Too Damned Western

Today, I went to what is known as the I.N.A. Market. It is a huge shopping area mainly noted for its food freshness. However, this place proved to be just too fresh for the kid.

Westerners are spoiled. Occasionally we go to a real meat market and see a butcher chop up a carcass. However, the meat market is a contained environment. Its enclosed which minimalizes flies. Its cold which minimalizes smell and spoiling. The animals are sell-ready when you walk in to the store. For meat eaters, its generally a tantalizing experience as you can fathom what each cut of meat will look like once cooked and on your plate.

Not in India. You ever stand in a store and watch as they carry in the very live and clucking chickens that they will kill, then pluck, then cut up for your chicken wings and breast? You ever see them carry in a whole skinned goat minus the hairy head which is conveniently laying on a table in front of you, only to watch its liver go to one customer, its legs go to another and its side meat ground for minced mutton for yourself?

The methodical method with which the butchers, sitting perched behind meats, with a blade between their toes and a long knife in each hand is indeed an art form. However, just like the Opera, not all art forms are for me and so I don't feel so bad in saying that this is just one performance I'm not terribly interested in seeing again.

I am here to say, that if I can avoid it, I will never be privvied to those sights again. I love meat way too much to be turned off by what happens to it, prior to it being splashed with seasoning, cooked and thrown onto my plate, which sits invariably next to a bottle of hot sauce.

Here's to being a spoiled Westerner!!!