Amy C Collins

i've seen the inside of a carnery

I'm thinking about laboratory meat, cell-cultured and vat grown.

I read an article yesterday in The New Yorker ("Test-Tube Burgers") that's got me interested, if only because I get to exercise my imagination a bit. I posted last week in The Anniversary Post links to old posts from 2009 where I recounted my experiences with chicken killing and a slaughterhouse visit, both adventures spurred by my interest in where my food comes from and the easy, complacent disconnect our privileged culture indulges at great physical, mental, and spiritual expense. I wonder how test-tube manufactured meat might fit into this equation.

I don't believe laboratory raised "meat" will find it's way to a cost effective, common option in my lifetime, maybe not even as an elitist delicacy, but for the sake of curiosity, I've envisioned what my trip to the carnery, in the spirit of my former excursions, might have entailed.

 

I had to petition for entrance into the carnery. For seven months and eighteen days I waited for my "pass" to arrive. Finally, after pulling a few strings, I approached the windowless building, the "factory", with mixed emotions.

I've tasted the high-priced boeuf, in vitro at two Manhattan haute eateries where the selections out priced Kobe and Wagyu steaks by a few hundred dollars per ounce. (On both occasions I was a guest) 

The flavor is fairly indistinguishable from USDA Grade A ground beef, at least I think it is. One has to forget she is eating what could arguably be considered 'unnatural' in order to asses it's culinary appropriateness, and genius, with serious open mindedness. It's like eating tripe or brains for the first time, or perhaps more aptly, innovative Chef Wylie Dufrense's "meat glue", which I encountered sometime back in the early millennium. 

Inside the carnery lobby I was greeted by a young woman in stilettos and pencil skirt, white lab coat and retro large framed eyeglasses evocative of the 1980's. She was very friendly and spoke with a slight British accent, running quickly through the bullet points of the release form I was to sign before the tour could begin. I was asked to leave all my belongings with a guard - mobile computer devices not allowed - and step into a sanitizing shower - something like a scene from that old classic, E.T. when the scientists arrive to inspect the extra terrestrial. I was given a white lab coat, a hair net and matching footies to slip over my shoes and told to keep my hands off the glass. We stepped onto a moving platform where I could just see, 20 feet away and separated by floor to ceiling glass, the scientists working singly in a stark white, almost glowing, atmosphere. 

Bacteria, my guide explained, multiplies so quickly in this environment, much more quickly than the meat proteins, that every aspect of the process must be extremely sterile. She pointed out the harvesting of bovine stem cells where the process begins, their careful placement in a nutrient bath, and how they are transplanted into larger terrariums where the thin cell sheets can spread out and multiply. "It's much like raising a plant from seed, maybe a ground cover" she said. "Or strawberry."

The next compartment of production involved the folding of many thin cell meat sheets on top of one another to form what started to look like ground meat, though the color was something awful and dark, like burnt car oil. "This is pure protein," she explained. "They add a paste made primarily from soy beans and soy oil to give the meat a very small amount of fat, for cooking purposes."

I'm sure my tour was simplified, for the following step demonstrated fresh, pink ground beef formed in perfect, lovely loaves riding a conveyor belt headed for packaging. My stomach growled. 

The tour took less than an hour and I was shivering by the time my guide said goodbye. The temperature stayed at a constant 48 degrees, I was told, and I had forgotten to bring a sweater. My things were returned along with a gift bag that included a promotional pamphlet, three recipes - one for classic American hamburgers, one for a light meal of mostly vegetables, and one with a Tex-Mex twist, and a keychain boasting the industry's slogan, "Say Hello In Vitro!" 

I was disappointed not to receive a product sample, and frankly, there was little excitement in the end, no hands-on, no greater connection to the larger world. I feel a little empty.

