Food: A Love Story (15 page)

DICTATOR:
From now on, people can only eat raw fish.

CROWD:
(
moans
)

DICTATOR:
Wrapped in seaweed.

CROWD:
(
moans loudly
)

DICTATOR:
And you can only pick it up using these long sticks!

CROWD:
(
begs for mercy
)

Sushi is a Japanese thing. Don’t trust a non-Japanese person as your sushi chef. Nobody believes in racial profiling until they get a red-haired sushi chef with a southern accent. The Japanese have done so many impressive things with art, technology, and science that we all assume sushi was some brilliant achievement. In reality it was probably that some Japanese chef didn’t pay his electric bill.

In all seriousness, sushi
is
an art form. It’s beautiful. There is the expert cutting of the fish. Putting it on rice. Laying it on the wood plank thing. Rolling it up in that seaweed snakeskin. Planting that little carrot garden on top. Placing it in front of
someone and nodding with an uncomfortable smile. I’m not even competent at preparing a box of mac and cheese.

I’m certainly in no way a sushi expert. I would definitely consider myself a wimpy sushi eater. I always order California rolls because they have nothing raw in them and I’m pretty sure that fake crabmeat they contain is made of chicken. I feel California rolls are the training wheels of the sushi community. “I can’t ride a bike yet, but I’ll pretend I can.” There’s some sushi I would never eat, like the salmon roe, the fluorescent fish eggs in the seaweed bucket thing. Roe is just a capsule of fish concentrate. Those Icelanders would love it. I don’t know how you can eat salmon roe after you’ve seen the opening scene to the film
Finding Nemo
. The eggs are even orange like Nemo’s mom and siblings.

When I do eat sushi, I always make a point of not telling anyone I’ve eaten sushi. This is in reaction to my observation that everyone seems to have to tell you that they’ve eaten sushi like it was some impressive activity or adventure. “We just went for sushi!” “What did we do this weekend? We went for sushi!” It seems people never
ate
sushi. They
went for
sushi. I always want to ask, “Did you catch anything?” Some of the posturing may be to justify the cost of sushi, which for some reason is very expensive. This is strange, considering that it’s not even cooked.

Marre enjoying some overpriced raw fish.

Cooked or uncooked, fish is scary. My manager and good friend, Alex Murray, was an anti-meat fish-eater (yes, one of those). Feeling generally ill, he went to the doctor for a thorough examination. Turns out his blood contained abnormally high levels of mercury and other toxins to the point of almost poisoning him. Why? That’s right! From eating the evil fish. Upon hearing this news, I took Alex out for a gigantic steak, my own prescription for a fish-poisoning antidote, and, of course, made him pay for it because I was right. Fish
is
bad. A part of me felt like the alcoholic who just found out red wine was an antioxidant. I always knew that whole “fish is good for you” story was a little fishy.

ANIMAL EATER

I love to eat animals. I realize this sounds harsh, but it’s true. Of course, I’m not going into pet stores and asking, “Which is the most delicious animal you sell here?” Well, not anymore. I have contemplated buying a zoo, eating the animals, and putting my children in the empty cages, but I like to think that has more to do with my parenting style than my diet. I’m kidding. About part of that. Anyway, I do consume food that was once an animal. Some vegetarians refuse to eat meat because they feel it’s cruel to animals, which, interestingly enough, is the same reason I don’t eat vegetables. In a way I’m a vegetable rights activist. I bet those vegetarian savages don’t even feel guilty when they eat baby carrots!

I don’t like to think of myself as the type of person who would be mean to an animal. I love animals. I’ve never looked at a cow and thought,
I want to eat that.
But once that cow has been slaughtered, drained of all its blood, chopped up, and put on a grill, I do get hungry for some cow. I guess I love animals, but I enjoy eating them more. My motto is “Fun to pet, better to chew.” It definitely helps when the food doesn’t look like an
animal or part of an animal. “This ham sandwich doesn’t look like a pig to me.” Of course, ribs are a different situation because, well, they are
ribs
. There is no denying you are eating actual ribs. Ribs are what protect the pigs’ or cows’ lungs and are really great with barbecue sauce. I’m still not sure how to eat ribs without looking like a caveman. “Excuse me while I tear the flesh from this bone with my teeth. I need my energy for when I club you later.” It’s amazing how casually we order ribs. “Yeah, I’ll have the baby back ribs, and can you wheel them out in a stroller?” You can order the veal as an appetizer and have an all-baby animal meal. I do feel bad that the animals have to be killed to provide the meat I eat. I’d feel better if it was an animal suicide or if maybe the animal deserved it. “This is a good turkey sandwich, and to think that damn bird tried to steal my car.”

