I love seafood. Heck, I love a lot of foods. And I truly enjoyed the fresh lobster we ate while on the east coast but I’ve got to admit that I really don’t like having anything with eyes on my plate.
It’s not as if I’m so delusional that I think cattle farmers’ fields are full of beef steaks wrapped neatly in cellphane on styrofoam trays. My Uncle Caz owned a butcher shop and I went with him once to the slaughter house. Once. The barbarism was horrifying to my young sensibilities and I truly hope they’ve improved upon the practise since I was a kid.
Years ago, when I hosted the Midday talk show on CHML in Hamilton, my producer and friend Peggy and I had lunch at a little cafe in Westdale. I had a massive chicken sandwich. It was really huge. And that night I had a very vivid dream that I was a chicken going through the process of becoming someone’s meal! Yes, it was an actual dream. After that, I couldn’t get meat or poultry to pass my lips for nearly three years! I wanted to. I wasn’t taking a stand or trying to make a point or joining PETA in trying to free the birds. I just simply couldn’t eat it.
And I was the world’s worst vegetarian. No matter how many beans or how much tofu I ate, I was always pale, weak and borderline anemic. I took B12 and iron pills and researched every possible way to improve my iron content and therefore my energy. None of it worked! And I felt helpless because my throat closed up in the presence of animal products. I was an involuntary vegetarian.
Then one day it happened. I woke up, proclaimed “I WANT TO EAT A HAMBURGER!” and off to Lick’s we went. I devoured a giant burger and that was the end of my vegetarianism. The spell had somehow been broken!
So even though the full meat menu has been back on display for me for about a decade now, I don’t think I’ll ever like the view of dead, beady eyes looking up at me. But what I learned from my meatless experience is to just dive in regardless of how I feel. So I cracked my lobster along with the rest and enjoyed it very much. I know the delicious meat came from a crustacean that was once happily crawling around, minding its business. But that’s the way the food chain works, baby. I just wish I didn’t have to look my dinner in the eye.