Respect your food

Chef M — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 13:15:03 -0400

As an amateur chef, I am a big fan of chicken. If chicken were Elvis, I would be the screaming teen in the front row.

Whether the foul is fried, boiled, smoked, or poached; it's all super delicious to me. I know more ways to prepare a chicken for dinner than any man ought too - and I'm still experimenting with new poultry-based culinary delights.

After many years of studying food preparation, I've started to become a bit philosophic about the relationship between the animal I'm eating and the rest of society. Perhaps this is why a rare trip to Burger King the other day inspired me to contemplate how detached most Americans are from their food, and, how this detachment works to our long-term detriment.

For example, in the aforementioned Burger King, I saw a marquee adversing BK Chicken FriesÂ© that depicted two hens having a heated dispute over which sauce they should be eaten with.

Ignoring the fact that BK Chicken FriesÂ© are an abomination against nature and look like fried tampons, the advertisement struck me as being extremely disrespectful. Not just to the animals - but to humans as well.

I would like to appeal to my fellow carnivores too treat our food with a bit more respect. It's bad enough that we are forced to kill animals to survive - but over-processed BK Chicken FriesÂ© are surely a sign of the coming apocalypse.

Since it is easier to respect those you have some knowledge about, allow me to introduce you to the life cycle of the noble chicken in our society so that you, the poultry-eating customer, can come to appreciate this bird.

You might have seen a modern chicken coop from the highway at some point. It is a large, smelly, rectangular building. (Not to be confused with a Wal-Mart.) The coops are lit up 18 hours a day in order to increase the ovulation time for hens so that they produce Extra LargeÂ© eggs.

From the farmers perspective, all chickens are not created equal. Some chickens live to produce eggs and some live to produce meat. The egg producing chickens don't make good meat and the meat producing chickens, called "boilers", don't make good eggs. Perhaps there are exceptions here, I'm not sure. (Dammit Jim - I'm a chef, not a poultry farmer!)

Let's focus on the boilers for a moment: After hatching the chicks are stored in large feed lots and given a healthy diet of fiber, protein, anti-biotics, and hormones. In some cases they are de-beaked in order to reduce the risk of chicken on chicken violence. Upon adulthood, they are killed, rendered, and plastic wrapped.

Yummy.

The life of a boiler is not so bad. They have plenty of food, shelter and they don't need to worry about the capitol gains tax. A boilers only natural enemy is disease and you. They live a life of quiet contemplation and conversation with plenty of good company.

I sometimes wonder what chickens discuss amongst themselves. Do they talk about the farmers? Do they contemplate geo-politics or the nature of self?

Probably not; but just because chickens can't do algebra does not mean they are inanimate objects. Birds are living beings that have a wide range of emotions and are deserving of respect - even if they are a few rungs lower than us on the food chain.

I am not a vegetarian, but I have enormous respect for the animals that I cook and eat. In my kitchen careful attention is given to sanitation, preparation, and consumption of meat.

In my opinion, we carnivores have a responsibility to honor the formerly living, breathing, and feeling being that unwillingly gave it's life to sustain you and the people you care about. To over process meat and fashion it into a mass-produced french fry disrespects the animal's sacrifice.

Furthermore, advertising meat products in a way that objectifies the animal divorces us from having to respect life. Food becomes a game instead of part of a sacred system. It creates the unhealthy illusion that what we eat is detached from who we are.

Just wanted to give you something to think about.

~~Read counterpoint here.~~ (I just can't find a counterpoint for this, please make a suggestion in the comments.)

Tags: chicken - food - cooking - fast food - vegetarian - respect - farming - life - chicken fries - Burger King

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Respect your food