
fending off questing doggie noses. I peered over the edge and gasped.
“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” he demanded.
Lying there was half of something dead. It was carefully
spread over a clean sheet of plastic, perfect in its awfulness of clean sinew
and muscle.
“This is half an ox. I raised it myself! ‘A’ grade beef!”
his eyes shone with pride (his aim is to be completely self-sufficient). With some
difficulty, he raised a massive piece of it for my inspection. “See? There’s
the stamp!” He caressed it lovingly.
“See how lean it is! See this thin layer of yellow fat? That means that
it was raised organically, free to roam and wander at will, not like that
horrible mass produced stuff, kept cooped up and fed rubbish and slaughtered
without any dignity.”
I burst into tears.
He gaped at me in astonishment.
“Colleen! You eat
meat, don’t you?”
I admitted that I did.
“Then what on earth is the problem..?”
“I don’t know, Wagner… this is just so real… Look at its tendons! The stuff I buy doesn't look like that. It comes neatly wrapped in plastic,
and is bred on shelves at the supermarket” I blew my nose, choking suppressed
tears. “The stuff I buy doesn’t look
as if it has ever been alive, or gloried in the warmth of the sun or wandered
around with its family, nosing at wildflowers and grass and licking its babies.
This does”.
Wagner was absolutely at a loss. Even knowing how silly I am
about animals, he hadn’t expected this.
“But Colleen, wouldn’t you rather know that you are eating
something that had a happy carefree life, was cared for with love and treated
with respect and then died painlessly and cleanly, like this young ox? This
will keep us in meat for the whole winter. You can’t buy meat like this!”
I knew I was being ridiculous, but my heart wouldn’t listen.
“They were very impressed at the abattoir. It is privately
owned, very clean, very humane. They kept the skin and the head. I tried to get
you the tail, but they kept that too”
I shuddered.
I do love a bit of oxtail. But not when I can imagine it on
the back of the actual ox, swishing happily away as it forages with its friends!
I used to like tongue too, until I saw it on the actual cow, tenderly cleaning
its baby. People like me should never ever leave the safety of the city.
Sadly I limped back to the house.
Sometime later, Wagner arrived with a massive ribcage.
“I hope you’ve got room in your freezer..? Mine’s full.”
It took some manoeuvring, but eventually we got it in. To
his sorrow, we’d had to halve it. To the dogs sorrow, he had not dropped it.
“I’d hoped to do it whole, on the spit, like the Argentines
do”, he explained sadly. He’s from Brazil , but concedes that in this
one respect, the Argentines know what they’re doing. I knew what he meant. It
certainly was tasty, done that way. Even thinking about it made me feel like a
cannibal.
Later, he came back with a long piece of sirloin.
“This is for you! It’s the best part! It is the ‘Filet
Mignon’, very tasty, very tender!”
I produced a shiny metal serving platter, and he placed it
carefully in the middle. “Look at that marbling”, he enthused, “I have to take
a photo of it! It is too beautiful!”
And there it is in my fridge (the sirloin, not the photo).
It is beautiful.
I am going to grill some of it tonight, hypocrite that I am, in olive oil and a bit of garlic and freshly ground pepper. With baby potatoes, some mushrooms from the mushroom farm around the corner, and spinach in fresh cream..
I keep hearing the words to “The Walrus and the Carpenter. I ignore them.
I tell myself that the ultimate crime would be for it to go to waste. But having seen it up close like that, I understand at last what it is to say grace before a meal, and actually mean it.
Time to get real – this is Africa .
The way the country is going, I might well find myself out hunting for my own
dinner soon, god forbid. In the meantime, let me be grateful that I don’t have
to, and that I am able to enjoy the benefits of plot life: milk still
warm from the cow, fresh harvested mushrooms, sun-warm herbs and tomatoes, and now, fresh meat. At least, if anything (or anyone!) ever eats me, I will qualify as "organic", except for my deodorant and nail varnish. One should never forget that food chain.
