On Being The Meat Man

There’s a great old southern rock and roll song that I have in my music collection — a number of renditions of it, in fact — that I play when I have doubts about my chosen profession.  I’ll pop on the Jerry Lee Lewis version, listen to the man go sideways on that piano of his, and feel my sense of purpose and resolve slowly return to me.  Here’s a sample of the lyrics:

I been down to Macon, Georgia
I ate the furs off a Georgia peach
Plucked me a chicken in Memphis
Mama, I still got feathers in my teeth

Ate a pound of pork Huntsville, Alabama
From a fine Alabama hog
I went to Dallas, Texas
Got no love, my baby left me
Fed the bone to a Louisiana dog

Oh, they call me the meat man
Ya oughta see me eat, ma’am
Hear I’m the meat man, baby
Ya oughta see me eat, ma’am

It took me a while to accept that handle: Scott Gold, Meat Man.  Despite my obvious fascination with and love for the carnivorous arts and all of its myriad pleasures, secrets, science and history, I never really saw myself becoming “That Guy.” The Meat Guy.  The Crazy Carnivore.  It’s not something I resent or regret, far from it.  But when that happened, I wasn’t quite prepared for everything that becoming a noted meat enthusiast carries along with it.  After a number of months dwelling on this interesting twist of fate, I decided to go with it, to fully embrace the thing that I’d unexpectedly — and perhaps serendipitously — become.  If I was going to be The Meat Man, then I was going to be the best damned Meat Man I could be.  Life’s too short to do anything half way.

That said, there are some strange and wonderful side-effects to devoting so much of one’s professional (and personal) life to the intricacies and joys of animal flesh.  When I meet people for the first time, it takes me a little while to give them an accurate picture of what I do for a living.  I like to start with broad strokes.  ”I’m a food writer,” I say, which almost always gives people the impression that I’m a restaurant critic, something I’d never really want to be; I love food too much to slam a restaurant or a chef in a review.  I’d rather write about the good stuff, the meals that make me excited and hungry and waxing rhapsodic.  ”No,” I reply, “I write narratively about food, mostly about meat.”  ”And what about you,” they’ll say.  ”Oh, sorry, not me…’meat.’  Em-ee-ay-tee.”  This often results in my interlocutor pausing to consider what that entails, and then a barrage of further questions, which I’ll happily answer here.

First, I am not obese.  I’m no swimsuit model, but I do my best to keep in shape, which people always seem to find surprising, sometimes even resulting in a double-take.  I suppose they doubt the sincerity of a trim meat enthusiast, and I’ve always found that kind of sad.  Loving good food — especially meat — and being a healthy person are not mutually exclusive, no matter how counterintuitive that seems.  In fact, I’m healthier now than I was when I wasn’t The Meat Man.  This has a lot to do with  eating much less processed food, not to mention discovering that one doesn’t need to have a steak the size of his thigh to enjoy a nice cut of beef.  Sure, I indulge in the deliciously decadent from time to time (see also: foie gras jelly donut), but it’s not my daily M.O.  When I eat meat, I want it to be of excellent quality, and I do so sparingly.  The rest of the time, I love my whole grains and vegetables and all the other things that are good for you and also taste great.  Being a carnivore does not mean being a glutton, I’m happy to say.

People are also concerned that I might be on constant guard against the angry fundamentalist vegans hordes, the Skinny Bitches and their ilk.  And while I’ve debated agricultural and dietary ethics on a number of occasions, sometimes in international media, it’s rare that I get into those sorts of heated arguments, particularly in my personal life.  At this point, I’ve realized that there’s entirely too much junk science and disinformation out there to have these sorts of philosophical debates and get anywhere, especially if the person you’re trying to reason with is a Kool-Aid drinking whack-job, of which there are many.  But again, these tense discussions are few and far between, mostly because my friends and associates are overwhelmingly smart and reasonable people.  Especially my vegetarian friends, whom I dearly love and get along with famously, and who are just as frustrated with the nutjob soy-protein proselytizers as I am, often more so.  Some people simply can’t be appeased, no matter how fair you try to be.  The rest of us, though, we just want to eat what we love to eat, make friends and get on with our lives.

But I think the strangest thing about being a conspicuous carnivore is the gifts I tend to receive.  Seriously, I get the weirdest presents.  And odder still, most of these gifts aren’t actual meat.  Can you believe that?  As much as I adore fleshy delights, my friends and relatives tend to buy me meat-related paraphernalia and kitsch rather than, say, a whole country ham or a membership in the Bacon of the Month Club, with exception of the various hunters I know, who practically glow with pride when they graciously donate to me a wild boar shoulder, venison backstraps or sausage, or, in one of the kindest gestures ever extended to me, the whole breast of a locally-hunted wild turkey.  These are the things that make being the Meat Man a joyful thing.  Meantime, I continue to amass a growing collection of oddball items, from a steak bathmat and shower curtain to “I’m NOT A Vegan” mints (huh?!?!), a red carnivore cause bracelet, a green, butterscotch-flavored gummy haggis (oh yes), and bacon-themed everything, including breath mints, toothpicks, even an air freshener.

[A small assortment from the author's personal collection.  Antiques Roadshow, Here I come!]

So, yes, it’s kind of a bizarre lot, but its my lot, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  For good or ill, I am the Meat Man, and you really oughtta see me eat, ma’am.  Because I eat well, and I adore what I do, in spite of — and probably because of — all the strange and wonderful baggage that comes along with it.

Except for the gummy haggis.  That’s just plain wrong.