Where does meat grow?
For some reason I've been thinking lately about one of the big differences between living here and back home: how food, and specifically meat, is viewed here. I think I started thinking about this when we were in Strasbourg and passed a foie gras shop featuring this sign with a happy-looking goose (presumably just before it's force-fed and has its fattened liver removed):
At home, if you didn't know better it would be easy to think that meat comes from the supermarket, not the farm. I mean, deep down inside we know that juicy steak came from a cow, but we don't want to be reminded of it. (I'm thinking of signs posted around DC by animal-rights groups that simply emphasize that meat comes from actual animals with actual faces.)
People don't have that detachment here--I guess it's more honest that way. It never ceases to amaze us that the newspapers we get from the supermarkets will have advertisements for veal that show pictures of happy little baby cows...with names, no less. Or take the restaurant today--it's part of a working farm, and you drive right past the cows, bison and pigs as you drive in. Then when you read the menu, they very proudly point out which dishes come from those animals you just passed on the way in (and are almost apologetic about those dishes that aren't from the farm).
And the thing is, they love animals here--cows and sheep are as much a part of the landscape as the Alps or the Rhine. They just don't seem to be as sentimental (or naive or in denial) about them as we squeamish Americans tend to be...
At home, if you didn't know better it would be easy to think that meat comes from the supermarket, not the farm. I mean, deep down inside we know that juicy steak came from a cow, but we don't want to be reminded of it. (I'm thinking of signs posted around DC by animal-rights groups that simply emphasize that meat comes from actual animals with actual faces.)
People don't have that detachment here--I guess it's more honest that way. It never ceases to amaze us that the newspapers we get from the supermarkets will have advertisements for veal that show pictures of happy little baby cows...with names, no less. Or take the restaurant today--it's part of a working farm, and you drive right past the cows, bison and pigs as you drive in. Then when you read the menu, they very proudly point out which dishes come from those animals you just passed on the way in (and are almost apologetic about those dishes that aren't from the farm).
And the thing is, they love animals here--cows and sheep are as much a part of the landscape as the Alps or the Rhine. They just don't seem to be as sentimental (or naive or in denial) about them as we squeamish Americans tend to be...
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