Me, One Roasted Chicken, & My Conscience
There’ve been too many firsts this year to name. Another unexpected one flew right into the narrative of my 54-year-old life with little fanfare just last night.
This year for my Thanksgiving Solo, I roasted a whole chicken.
I decided I’d opt for the bird whose flavor I prefer: good old fashioned roast chicken.
I’ve never really enjoyed turkey so in honor of my first Thanksgiving spent alone in my apartment in New York, I decided I’d opt for the bird whose flavor I prefer: good old fashioned roast chicken.
I grew up on chicken. My mother was an expert roaster, managing to transform a landscape of onions and one or two birds into one delicious world. And I have vivid memories of afternoons spent riding around in her Plymouth Horizon, me digging into a pile of Kentucky Fried chicken, handing her the bones to chew and suck as we drove from where or to what I never much cared. Dad didn’t approve of McDonald’s or KFC so it gave these secret escapes the luster of transgression.
Like a good student, I texted my friend Brenda who replied with three or four helpful hints about how not to dry it out yet manage a crispy skin. I then consulted Melissa Clark’s clear and helpful NYTimes guide, How to Roast Chicken. I was prepared to cross the threshold into a land occupied by many roasters (mostly women, but a handful men) who by their roasting seemed to me to be creating aromatic welcome for family and friends and passersby.
Whenever I head down the hallway of my building toward the elevators and I catch a whiff of a roasting bird or a beef goulash, I’m filled with a sense of calm not unlike the way my body feels when I first step onto the sand and again see, hear and smell the ocean.
Hope. Calm. Unity.
I’ve been a prolific summer griller and have enjoyed improvising my own variations on pot roast, meatloaf, shchnitzel.
The smell of a roast in the oven says: Welcome. Can I take your coat? Would you like something to drink? Have a seat…
Until yesterday, I’d never shied away from cooking with meat. I’ve been a prolific summer griller and have enjoyed improvising my own variations on pot roast, meatloaf, shchnitzel.
But none of these has forced me to ever confront the totality of the animal before I cooked it. And while the chicken head and feet were gone, gently rinsing it off in my sink, cradling it under the water I caught myself first testing the temperature to be sure it was not shockingly cold.
I simply could not shake the idea that this thing in my hands that I was now rubbing with salt and garlic had once been alive
As I cradled the carcass, the legs and wings moved easily in and out toward and away from the spine which, had I been able to spatchcock I’d have soon been cutting away from the body.
I simply could not shake the idea that this thing in my hands that I was now rubbing with salt and garlic had once been alive — running around a free range (whatever that is) — and that I had contributed to a food chain that made its life meaningless.
Meaningless because I could certainly survive without eating it and because it had been brought into this world solely for the purpose of feeding someone like me, an overfed, over-indulged American guy who more and more looks around at the landscape and asks: What can I consume today?
The biggest changes I’ve made in life have all started small. In baby steps.
It would be romantic (and too pat) for me to end this post with a declaration of my newfound vegetarianism. I won’t make such promises.
On the other hand I do know this: The biggest changes I’ve made in life have all started small. In baby steps. When I decided I might try to decouple from Facebook, for example, I started by trying two weeks without it. Then a month. Then a year. And finally, now, several years. Real change doesn’t happen in a flash.
But the possibility for change often does. I love the taste of meat. But I hate the idea of murder. And how much of a sacrifice would it really be for me to simply give it up? Especially during a pandemic when so many millions all across the globe have given and are giving up so much more, with no choice of their own.
So here’s my baby step. For now, I’ll take the rest of 2020 to give myself a break from meat.
No telling what I might find.
