I felt shiny. I was mopping up the oil from the last can of sardines everybody brings back from Lisbon and felt shiny. This, if not indicative of January’s strain on one’s psychological well-being, at least shows you the power of advertising. I was feeling how the back of your average tin of cat food promises your cat will feel after nom-nomm-nomming its Extra Fancy Fishies in Real Oil or whatever, which is to say, bright-eyed and silky-furred.
A week later I was feeling angry. Angry that the salmon we’d bought from the fish man didn’t have its skin on. Angry that I hadn’t checked whether it had its skin on, and angry that I had to check. Why would you cook something without its skin?
Now I felt guilty. That eyes-cast-down-at-your-middle-leg-region kind of guilt.
“…and of course none of you eat fish, right?”
The room had only just faintly gargled its non-answer to the first of the rhetorical questions it had just been slammed with just a moment before, the “Of course you’re all smart enough not to eat meat, right?”.
Shit.
We were at the opening speeches of the Youth Food Movement’s year, and I knew that in a week’s time we will have picked up a pig, brought it to slaughter, hung it, brined it and roasted it (although thank god for the surprise element of life, because it turned out we’d also be roasting it out in the snow). I was also feeling very aware of last week’s salmon incident, sardine lunch, a side porting of kibbling to go and two bites of a herring served on the tail (plus pickles and onion though I prefer it cut up). On all counts then, I eat both meat and fish.
