And with the flickering of wrists and a sharp crack, disturbing the early morning silence, the chicken's neck was snapped in half." So begins the overly dramatized tale of my sister's experience in Africa. "Shortly after my African host mother would barge into the house, jar of water in the left arm, lifeless chicken in the right, proclaiming, 'tonight you eat like royalty.'" It was at this point in the story that my sister had decided that, once home from her semester abroad in Ghana, she would never eat meat again. Like many of her anti-meat-eating endeavors before, she would not see her declaration through.
Just a few weeks later, while still in Africa, she turned 21. To celebrate the much-anticipated event all the kids in the Global Roots program, which she was participating in, chose to dine in the Ghanaian village's finest and only hotel. The meal that night, prepared only for occasions of such grand magnitude, was deliberately not mentioned in front of her. All she knew was that she was being served a certain meat delicacy -- and her refusal to eat would cause somewhat of an uproar.
One fried bush rat later and my sister's declaration had been slightly altered. That was the last meat dish she would ever touch.
It seems as though vegetarians have this problem of not being able to stick with their proclamations. My sister, for one, has now become a vegetarian for the sixth time. Most of her endeavors range on the short side from around 10 to 15 days. Her moral revelations tend to end when she is too lazy to cook up something different from the family meal. But this time she seems more persistent to stick with her guns. Who could blame her, having to eat what she's had to eat?
I was watching a show on New Hampshire Public Television the other day. It was a two-hour documentary on the chicken, which, despite its lackluster appeal, was surprisingly entertaining. It was 1:45 a.m., and with a couple games of pong under my belt, all of a sudden the chickens were humoring me. A farmer was interviewed on the show. The purpose of his interview was to bring the viewer through the beheading process.
In a succession of shots I saw a live chicken being stuffed down an open-ended metal tube, followed by a pan-out to the shot of a mouth-watering, delicious chicken dinner. I turned to my roommate, who was just as pathetic as me for watching a chicken documentary, and proclaimed, "This makes me feel bad about eating meat." Ten minutes later I ordered my usual cheeseburger sub from Everything But Anchovies.
The point of the story is that for the first legitimate time, I truly understand why vegetarians feel the way they do. Whether it is a demanding diet or simple anger towards animal cruelty, I can finally sympathize with the vegetarian way.
A friend of mine came to Dartmouth a vegetarian of four years. Within a semester he gave it up. "There is only so many times I can stuff another vegetarian wrap down my throat," he told me. I laughed at him because his new-found meat eating gave him awful stomach cramps. In the end the real victim was the Russell Sage janitor who now had to deal with more duties than just those in her job description.
The truth of it is that I feel bad in retrospect. My friend couldn't continue with his beliefs because the campus couldn't provide enough resources. While it may not register on the Student Life Initiative's list of campus reforms, the dining situation could be fixed in a more vegetarian favorable way. I know Hanover is no metropolis, but you would think that there would be a place where you could get a decent pasta dish after 7:30 p.m., even if it is on the Food Court menu. For those SA Cash-strapped individuals who are unable to speed dial EBAs for some meatless late-night munchies, there must be an end to this exploitation.
As the never-ending battle between vegetarians and meat-eaters wages on, it is clear who cruel fortune favors. Proponents of Darwinian carnivorous theory continue to mock the outmatched few who steadfastly stick to their morals. I continue to order angus steak tips when I eat at Murphy's. The campus vegetarian food facilities continue to shut their doors early. And it seems that until we all can experience the taste-bud-enticing pleasure of charred African bush rat, this problem will continue.
