sizzling hot!
Disclaimer: I love the way you choose what you eat. It means you are thinking about it.
An ex-vegan walks into a butcher and asks for a steak. The butcher says “which one?” The ex-vegan stutters, refers to her notes, and says “T-bone — half a kilo.” She has been preparing for this moment for weeks. The butcher weighs and wraps. They exchange card for kilo. The ex-vegan goes on her way, off to the nearest Whole Foods.
The only punch line for this joke is the over attention on where she used to be, not to where she is going.
Why are we defined by what we choose not to do, instead of what we choose to do?
Last week, for the first time ever, I cooked steak. Despite eating meat as a child, despite being a cook, despite being partnered to various omnivores, I almost reached the ripe age of twenty-four without partaking in this sizzling affair.
Sometime eleven or twelve years ago, I decided I was done eating meat. I can’t exactly remember why this felt so important, but two years later I decided it was a health choice, an environmental choice, a choice that posed the harm of all beings at the forefront of consumption.
I quickly became vegan.
As a little girl, I remember standing on the deck of my childhood home, the snow-shovelled pathway just ahead. The snow heaped high on both sides. Laid atop the snow were birds — bloody and cold, fresh after a hunt. Crimson contrasted across the frigid piles of winters cool colours. It was stark, it made me nervous, and it stuck with me.
These same nerves continued during my fishing career. I could never put the worm on the hook. I could cast the line, make a catch, and reel it in. I could never break the neck. I could never finish the job.
If I couldn't kill it, I shouldn't eat it. Right?
Many will never see a deer hung in a garage, see a hide stretched to dry, sleep in a duck blind, break the neck of a fish, or witness bloodied birds on the winter snow. And that’s okay. It is also okay if you have.
Our identity is all wrapped up in our experiences. We are defined by what has happened — good, bad, and neutral. We are our values, our beliefs, and beyond. What happens when we identify with our food?
Maybe you are familiar with the carnivore diet? The PETA folks? The vegans? The list could go on, but the defining trait is not what is, but what isn’t. You know this because when you ask what they eat, they first go on to say what they don’t (unless you’re asking a vegan where they get their protein, of course). Notice the way omnivores omit this behaviour. There is no subscription to being.
Remember the T-bone I cooked? I had no intention of eating it. It was a grand gesture for my steak-loving partner who has so humbly converted (mostly) to my vegetarian ways. Our relationship continues to bridge our love of different foods.
I will not be the first to announce that food is more than fuel. It is a reflection of who we are and who we continue to be. Our identities are tied to what we embrace and reject — the act of choosing not to consume one thing is just as revealing as choosing to consume another.
What happens when we let go of rigidity? For me, cooking a T-bone was about more than one steak. It was a monumental moment of connection, of growth, of realization, and of defining not by what is excluded, but by what is included.
xoxo anna