CURRENT MOON

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

My Sea Kitten, Sara

A new phrase entered my lexicon today, words that I'd not put together before: sea kitten. "Would people think twice about ordering fish sticks if they were called sea kitten sticks" inquires PETA in its campaign to associate our watery brethren with something less food-like. Admittedly, I don't contemplate eating lobster because I can't handle the prospect of quickly cooking them or slowly cooking them, while they're alive. Eating their fear, is how some circles describe it.

But my stance is unpredictable: I've eaten crawfish and langoustine, considered live bait in some circles. They're *smaller* than big 'ole lobster, afterall. Part of me thinks that if I indeed am going to consume fish, fowl or swine, I must be keenly aware of the consequences for that creature and myself and attempt to choose ones that I know have been treated humanely while alive, or that I've caught or raised and killed myself. (Just so you know, I haven't caught/hunted any critters that I can remember, beyond ants [heartless] and a sunfish or two. And the occasional snail: I tend to thrown them way out in the back 40.)

I keep buying vegan cookbooks like
Vegan Soul Kitchen, but the reality is that I continue to eat all kinds of stuff and I am am capable of serious predation. I was enthralled with Babe, a mythic, filmic pig raised by sheepdogs, and then I have an ongoing relationship with bacon. Go figure.

Still,
PETA has a site where one can build one's own sea kitten, like Sara here. Maybe I won't kill and eat Sara, but my kitty Huey would. No questions asked.

Can I kill and clean a chicken? Can you? My grandma May could and did. She was pretty happy when the A&P started bringing in packaged parts and 8 o'clock coffee...Does it count if you thank the creature for its sacrifice? Will the kale feel left out, on some level? It's quite the luxury to pick and choose one's food.