 

If I were going to pass up this opportunity to have fun I'd say this project will never come to fruition on any significant scale. Despite Willem van Eelen's hold on a US and international patents for the Industrial Production of Meat Using Cell Culture Methods, I'll argue the US cattle rancher lobbyists, backed by the Christian Right, won't allow it. Unless they can figure how to be the first to make money, and most of it. But the research is largely supported by environmentalists, animal-rights activists, tissue engineers, and stem-cell biologists, with a dollop of NASA interest. Of course that's just my uneducated opinion.

Dan Barber, sustainable farm to table icon and Blue Hill chef at the nonprofit Stone Barns farm just north of NYC, said of the petri dish meat in the referenced article, "I would rather eat a test-tube hamburger than a Perdue chicken. At least with the burger you are going to know the ingredients." 

I wonder if the label might look something like this:

 

 

Well, it's food for thought, anyway.

 

A foot note on carnery: I did not make up this word. I've taken it from Michael Specter's article, "Test-Tube Burgers" in the May 23, 2011 issue of The New Yorker. Specter reported this name, "carnery", was suggested by PETA-supported postdoctoral researcher, Nicholas Genovese.

A foot note on the blockquote portion of this post: This is a fictional account of something I've never experienced, save for the part about meat glue. Also, the beouf, in vitro and "Say Hello In Vitro" are my brainchildren.

 

the anniversary post!

 

THE COLUMN IS ONE YEAR OLD! 

This post is for you, my readers. Without you, I'm just writing from behind a closed door, talking to the wall. 

 

SO, LET'S CELEBRATE!

 

But first, we reminisce a little, Okay?

Why blog?

Well, I started this blog in December 2008 as a platform for launching my travel writing career. A veteran of the trade suggested I post links to travel articles, deals, new places to go, what to eat, how to get there, who to do when you arrive - that sort of thing, to demonstrate I was "in the know." It wasn't long before I grew bored with that idea, too much selling, too much hustle, too much surface, not enough deep thinking. I let it go; all travel posts have been deleted.

In February 2009 I remembered my blog, for which I was still paying a small monthly fee, and began to write posts, for no particular reason but to do it; because I write. I'm a writer.  

I had devoured Michael Pollan's oeuvre by then, and my dedication to eating well (not fried, not fast), making my own, and avoiding becoming, wherever possible, a blind consumer, led me to explore the where and how behind my obsession. I learned how to kill a chicken, discovered The Foxfire Book, spent an afternoon with my local butcher and started an organic garden. Those posts still exist.

(These are some of my favorites):

How to Clean a Chicken Stomach

Slaughterhouse-16

Down the Rabbit Hole

Geophagia, or Just Tasting?   

Ah, good times.

Then, in April 2010, after an eight month absence, I started to blog again, to take my writing seriously by proving that I could keep a schedule, that I could amass a collection of pieces by making writing my job, which was the only way I was ever going to amass any sort of quantity of writing. And out of quantity (I took on faith) would come quality. Practice. Practice. Practice. I held my self accountable for Monday posts, allowing the subject matter to present itself to me during the week - anything goes, but always with the same underlying questions: What's it like to be alive? What's it like to be a creative? What's my role in it all?

That I've come up with something to say every week for 52 weeks is cause for celebration alone.

But I was also working to defeat fear. Fear, must be my greatest enemy, as I imagine it is for many of us who feel an inkling of passion toward anything that might seem unrealistic or insane. By putting my words out there, I have slowly learned (and I'm still learning) to believe in myself and to recognize the strength of connection to a reader, to another human being. That connection is so much greater than fear; it feeds the soul, it bolsters belief, it fights fear.

Fuck Fear. That's my new mantra. (Go ahead, try it on for yourself.)

My new discipline quickly became known as "The Column", so named with the help of some regular readers who could see the form it was naturally taking. And like a columnist, I set out to record life each week as I see it, and hopefully, create some elements of entertainment and relevance and resonance for my readers.

Relevance and resonance is measured in one very simple way: Reader Response.

Sure, not every post is a winner, but I have collected a wealth of reassuring, enthusiastic, encouraging, connected, fear-defeating response over the last year. And I am writing more now than I have in my entire life.

READERS, THANK YOU!

