For the past few weeks, I’ve been apprenticing with Spannocchia’s norcino (pork butcher) in Tuscany. During my first two weeks as a butcher apprentice, I read No Meat Required by
, which provides an overview of the social, cultural, and political history of plant-based eating in the United States. When asked what I was reading, some people were noticeably bewildered that I would read a book about vegetarianism and veganism. One woman even blurted out, “WHY?! You’re not vegan!!” I was so shocked by her question that I laughed out loud. It’s not like we are a banana and a wolf trying to have a conversation. We’re all humans. We all need to eat food. I suppose the idea of there being common ground between a butcher and a vegan is incomprehensible to some people, but in my mind, these two worlds are not mutually exclusive. Throughout her book, I nodded in agreement about concerns regarding increased processed meat consumption and monocultures. I found her discussion of tech meats and the industrial meat industry’s effects on the climate compelling and followed up her book by reading some of the sources she referenced. Kennedy dives into the history of plant-based eating, both good and bad, and shares her personal story along the way. As I started my apprenticeship, I found her book helpful in thinking through my own experience as a vegetarian and, more recently, as a meat eater.My relationship with meat has been an evolution. For the first decade of my life, I ate meat without much thought. In my pre/early-teen years, my dad adopted a religion that demanded abstinence from meat and dairy. Everyone in the house was forced to conform to these dietary restrictions “for the sake of our karma,” so we cut meat out of our lives. When we were first forced into vegetarianism, I swore never to give up meat, but I didn’t do the grocery shopping, so eventually, it faded from my diet. We ate primarily vegan meals, but my mom, sisters, and I never gave up dairy entirely.
By the time I went to college at a hippie liberal arts university, being vegetarian was common. Even though I no longer lived with my parents, I remained vegetarian for several years. My vegetarian meals in college were a lot of cheese, bagels, eggs, pasta, beans, rice, frozen pizza, and Annie’s Mac & Cheese. When craving meat, I would turn to the limited fake meat choices available at that time (Morning Star Chick’n Patties and veggie Bacon Strips were my favorites). These fake meats would temporarily satisfy my cravings for a BLT or chicken sandwich, but something about imitation meat products always put me off. Vegetables were usually on my plate, but they were not the focus of my meals. Most of the vegetarians I knew had made a conscientious choice to give up meat in their late teens or early twenties. They seemed surprised or even impressed when I told them how long I had been vegetarian. I hated talking about it and dreaded questions about how long I had been vegetarian or why I become vegetarian. Unlike my peers who chose to give up meat for various ethical and moral reasons, I never had a reason for being vegetarian that seemed satisfactory. My vegetarianism wasn’t a choice but an idle relic of my upbringing. My diet was vegetarian, but my identity was never tied to being “vegetarian.”
What we eat is more than a way of feeding ourselves, especially when moral or spiritual decisions guide those choices. What we eat is influenced by our family history, social trends, religious beliefs, economics, politics, and traditions, and sometimes these factors conflict with one another. It’s more than a dietary choice; it’s a defining component of many people’s identity, as important to them as their religion. As such, people become incredibly defensive when someone disagrees with their choices.
One of the concerns outlined in Kennedy’s book is the need for sweeping changes in our food systems to combat climate change. These changes include people moving towards diets more focused on plant-based foods because industrial meat and dairy are some of the largest food-based contributors to climate change. Creating significant mitigation of climate concerns in this country will depend on consumer choices and dietary preferences that are influenced by the complicated factors I listed above. If Americans feel their meat is being taken away and eating meat is a part of their identity, they will cling more tightly. So what are the alternatives?
We need to care about where our food comes from. How it is grown or, raised and sourced directly impacts our health and the health and well-being of our communities and our planet. I wasn’t a healthy vegetarian back in college, and it wasn’t until I decided to improve my diet that vegetables became my focus. It was around this time that I started to cook meat. After being vegetarian for a decade, I took to heart that an animal died for me to eat, so I tried to buy organic and make the most of what I purchased. I learned how to roast a chicken and used that single bird to make stocks, soups, chicken salads, tacos, and whatever else I could think up. After mastering the roast chicken, I graduated on to other types of meat. I’ve been eating meat for almost a decade, but my relationship with it is still evolving. Over the past few years, I’ve made an effort to learn more about my local farmers and source the best possible local meat.
Most of the meat we are eating in this country is industrially farmed. According to Marketplace, Tyson Foods and Perdue Farms jointly produce a third of the poultry in this country.1 It was reported last week that the U.S. Department of Labor opened an investigation into Tyson Foods and Perdue Farms for potential illegal child labor. This came after a jaw-dropping investigation for the New York Times Magazine by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Hannah Dreier, reporting that children were being maimed and injured working overnight shifts cleaning slaughterhouses. It seems like a low bar to set, but can we all agree that we shouldn’t be eating meat raised in inhumane conditions, injected with hormones, or processed in facilities that are potentially maiming children? We need to respect not only the animals we eat but also the people who work to bring us that food.
I am excited to be at Spannocchia because salumi starts with a deep respect for the heritage breed Cinta Senese pig, the quality of life the pigs have, and the traditional techniques that keep local recipes and traditions alive. The Cinta Senese pigs spend their entire lives in the pastures and woods and only spend one day off the property before returning to be transformed into various types of salumi. Making salumi is an effective way to preserve meat for a long time while using more of the pig than if you were to butcher solely for fresh cuts of meat. The heads, skin, blood, and organs are all used to make Buristo and Soppressata, two types of salumi popular here, particularly during winter. Incorporating salumi into my meals is one way I minimize the amount of meat I consume. Salumi is intense, salty, and rich; a little bit can transform a dish. A leg of prosciutto can cure for years, improving with each passing week, whereas the same cut of fresh meat cut and frozen would be good for a few months and consumed within a couple of meals.
I came to Italy with very little background or knowledge of butchery. While I have the least experience of the apprentices, I find that I can keep up and have my own set of strengths that I bring to the team. On the weekends, I visit the pigs in the pasture, watch the piglets with their moms, and say thank you to the few selected for the slaughterhouse. For the next seven weeks, I will be here in Tuscany, continuing to learn everything I can about making salumi. It has been years since I was vegetarian, but this experience of taking a pig through every step, from pasture to packaging, has forced me to evaluate my relationship with meat more closely. After years of dreading discussions about vegetarianism or eating meat, I have finally come into my voice and am willing to have the conversation about being a locally-focused, conscientious meat eater. I eat vegan meals, I eat mostly vegetarian meals, and I eat meat, but more importantly, I care about where the food comes from and stories of how it made it to my plate.
Marketplace, Tyson, Perdue Investigated for Illegal Child Labor, https://www.marketplace.org/2023/10/04/tyson-perdue-investigated-for-illegal-child-labor-report-says/, accessed October 6th, 2023.
This is a beautiful essay and so thoughtful. Thank you for weaving my book into it!