Me eating an assortment of vegetarians.

I’m really not interested in seeing the face of the animal I’m eating. At pig roasts they always have the pig head sitting out there on display. This is always sad, because you can tell someone killed the pig while it was eating an apple. The poor pig didn’t even get to finish the first bite.

I am a meat lover, but I believe that the people who are really obsessed with meat are
the vegetarians. For people who don’t like to eat meat, they sure seem to eat a lot of fake meat. There is mashed-up tofu, wheat, or vegetable versions of every type of meat.

VEGETARIAN AT A RESTAURANT:
I find eating meat repulsive! (
to waiter
) Okay, I’ll have a veggie burger with soy cheese and tofu bacon, and could you serve it to me dressed like a cow?

If anyone is driving by meat’s house seeing if any lights are on, it’s the vegetarian.

VEGETARIAN:
Hey, have you seen meat lately? I mean, I don’t care, but has meat asked about me? (
singing
)
I ain’t missin’ you at all (missin’ you).

Some of the meatless meat products seem like something out of
Spy Kids.
“Over here, Agent Cortez, we have what looks like a hot dog, but it’s made completely of beans. Whoever eats it will never leave the bathroom.”

Recently a waitress asked me if I was a vegetarian. I was flattered. I felt like a seventy-year-old lady who was just carded in a bar. I guess vegetarians and meat eaters are not that different. It’s pretty straightforward: some people eat meat and some people are wrong. Of course, I’m only teasing the vegetarians. It is very easy to understand the animal-loving vegetarian’s issue with us carnivores, but I’m confused by why some meat eaters take issue with the vegetarians. Why would I care if someone doesn’t eat meat? I always think, “You don’t eat meat? Hey, more meat for me.” The reality is, the vegetarians are winning. The perception has changed since I was a child. It’s become more socially acceptable. Recently my nine-year-old daughter informed me that she was a vegetarian. I would love to have seen my own father’s reaction if I had said the same thing to him. Without missing a beat, my dad would have said, “(
cough
) No son of mine is gay. Be a man. Eat your meat.”

The health benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle are undeniable. In the not-so-distant future half the population will be vegetarian and the other half will be happily in a meat coma. This is not to say I don’t find vegetarians amusing when they try to impress me. “I haven’t eaten meat in five years.” I always say, “I haven’t had a banana in a month, but you don’t see me bragging about it, because I’m not a food bragger,” and I go back to eating my McNuggets. The shocked vegetarian usually replies, “Do you know what they do to those chickens?” “No, but it’s delicious. If you could get me the recipe, that’d be delightful.”

I do have
some
scruples. I make it my policy to only eat meat from animals that during their lives were strict vegetarians. I find it very unethical to eat the meat of a lion, a python, or a tyrannosaurus rex. Those animals were too cruel toward other animals for me to feel okay about eating them. What can I say? I am just a great guy. One animal that no one in this country wants to eat is a dog. I think dogs don’t realize that they are never going to be eaten. Maybe that is why they’re so friendly. They are just kissing up to us so we won’t eat them.

Jeannie eating a barbecued lung protector.

We eat so many different types of meat and it’s also remarkable how many different ways to raise and process meat there are: organic, free range, grass fed, cured, smoked, and, of course, canned. Organic meat is better than other types of meat because those cows did yoga. There is a type of meat for everyone. For example, prosciutto is for people who like to floss while they eat meat. Some people like to eat poultry, but since that’s just a nice way to say
bird
, I don’t consider poultry a real meat. Sure, I occasionally eat chicken and turkey, but I think there is a reason why birds are categorized as fowl. Turkey has also become normal meat’s unofficial stand-in. “Now playing the role of a meatball, here’s turkey!” I am not sure how the cow feels about her understudy being a bird. It’s kind of weird that we even eat birds. Some restaurants seem a little too eager to serve duck. Duck is all over the menu. “I guess I’ll
order the duck, unless you have a flamingo or a dove holding an olive branch in its beak.” To me, ducks are a little too adorable to eat. The reason I can even stomach chicken is because I don’t have the image of a cute duck in my mind.