Love and Evolution

I need to address the issue of my history as a mostly-vegetarian because on the all-Oregon diet, I will eat animals. Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that over the past 15 years or so I've eaten very little meat. And for some of those 15 years I ate no meat at all, and very little dairy. But in the most recent of those 15 years I have been making more and more forays out of the vegetarian diet, and into a truly omnivorian diet. My food values have been evolving.

I remember the meal that marked a major shift in my thinking. Charlie and I had just started dating. We were living in Baker City in the northeastern corner of Oregon. The town is nestled in a valley between two mountain ranges, the Elk Horns and the Blues. And in the hills that surround the valley lives a certain bird called a chuckar. Charlie, my new guy, was going chuckar hunting with his friend Ned and Charlie wanted to know if I'd have dinner with him after. Dinner of chuckar. I had to think for a while before calling him back with an answer. My reasons for shunning meat were based mostly in the problems inherent in big agri-business. Poor (or down-right wretched) living conditions, hormones pumped in, antibotics administered, over-crowded pens. Generally the fact that animals are treated as crops to be manipulated and harvested without regard to the life of the thing. With Charlie's chuckars none of this was at issue. So I said that I would have dinner with him. And I surprised myself when I volunteered to cook.

I wasn't sure if I could actually do it. I spent a fair amount of time devoted to finding recipes for chuckar (I had little to no experience cooking meat). I even bought new cookware. I was pre-occupied all day with thoughts of the meal and what it meant. Was I giving up an important part of myself for a guy? If so, how counter-feministic is that?

When Charlie arrived home, seven hours after he had left, he had two small birds in a canvas bag. As he recounted the day's adventure I realized that I most certainly could participate in this meal. He told me about the steep, steep climbs where the birds make their homes and the miles and miles that they had hiked in order to reach those places. It had snowed on them at that altitude. He spoke of the beauty of the birds as they flew against the grey sky and the quiet and solitude of the place where the birds live. The experience reminded him of his childhood, bird hunting with his dad, grandfather, and uncles in the Midwest. He cleaned the birds himself, removing the feathers and preparing the animals for me to cook. There was such respect and gratitude for the life of the birds. He was even thankful for the opportunity to get out into the inclement weather to retrieve them.

I prepared them with wild mushrooms that had been gathered by some friends, local onions, potatoes, some really really good wine. So simple. We gave thanks before beginning. And we ate and enjoyed. It's no wonder that we fell in love.