the dead harvest
When I see these dismembered animals, from Albania, Spain, Sicily and France, not the developing ‘uncivilized’ world, I am pleased. Not because they are dead but because the communities that kill and eat them are being honest about where meat comes from. It is an unsentimental industry with lambs and goats, cows and pigs slaughtered and butchered with little more consideration than apples being picked. Yet if we did not harvest them, there would be no sweet farm animals to prick our consciences.
I eat meat, including hearts and testicles, it is in the nature of the work and to refuse would be almost coy. From choice I go for recognisable, unprocessed meat. I can taste the difference in organic and humanely killed animals. They tend not to have suffered a terrified, tissue-hardening adreniline rush just before their ineviatble demise. I ask myself if I would kill to eat meat, and I hope I would. Burgers, sausages, pies and ready meals take the pressure off. Eating the ear of a pig makes you think, it is somehow more barbaric than a rib or chop.
These pictures, I consider quite beautiful in their own way. If they at least make you conscious, aware that meat does not grow in packets, washed and ready wrapped, then I am satisfied. More »
