In the current issue of Sierra, I have a story about a new magazine called Meatpaper. This disturbing little publication got me thinking in an elliptical way about my girlfriend Anjali.
Meatpaper is memorable because it pulls meat out of the context in which we’re accustomed to seeing it. There’s no guide to the leanest cuts or recipe for a tangy marinade. Instead, there are profiles of butchers and reviews of artists who use meat as a medium and explorations of what meat means. Open its pages and I realize again that, oh right, meat is from an animal, a creature coursing with blood and a beating heart.
Anjali is Hindu and shuns beef, respecting the sacred role of animal life. At first I thought this would be a source of friction between us (I enjoy the burger, yes I do).
We have been together more than two years and I just noticed that I’ve almost stopped eating beef at home. I’ll go on a red-meat bender at a restaurant when the lust emerges, but that’s about it.
Anjali is also a surgeon. She spends her workdays cutting into the meat of our fellow humans. On the few occasions I’ve seen her wield a scalpel, I am cut to the quick. I get wobbly and have to sit down. Maybe that’s because I’m seeing something I’m not meant to see. Or maybe it’s because I catch a glimpse of what an animal I am, how despite my skills with a steering wheel and keyboard and cell phone I am no more than a sack of flesh and blood, vulnerable to the knife.
And, who knows? Perhaps even tasty in a tangy marinade.
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