Chewing on the Fat

Before I came to India, I was a vegetarian. It was really more about curiosity than anything else. I wanted to see what that kind of lifestyle was like, so for two years, I avoided meat and fish (but ate eggs) almost exclusively. Since I considered myself a hardcore foodie, I had the occasional homemade sausage in Hungary, seafood dish in Croatia or plate of sushi, but if I ate meat more frequently than once a month I felt bad about it. It wasn’t in protest of cruelty to animals, destruction of the environment, wasteful meat production or staying health. Honestly, I was just curious.

Then at yesterday’s dinner, I was working hard to get the tiny amount of marrow out of the middle of the chicken bone when I stopped myself and realized what I was doing. Um, what happened in the past three months to get me to enjoy sucking the fat out of a recently living animal’s bone because it tasted so good?

First of all, I’m not a hypocrite. Choosing to not eat meat most of the time but eating it every month or so is the same as everybody else, if you think about it. We all make irrational food choices for various reasons, or sometimes no reasons at all, even when (especially when) they don’t make any sense. When I was a kid, I wouldn’t touch nuts, believing that I was allergic and my throat would close up if I ate them… except I loved peanut butter. Many Americans avoid bean and legume products like the plague, while Indians don’t even think about eating beef. Choosing not to eat meat is just another one of those irrational choices.

Now, here’s my opinion about eating meat. Keep in mind that this is just my opinion, and I don’t expect everybody to agree with me. I think that the average American eats too much meat, while the average North Indian doesn’t eat enough. 3-5 servings per week are pretty good. Meat is a very important source of iron and a good way to get your protein. Plus it tastes delicious. On the other side of the coin, it usually contains high amounts of saturated fat and can lead to cardiovascular problems later in life. As with all other foods, and pretty much anything else in life, there is a balance that can give you all the benefits of eating meat without all the negative side effects. That’s called moderation, and it’s a good thing.

I think that Americans eat too much meat because 2-3 servings a day, which is average for some people I know, give you way more protein and iron than you need. Plus, the high demand for meat has led to immoral and environmentally destructive livestock and poultry production in the states, but talking more about that is a whole ‘nother can of worms that I’d rather not open right now. We eat so much because it’s cheap, easy, and culturally acceptable. I think that Himachali North Indians don’t eat enough meat, because their consumption of iron is way too low, while protein and fat levels could stand to be just a little higher. They eat so little of it because it’s expensive and hard to store in these environmental and economic conditions. Moral of the story: nobody’s perfect, and everybody is a slave to their culture when it comes to the food they eat.

Back to sucking on bones. When people around here do eat meat, they eat it differently. No boneless, skinless chicken breasts here, no thank you. Shammi goes to a (clean and well-reputed) roadside stand before dinner, orders a whole chicken, and cooks it that day. Oh, and there’s a dire need for butchering skills here. Both Shammi and the butchers here just hack at a carcass until it’s the right weight or shape, regardless of the bones. Then, the dish is cooked with the bones and internal organs helping enrich the sauce. Bones and offal contain the best, richest flavor of the mammal, so using them in the dish is a really good thing. Sure, eating your food is a little bit more work, but it certainly tastes better, and working around the bones forces you to slow down and appreciate it more. When you’re done with the dish, the bones are there to suck on and get some more flavor from your dinner even after it is finished.

In the book Julie & Julia (I know it’s a chick book, but it’s funny, dammit), the narrator brings up an anecdote about feeding a double cheeseburger to a vegetarian of three years, who promptly vomited after a single bite. Which, you know, is what happens “when you do something as silly as not eating meat.” I must say that I have to agree with her. If nothing else, being in India has taught me that meat is a good thing, just not all the time.