I love walking down the street and catching a whiff of searing dead cow coming from the restaurant nearby. I love the feel of a warm, damp washcloth on my face, as I wipe away the remains of BBQ ribs. I love the excitement I feel when I pull into the drive-thru and order my favorite burger, knowing that soon I will be savoring every single bite, despite knowing I am about to ingest 1200 calories. I love how vulgar and unrefined you get to be while ripping into one of those absolutely enormous turkey legs you get at the state fair. I love the first scent of charring flesh, rising out of the grill as if to announce the beginning of summer. To put it simply: I love meat.
Like many Americans, I was raised to love meat. Bacon for breakfast, turkey sandwich for lunch, and meatloaf for dinner. My mother cooked regularly and her mother cooked a large family dinner every Sunday. My favorite of my Mawmaw’s (as she is known to her grandchildren) dinners is a toss up between her fried steak and gravy and her roast beef. I suppose the big difference is that the fried steak is actually served in the gravy and, well, the roast beef comes with gravy on the side. I should mention that Mawmaw makes everything from scratch. We are not talking gravy out of a jar, folks, but the good stuff made from the drippings of the beef. I would watch her slowly and continuously stir the gravy until it was just right. Of course, this is what I remember most about watching her cook, because gravy is always one of the last things to be completed before dinner is ready and I would arrive just in time to eat, being fairly unconcerned with how the food came to be on my plate. I would wait all week long just to open the door to my grandparent’s house on Sunday afternoon and try and guess what was for dinner by the smells in the air.
When my family vacationed, we ate. Sometimes, we would spend more on a meal than on the hotel. My memories of places like Gatlinburg, Tennessee are anchored around the restaurants in which we dined. As a kid, having a cart with a slab of beef wheeled to the table so you could choose how thick you wanted your steak sticks with you.
I have really learned to love to eat. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing on my mind is breakfast and when I am making breakfast, I am already thinking about what I might have for lunch. It excites me to think about what I can make and how much I know I will enjoy the sight, smell, taste and texture of every bite. I know they say that the food never tastes as good to the chef because they have to labor over it, but that is not the case for me. Tasting what I have created makes the experience even better. And meat is the ultimate delight.
So, it has been two weeks since I have decided to give up the wonder of meat. The first week, I took it slowly and partook of grilled chicken twice. This week, I have been meat free. To tell the truth, I am not completely sure why I have decided to stop eating meat. I have been the chubby girl since 3rd grade, but I have also lost 20 pounds over the past year, with meat as a
daily part of my diet. I had been flirting with the vegetarian idea after viewing a few animal-rights documentaries awhile back, but I also just bought a new pair of leather boots that I absolutely love and I did not give that animal a second thought when I handed over my credit card, so I will not pretend to be that cool.
In fact, I am not even comfortable using the word vegetarian. Instead, I am telling my friends that I am making an attempt to eat less meat and I am not telling my family at all. Vegetarian is such a dirty little word to us meat lovers, but if I keep not eating meat, I might as well get used to it. Americans love labels almost as much as we love meat. So it’s probably time to go cook up a nice vegetarian stew.
About the author: Sarah Haven was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio where she was well loved and well fed. She moved to central Washington six years ago, in which time she received her MFA. For the last three years, Sarah has been saying it is her last year in the area, but it remains to be seen if and when she will ever leave. Read more from this author
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