For Carnivores Only

Intent on ordering a rack of lamb for Easter, I ended up in line behind a burly old man at the butcher counter. The butcher was nowhere to be seen, but I could hear sounds of heavy chopping and banging from behind the glass paned door to the refrigerated store room behind, so I waited patiently. Judging from the volume at which the man in front of me was speaking, he didn't hear the butcher at work so he started complaining. Loudly. In French. "He's never here?! Where is he?" A surly woman and the delicatessen end of the counter heard him, but kept her head down, plastic wrapping celeri remoulade and beet root salads...finally the butcher emerged. The stocky man ahead of me waved his arms around asking what sort of animal was lying in huge chunks on the counter in front of him, another sign the butcher was hard at work. The butcher lifted a huge hind leg and announced it was a kid. Yes, a baby goat. The old man marveled at the mass carnage before him and announced he'd take a 'gigot'. Would he like it prepared? No, my wife will deal with that. But he didn't say this politely..."s'emmerder" was used..."merde" being the key to understanding that expression and the nature of the task he was expecting his wife to handle. The butcher, one step ahead, suggested he prepare it or his wife would be "pulling a face" all evening. Good thing someone is thinking of the wife, I muttered. Apparently the old man used to have 60 some goats 40 years ago. He started talking about how sweet and cute the kids were...drinking milk from their mothers, tottering about like toddlers, playing, bucking, scampering about the countryside. Kids. Yes, got it. OK. Enough, I thought. I thought of the sheep in Turkey I'd see each year marked with fluorescent paint, like diseased trees, indicating which was to be fattened up, felled and feasted on. Thankfully the butcher worked quickly, his hatchet swinging away, shrink wrapping huge chunks of meat into sterile plastic bags held tight with a simple staple and the former goat farmer was on his way to find his wife somewhere in the cheese. If he had kept on talking I would have had to leave the counter and buy some beet root salad instead. We've come a long way from the flight from Egypt and painting lamb's blood above lintels, thank you very much. Still, this time of year with all it's new life and new chances does make one stop and pause.