Now I am an otter named Olive

It is hard to type with my little otter paws, but I make it work.

Some of you may know I’m sort of anti-blog, but everyone can use a creative outlet sometimes.

The other day I was watching an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (not by choice, I might add)  in which a chef taught the “straight guy” to first slice a living lobster’s head with a knife before pulling off its claws and throwing it in the boiling water. Apparently this is the more humane way to do it, even though the scene was grotesque.

This got me thinking about food and the pain some animals endure before we eat them. In France I thought a lot about foie gras. Basically, this is goose liver, and it’s made by force feeding geese to the point that their livers essentially explode. A friend of mine who studied in Avignon saw a live demonstration of this, and she now refuses to touch the stuff. She said the farmer grabbed the goose by the neck and manually shoved handfuls of corn down its throat while the bird flapped violently and choked and squawked.

Now, foie gras is delicious, but I could really take it or leave it. The French, however, are very passionate about it and strongly defend it whenever anyone criticizes the tradition (as many people and organizations do). I don’t have a strong opinion on it. I never sought to purchase this stuff voluntarily (it’s expensive!), but whenever I was invited to someone’s house in France and they offered it to me, I chose to accept it politely as opposed to refusing it on some moral ground. The same went for lamb, although I admit that bothered me more. And lobster, well–you have to admit it looks pitiful, the way a lobster’s tail writhes as you pry off its claws with its head split in half.

I think all I’m really saying is I wish we could give all these animals anesthesia before making them delicious entrees. We already put so many unnatural chemicals in them that I doubt it would have much more of an impact on our bodies. I also cannot believe I’ve sat here so long writing about this. Seriously. But it’s basically as much as I’d like to reveal about myself over the internet, which may mean blogs aren’t for me.

Anyone have any good lobster recipes?

Um, my new avatar is supposed to be of an otter, but I’m not sure it’s working properly. As an aside, though, the otter’s name really is Olive, and she lives at a zoo in Asheville. I visited the zoo with my mom when she went to do an interview for an article she wrote about red wolves–I need to find out which magazine it’s in, so everyone can go find it and read it! (I guess this is really the kind of thing people are supposed to put in blogs.)

Red wolves: NOT for dinner, as they are endangered.

Otter: It's what's for dinner.