Rare event

Rarely seen in the hothouse, MEAT. Mark still stuck to the veggie option for Christmas lunch, with a nut roast sort of item, which was very good, in fact he had to fend off the carnivore folks.

This is a small pintade or Guinea fowl, the spotty black and white birds which emit a un-oiled gate sound (when not dead). José the butcher told me at length, while everyone waited patiently in the queue, how to cook it to perfection, what to stuff it with, and how many times to baste it. I like José's boucherie, it has a few prized cuts on display, no acreage of bloody formless things, more like a gallery of precious things to be admired.

Meat has become, in our present time, something too available, an assumption that protein in meat form should be eaten every day, vegetables something secondary on the plate. I would rather regard meat as something eaten as a special event, like the traditional Sunday roast. A bit more money spent occasionally on a good quality 'happy' beast must be better for us than a continual consumption of ultra cheap antibiotic soaked animals.

Unfortunately I lit the fire last night with 'Le Monde'. There was a really brilliant article in it about the huge production of meat and the consequences for us and the planet. One of the statistics was that 70 percent of South America's arable land is now given over to cattle production. Add that to the incredible amount of cow fart methane gas and its a massive problem.