chapter 27. JAWS #2
The text of this post has been translated from Dutch to English with DeepL. It will be manually edited and streamlined soon
THE IMAGE of the hexagram: a large, opened mouth. Upper teeth in upper jaw, lower teeth in lower jaw. In between, the open oral cavity. In the depths, can you see the uvula and the dark shaft of the esophagus?
Below is the Thunder, the ultimate moving. Above is the Mountain, the archetypal image of non-movement.
Jaws is about food and eating. Taste and memory. Custom and change.
This article was previously published in See All This 26 in Summer 2022.
I’ve forgotten most things about my grandparents’ house. But not the smell of simmering, stewing beef: an aroma that always came from an enamel casserole dish with a lid, perched atop a dark-blue-marbled petroleum stove on the table. It took the better part of a day for the thread-like meat to start falling apart. And now whenever I catch a whiff of that smell, I’m instantly transported over fifty years into the past, to the dear old house with grandma and grandpa. Because you can’t go wrong with the foods and flavours from childhood grandma was good, and that meant her food was good too. Who would ever doubt it?
Grandpa, after a night of bobbing and sniggling on a small fishing boat in the Ganzendiep, would always return in the morning with a tin bucket full of eels. Not too thick, not too thin, and with a few handfuls of sand to ensure a firm grip while scrubbing them clean. Then the smoking would begin, in an old oil drum, until the eel skins turned a golden yellow. The smell, the taste, the bite... It was heaven on earth. Even today, at the slightest hint of smoke and fish all the memories come flooding back. Feelings and images without any specific form, but leaving no doubt that this food was simply the best. Grandpa was good, and so were his smoked eels.
Eels are now a rarity in the canals and lakes, however, so I know it’s time to bid them farewell. If we leave the remaining eels alone, there’s still a chance that the cornucopia of grandpa’s bucket might return someday. Rationally I understand the problem; I’ve given up eating eel. But whenever I walk past the smokehouse and my mouth starts watering, suddenly I’m not so sure, and I feel the urge to turn back.
Whereas eels have almost disappeared, cows (the source of all that stewing steak) are now dominating the landscape, either out in the fields or inside enormous megasheds. To provide for their diets, the countryside has been transformed into a green desert of ryegrass and corn. The consumption of eel and beef are under fire for two completely different reasons: there are too few of the former, and too many of the latter. Just look at the papers. Although my intellect understands the facts, my nose, the aroma and all my memories tell a different story. Childhood food has a grip on our very soul, and cannot be rationalised away so easily.
One afternoon, while travelling in China, I had lunch with some vegetarians at a restaurant in Yunnan, a south-western province rich in sub-tropical greenery. The wait staff mistakenly placed several meat and fish dishes on the table. After some protest and confusion, we were assured that the dishes were indeed shū cài, suitable for vegetarians. In taste, smell and texture, they were indistinguishable from beef or fish. China was centuries ahead of Europe in the creation of fireworks and kites, but they were also pioneers in the development of imitation meat and fish. All the fancy plant-based alternatives in our supermarkets are therefore nothing new.
What is new, however, is the presentation and marketing by American company Finless Foods. Their motto is ‘fish without fins’, or marine delights without the need for a net or hook. Their tuna is plant-based, just like the Chinese mock-fish. They also create juicy tuna pieces in the lab, cultured using a few cells obtained from an – admittedly non-consensual – tuna donor. I have confidence in the flavour and mouth-feel of these finless foods. The only remaining challenge is to find a substitute for fishing itself: how does one ‘land’ a fish in a lab? And what will the pieces look like, on display at a market stall?
Can we do the same with meat? Surely it’s kinder to politely ask a healthy cow for a few cells and culture them into a steak, like Dutch company Mosa Meat. Breeding, nurturing and fattening up a living animal only to send it straight to the abattoir not only leaves something of a bitter taste – it is also a truth we’d really rather not confront, one that contrasts starkly with the respect of a hunter for their quarry. A cow that surrenders a few cells to the lab now and again can continue to live a happy life in the meadows. Or, to make the whole affair even more humane: why not donate a few of our own cells instead, and have them cultured into a nice steak for dinner? Isn’t that the perfect vegetarian solution? Or would it be simpler just to forget about meat entirely, and embrace the vast bounty of plant-based cuisine?
Few discussions are as incendiary as the current livestock debate. Farmers, city-dwellers, supermarkets, exporters and conservationists all bring their arguments to the table. And in their way, they are all right, each telling a part of the truth. Farmers work themselves to the bone to earn a pittance; supermarkets cite the ever-present consumer demand for cheap foods; and urbanites are reluctant to surrender their right to eat meat. Meat not only has nutritional value, but it also feeds childhood nostalgia, reviving memories of grandma and her beef stew. And what about Mother Nature? She says that livestock (cattle, pigs, chickens, sheep, goats and more) account for 62% of the total mass of all mammals on earth. Humans constitute only half that amount, at 32%. And wild animals? Well, numbers have plummeted since Noah’s Ark, now making up only 4% of the total mass.
We humans eat most of the farmed livestock animals, which in turn consume hay, sileage, fishmeal and soy: an inefficient and convoluted chain of cultivation and consumption. Much of the agricultural land on earth is dedicated to producing livestock feed. Soil fertility is decreasing slowly but surely, and the rising need for more arable land is slowly devouring the world’s remaining forests. It’s easy to do the math, and reach the conclusion that it would be far better to grow food that goes directly into human stomachs instead.
In a Guardian article from 2020, George Monbiot describes an unlikely unification of divergent views on food and the planet. Instead of steaks delivered by farmers and butchers, or mock-beef from plants or cell culture, he investigates the possibilities of fermentation: food created from microbiological processes. Take the Finland-based Solar Foods, for example, which cultivates proteins using microbes bacteria which, just like plants, extract carbon dioxide from the air, but at a rate many times more efficient than the oft-lauded photosynthesis of the plant world. Adding water and some nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium results in proteins, and after some mixing, blending and kneading, hey presto: a finless fish, or a cowless burger. Personally I can’t wait for the first micro-brewed stewing steak, smoked eel, goat satay or salted herring. Other noteworthy enterprises include Perfect Day microfermented ‘milkless milk,’ and the succulent, iron-rich but bloodless Impossible Burger.
But what is the appeal of food made by bacteria in a stainless-steel laboratory vat? We are already so estranged from the origins of our food; fermentation will only increase this divide, putting food production exclusively in the hands of tech and engineering wizards. Or is there a surprise twist to this story?
George Monbiot also makes reference to Half Earth, the plea by E.O. Wilson to dedicate half of the earth’s surface area to the natural environment. Imagine: half of the planet given over to undisturbed natural processes, leading to the greatest possible biodiversity. A return to wilderness, instead of endless green deserts, megasheds and hectares of forest sacrificed to farm livestock feed. Fermentation would seem to require only a fraction of the surface area currently used for agriculture and livestock farming – land that could all be returned to Mother Nature. Perhaps this is the way for two separate views on food – one focusing on conservation, one on production – that will enable us to ‘meat in the middle.’