 

In celebration of our One Year Anniversary together, I'm going to give away the original cartoon below to one lucky winner!

Just comment here on the blog, on Facebook, or hit the Facebook LIKE button, or shoot me an email to enter the drawing. You have until midnight, Tuesday May 31st (one entry per reader) to enter. On Wednesday, June 1st I will announce the winner!

Whether you prefer the cartoons to the Column or the Column to the cartoons, or if you only check in every once in a while, please, share your enthusiasm and enter the drawing. An original, signed Amy Collins cartoon might, maybe some day be worth a wad of moola, but I can promise you today, the shared smiles will always be priceless.  

 

 

 

AND HERE'S TO 52 MORE!!!!

 

bouncing back - a tutorial on staying the course

Of course I was excited to get to work this morning, to sit down and pound out the shape of pride and enthusiasm for getting-back-to-work on what feels very close to a debilitating fall off the wagon for the last, nearly, two months. That was roughly two hours ago and here I am, finally, getting to it. 

In my defense, I read a short story by Grace Paley to wake myself up ("Faith in the Afternoon"), two cups of coffee, instead of cruising the internet, namely, Facebook. I am - and I might regret this public announcement - administering internet restrictions on myself. One hour a day, sometime in the afternoon, after I've written my quota for the day, which I measure in time, not words. I must sit at the computer from nine until noon, Monday through Friday plus Saturdays when I'm not in art class. I have let that promise slide, the dedication to the work, the practice, and I am suffering for it now. I am cranky from ignoring it. I am empty handed.

Here's the thing: I have always wanted to be a writer. I have wanted to be other things as well: a painter, a printer, a t-shirt designer, a photographer, a winning athlete, a go-to person, a hermit, a chef, a wine expert, a highly successful New Yorker, a farmer, never a movie star, but definitely adored. And, to some degree, I have been or am, in part, each of these things. And I could continue on in this manner, jumping from focus to focus, satisfying my rapid cycling inclinations - and I will, to some degree (long live curiosity!). But I can never be a writer, not a serious writer, not the sort of writer I can be proud of, if I don't take myself seriously enough to really give it the old college try. Not to mention, and this is hardly the afterthought in which I am casually presenting it, but I feel my best when I write regularly. I feel my sanest, my calmest, my most whole, when I write. And I can not fulfill my full potential if I do not dedicate the largest chunk of my life to writing. The alternative would be to simply survive on potential. I'd rather thrive on fulfillment.

If it sounds like I'm being hard on my self, I am. Someone's got to be. I can spend my days in bed, reading or watching movies, getting up for meals and dog duty, and I'll still be loved, fed, sheltered. Basic needs would be met. But that leaves little in the purpose department. I could, as I have for the last seven weeks and three days (approximately), do any number of things that look like, and in fact are, productive and purposeful. I can spend hours preparing the garden, digging and planting. I can draw cartoons and prepare and worry over artwork presentations. I can spend a day cooking. And I can, at days end, tell myself it's Okay that I'm not writing, because I have been creative, and at least I am creating. 

And I could do that for the rest of my life, jump and justify every fancy, to end up mumbling hoarsely from my sick bed to whatever kind soul sits holding my hand, nodding with deaf obligation (note, not awed deference) my regrets for having never written the Great American, for having never even tried.

So maybe my expectations are a little high. Some of us have more to prove than others. Maybe some of us just have more burn, higher flames. It can be a burden. But all greatness aside, achieved, missed or never tried, there is still the day to day, the way we live our lives, and this where the habits come in. This is what I'm really getting at.

I had worked hard to create good habits and I was seeing the result of those habits. I was producing better and better work and I was excited about writing, I was sane and happy. And then I fell off. The month of February was lost to work on the house, then the garden, then out-of-country visitors, then an art show, and more gardening. Life. A week spent exhausted and recovering felt, and I'm not saying this to be melodramatic, like The End. I began to question, looking back at the little I had written, Am I a writer? This sense of identity is very important to me, and I'll dare say I'm not the only one.

