Tuesday: Time to up the ante. I visit a five-star restaurant for a feast of foie gras -- slices of the livers of geese that were force-fed until they nearly burst. During the two-and-a-half-hour meal, I eat my way through a glittering array of sinful yet heavenly preparations -- cured foie gras au torchon with caramelized pears and a truffle vinaigrette, lingonberry foie gras draped in 24-karat gold foil, chocolate foie gras on Gran Marnier French toast -- washed down with Sauternes.
Instead of genuine, traditional force-fed geese, the chef uses a breed of Moulard duck that gorges itself continually, left to its own devices. (Who doesn't?) I'm completely won over.
Wednesday: After all that foie gras, food isn't really a priority. Breakfast is a slice of toast. Later in the day, I stop by my liquor store to see what kind of totalitarian regimes I can support. I settle on a bottle of Barbancourt, my favorite rum, the finest the cruel Haitian kleptocracy can produce. Oh, well. It's not as if we don't put money into the pockets of the fascist Chinese Communist megastate with every pair of pants we buy. It's a small world after all.
Thursday: My efforts to locate horse steaks failed. So I close out the week with a Tang-and-aerosol-cheese party in my office: a tribute to highly processed food, also doing their part to destroy our health and the planet. My colleagues enjoy their aerosol cheese, which I serve with Chivas Regal. I had worried that my little experiment would somehow offend them, but they seem more puzzled than anything else.
What did I learn from the week? I keep thinking of the happy hen eggs I saw that cost twice as much as regular eggs. The American food monolith, with its chicken mills and slaughterhouses, wasn't created because its owners are cruel. It was created because it's cheaper to make food that way, and most people live close to the bone.
Organic food is a luxury, another bit of rich American conspicuous consumption. And while eating organic has some impact, I'm sure, that impact is dwarfed by the colossal self-righteousness of its practitioners.
That said, utter indifference doesn't quite suit me either -- it couldn't suit someone who spends as much time as I do tending to the needs of a tree frog. I found myself most attracted to a friend's approach to animals: treat 'em decently and then eat 'em guiltlessly.
A line from the Greek poet Bion comes to mind: "Little boys throw stones at frogs in jest, though the frogs die, not in jest, but in earnest." This doesn't suggest we should try to forcibly change the ways of little boys. Nor does it ignore the sacrifice that the frogs make on their behalf.
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