A VEGETARIAN IN THE MAKING?
Posted by Karen on Feb 26 2008
KT and I dropped the boys off at an OSU basketball game on Sunday and headed to Whole Foods for some shopping. I did have a list of things we needed, but as Whole Foods is known to do, more things ended up in my cart than planned.
One of those things was a big ol’ pot roast. More specifically, a chuck roast about the size of my head! Other than its faint marbling lines, it had very little fat on it. It looked way yummy!
Yesterday, I covered the entire thing with garlic and tossed that puppy roast into the oven. The house smelled glorious for several hours. Upon emerging from the oven, the roast literally fell apart. Success!! We like to call it “ruining the roast” but everyone agrees that if it ain’t fallin’ apart, it doesn’t taste as good.
And it tasted good great! Tender and moist and flavorful. An all around perfect roast. Somehow it got us to talking about where food comes from.
And I’m saddened to announce that my kids are naive. Sadly uninformed. Or they were just playing dumb to freak us out.
Somewhere in the conversation, I asked KT, “You do know what part of the cow this is, don’t you?”
(blank stare)
I continue, “It’s the muscle. Roasts and steaks and the meats we eat….that’s the animal’s muscle.”
(blank stare)
(gag)
“What?” KT replies. “It is not muscle.”
“Ok, fine, smarty-pants. What part of the cow is this?”
(blank stare)
KT replies, “I always thought it was just the cow’s……regularness.”
(ok, now it’s time for MY blank stare)
“Its what?” I ask.
“Its regularness. You know, not bone, not stomach, not brain, just its regular stuff…..it’s regularness.”
I grew up on a small farm. I was privy to where are food came from. It became obvious when Rainbow the cow was there one day, and the next day we were eating a T-bone. The circle of life for a farm animal was obvious. And maybe KT really knew what she was eating. She can be the drama queen about some things. Yeah, that’s it. She was just playing with us. She knew full well what that roast was.
But the next time I go to Longhorn, I’m going to order the 9 oz. Cow Regularness cooked medium-rare.
on 26 Feb 2008 at 12:49 pm 1 Pinkaholic Mom said …
It’s the muscle? Imagine MY blank stare. I didn’t know that. I don’t think I want to know anymore because then I’ll have to go vegetarian. I DID go vegetarian for a year once after picking up one of those brochures with very descriptive explanations of where the meat we eat comes from. I don’t remember what knocked the senses back into me after a year. I guess knowing less is more.
on 26 Feb 2008 at 1:29 pm 2 Karen M said …
I totally agree with Pinkaholic Mom. The less that I know the better. I love me some steak and don’t wanna loose the love by knowing where exactly it came from.
BTW, You’re blog is totally corrupting me. I come here with my appetite under control. Everything seems to be just fine and dandy but when I’m done reading your post I’m hungry for something or the other.
on 26 Feb 2008 at 2:26 pm 3 Steve Loopipe said …
It’s funny, but this story just gave me a flashback to one of my all-time favorite Simpsons episodes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_the_Vegetarian
Of course, I can’t exactly imagine Mike and Nick singing, “You don’t make friends with salad!”…
on 26 Feb 2008 at 2:31 pm 4 Mary T said …
Even being brought up around the “dissapearing” cows, I’ve never thought about it. I mean, what else could it be?! The “Meat” of the animal. I guess when you don’t actually THINK about it, you never really know. But as I’ve heard … “ignorance is bliss”!! Especially when it comes to yummy meat! I love to be a carnivore!
on 26 Feb 2008 at 2:56 pm 5 Awesome Mom said …
I am the total opposite of the ignorance crowd. I was an animal science major in college and I know exactly how the animals I ear are raised and how they are killed. One day we watched a cow get slaughtered and I was hungry at the end wanting a nice juicy steak.
on 26 Feb 2008 at 4:28 pm 6 Sue said …
AND when my son (Matt)named the cows one year, he named one after himself so when the cows were slaughtered they came back with the NAMES of the cows on the freezer paper (or mom and dad did it, I can’t remember) Anyway, one night we were eating Matthew. Kind of freaky…but YUM!!
We “grew” our own food from garden to cows, chickens, pigs, sheep…our neighbor would take his labradors to hunting trials and we would get pheasant and rabbit. We would have to skin and clean. We also had snapping turtle soup and frog legs from the lake behind the house.
(And we used to swim in that thing?)But we had fish from it too.But mom was frugal. Buying milk and bread on sale and freezing it. We had a HUGE garden too with asparagus and brussel sprouts. I love asparagus to this day and grow my own.
on 26 Feb 2008 at 8:11 pm 7 jen said …
We’ve flirted with that with A a few times. It’s a matter of time before he totally wigs out. I can handle knowing where our cow came from because we buy from ranchers. You couldn’t pay me enough to get beef or pork from the supermarket. If I could find a chicken farmer to keep me in poultry, I’d be set.
on 26 Feb 2008 at 10:57 pm 8 said …
regularness!? that is so funny!! i love it! and i’m also hungry now, I wish I had me some Rainbow the cow Regularness right now!
on 27 Feb 2008 at 1:46 am 9 Janet said …
Ya I really don’t know anything about meat either!!! LOL
on 27 Feb 2008 at 8:44 am 10 Teri said …
Regularness! ROTFL! That’s great! Who teaches her these things??
on 27 Feb 2008 at 10:17 am 11 reba said …
dang it karen you made me spit out my coffee! I don’t know much about meat either, but that recent recall when i saw cows on forklifts made me consider being a vegetarian for about 5 minutes.
PS Whole Foods has a ready to cook meatloaf that ROCKS! its a garlicy pound of regularness with just a hint of tomato sauce
on 27 Feb 2008 at 10:23 am 12 ValleyGirl said …
Haha, and my 6- and 3-yr olds ask every meal, “Are we eating a pig, a cow, or a chicken tonight?”
on 27 Feb 2008 at 1:27 pm 13 Deb - Mom of 3 Girls said …
LOL - I thought about this last night when Ron brought home KFC for him and me, so I asked Abby and Hannah if they knew where chicken comes from. Nope. I said, well think about it for a minute and see if you can figure it out. Nope. So I said, ‘well, at one point this chicken was alive and running around’ - very curious about what kind of reaction I’d get.
They both just stared at me blankly and then went off to do other things. Guess they don’t need the details right now!
on 27 Feb 2008 at 1:34 pm 14 Dawn @ Coming to a Nursery Near You said …
Well, I didn’t know it’s a MUSCLE either - that’s just gross.
But it tastes SO good slow roasted in onion soup mix with potatoes and onions too
It’s regularness….
good thing you homeschool LOL *Giggle*
on 27 Feb 2008 at 5:19 pm 15 Emily at Mommin It Up said …
Ok once again, I am coming over for dinner.
That post was hilarious - you and KT crack me up!
on 27 Feb 2008 at 7:36 pm 16 lace said …
Oh my that was fun to read. We had roast last night as well and it definitely isn’t done until it is falling apart.
on 28 Feb 2008 at 8:22 am 17 Carolynn from Western Australia said …
Meat is basically muscle if you think about it, the only thing that isn’t are the organs. Think about your own bodies, all our fleshy areas are basically muscles.
The best pork I’ve ever had was homegrown on my girlfriends farm and they slaughtered and butchered it them selves. The pork chops were about 1 nad a half inches thick with the skin left on. The shoulder roasts they used to give us used to have the absolute best crackling you’ve ever tasted.
Maybe it’s best not to think too hard about where something comes from, just enjoy it.
Love Carolynn xxx