If you read my column regularly, you know I did not completely fall out of the good writing habit. I did not stop posting the Monday Column and I did not give up Cartoon Fridays. That produce is the direct result of good habits. To come back from an extended funk, a physical and emotional exhaustion (the result of a high activity/low writing ratio) and find not only tremendous relief at feeling excited again, at feeling the facial muscles exercise upward, but the pride in realizing I've still been productive, that my time, let's say, metaphorically, spent in bed, was not a complete wash. I may not have felt like working - or like I was doing good work - I may not have felt inspired, but I went to work anyway, which makes coming back all the more sweet.

Even if you're doing it only for yourself - whatever the "it" may be - for your own enjoyment one still has to create good habits (and stick to them). One still has to produce, lest we risk a downward-sliding self image. 

So, I'm going to get back to work, get back on that schedule, and see what I can come up with. And every morning I feel like not writing, I'm going to read this Annie Dillard passage from The Writing Life,

"I have been looking into schedules. Even when we read physics, we inquire of each least particle, What then shall I do this morning? How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order - willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern."

 

 

for my mother, my home

To say it again, had you told me five years ago I'd not only live in Alabama, but would like it, I would have said you were out of your f*@#ing mind, and I would have said it exactly that way. I was in a great hurry to get to New York for most of my young life. At thirteen I would dream of having my own, tiny apartment, just a room with all the basic amenities, and a life so independent not one of my family members were ever present in the dream. That life has passed, my desire for open space, for nature, for solitude (though I could rather easily find the later in the city) has become so strong I dare say I'll never leave here.

And I didn't know when I left the city, yearning for private outdoor space, that it was nature exactly that I wanted to get back to. My distant memories of a childhood spent exploring the natural earth are thin at best. I was never involved in gardening, but my mother has given me the opportunity to explore that interest. And I love it. 

Natural beauty abounds. Taking my breakfast on the deck this morning I watched a hummingbird drink from the red and white verbenas four feet from where I sat. Yesterday she flew up behind me, where I was sitting tank-topped in the last bit of afternoon sun, and beat her wings above me so that I felt her reverberations on my back, then flew around to my side, looked me in the eye. She did the same this morning, stopped a foot from my face, eye level, as if to say, welcome, before zipping off through the trees. 

Five white tailed deer crept through the woods this morning as well, waving their tails, making their way along the edge of our property. The leader stopped, produced an angry snort and the lot of them turned around, went back up the hill and ran, leaped, across the road while a chipmunk chirped from a log below the deck. All this beauty is a gift. The opportunity to enjoy it is a gift my mother has given me.

When I read Wendell Berry's essay "A Native Hill" I think of this plot of land I have come to inhabit with my mother. Berry's essay describes his return from New York to his ancestral home in Kentucky, a wooded paradise near the rushing Kentucky River where he spent his boyhood. This land, my mother's land, is not ancient to us. The creek that runs below the house is ages old, it's shore, like that of the Kentucky, was once visited by Native Americans. The soils here have given life to centuries of herbaceous growth and shelter to countless generations of wildlife. Though this land has been only "ours" for a decade, in fact, since I left home for college, I have returned to visit four strange "homes" before this one, we are quite settled and love it as if we had always been here. And I too, have "returned" from the city to explore its beauty and its natural secrets.

By being her roommate, I have the freedom to spend my days as I like. I have the space and freedom to write, to practice my craft, which may very well never leave this room, this blog, in any significant way. But she supports my attempt. She believes in me.  

Sometimes I feel such amazement at my life; how I ended up where I am, who I've become, where I might be going, that it's too mysterious, too large to wrap my head around. There are no concrete answers. When I let these questions dominate my mental field I begin to feel small. I begin to doubt. Facebook (obsessive addiction) doesn't help, as if all the faces I see are doing much "better" than I. And if I share this aloud with my mother she will always, teasing, lovingly roll her eyes and proclaim, you're over thinking it!

My mother is my rock. Maybe because she has a science mind, a logical brain, she doesn't slip between the visible lines and fall into the intangible interpretations of life, that reading into I spend so much time mulling over. I like to think it's my literary mind that leads me down this often looping path. Every word whispered, every action delivered carries some unspoken motivation, something propelling the plot and pointing toward the true meaning of the work, err, I mean, life. Thank God she grounds me and helps me to see, though it's in fleeting moments (my end, not hers), that sometimes a thing is a just a thing, a word spoken is just a word uttered and there's nothing else to do but enjoy life.

My youngest sister sent our mother an ecard from Someecards.com for Mother's Day that reads: Mom, thanks for teaching me about boundaries by never observing any.

Mom's sense of self, her distinct, eccentric taste is truly her own and untethered. There is no keeping-up-with-the-Joneses at our house. At the risk of sounding corny (and making my mother cry, which will undoubtedly embarrass me), I will confess, she sets an impressive standard for which I aim.

Always good for a laugh and ready for a good time, impeccably dressed, ever curious and forever patient and supportive, my mother has not only given me a home, a place I didn't know I needed, but she is my home.

 

"Sitting across from her in the small apartment, I had the thought that my mother was a place for me as well as a person." - Siri Hustvedt, from her new novel Summer Without Men 

 

 

for grace and beauty

It feels like I haven't written in weeks, like I've been living someone else's life, or visiting a planet where communication in typeface doesn't exist. 

To say I've been busy is an understatement. Since last Monday I've hurried through Art Show preparations (only to discover in my novice position mistakes that should have been caught & corrected), planted a few more things in the garden (where there is still much to be done), lovingly gave up my bedroom to my visiting sister and her husband (now safely back home in Czech Republic - we had a great time together), and spent a day waiting out a storm that, further south and east, devastated thousands of Alabamians (latest count is 250 dead, 1700 injured and 111,000 still without power, not to mention the loss of homes).

I'm still recovering this morning from all the activity, the stimulation that's left me over-taxed, the self pity inherent in failures (even small ones), and still grappling with the grace with which we were spared from tornadoes here in Florence. 

Looking at the photos of destruction in yesterday's paper jostled my memory with the aftermath of 9/11, the mounds of smoldering rubble on television, the spiral of smoke seen over the horizon from 14th Street, and the faint, acrid smell of burning plastic every time I crossed Sixth Avenue, for weeks. Ten years and it feels like last month, still too close to write about. A former fellow New Yorker posted on Facebook last night, when the news of Osama Bin Laden's death began to filter in, closure now that Bin Laden is dead...not much relief though. I feel that, too. The effect on Al-Qaeda remains to be seen. History is not changed; it is not righted.

 

* * * * * * * * 

 

It's time to switch gears, to get still, get quiet and work on writing. I've become so involved with t-shirts and notecards and big ideas to sell my wares that I fear I've forgotten my main aim. My head spins. The garden? It's looking grand, still a little planting to be done, a little weeding and clean-up, and a great deal of mulching to be done. Beauty abounds in the garden, blooms and lush green makes me smile. I've worked hard for that beauty. 

We had a good time at the art show at JOL on Saturday. Several of us had exemplary afternoons. My cartoons were a hit, laughter from all walks of life. Laughter is beauty. I've only to decide what's next for my collection. Etsy? More art shows? Cafepress? How about a free giveaway? A new character? Or maybe a rest, let the ego take a short sabbatical, devour a book and take a nap. I've got to get back to the gym, get my mind clear and my priorities straight. 

The mysterious mix of violence and grace, of a city, a country, united post-attack, of volunteers and generous donations in the aftermath of nature's way, of the private battles we suffer on our conscience and in our subconscious, can not be explained. But it appears to be enduring and necessary, a pendulum of wakefulness and blind dreaming. We celebrate the killing of one man while morning the loss of others, sour hate on both sides. We praise the life that remains and cross our hearts over those taken. And we continue on, the best we know how.

 

A small dose of serene beauty.

The Tennessee from Colbert Ferry, November, 2010.