"How I Learned to Dislike Henry Alford"

Earlier this week, the New York Times published an article that had what is perhaps the most offensive couple of sentences I've read in a long time. The article is called "How I Learned to Love Goat Meat" (thanks, Bea), and its author Henry Alford, as you might imagine, discovers the wonders of goat flesh consumption and tells us all about his journey.

Alford began as a speciesist of sorts with a bias against goats, apparently related to the facts that they are scavengers who have beards and Chaucer called them "stinken." But he manages to overcome his discrimination and embrace goat to the point that he served goat parts as every course in a recent meal. 

What I don't understand is how you can joke about what you've done to a being as sentient as your child.

About that goat-filled dinner, Alford writes: 

At evening’s end, as my wine-fueled guests prepared to scramble down the stairs of my four-flight walk-up, it was all I could do not to tie tiny bells around their necks.

He ends with: 

Did the goat yield the desired end? Let a veil of decorous restraint fall over the proceedings forthwith, the better to mask a small storm of bleats and four cloven hooves, gently twitching.

That's how Henry Alford learned to love goat meat, and that's how Mary Martin learned to dislike Henry Alford.

No meal requires a storm of bleats, small or otherwise. Or any cloven hooves twitching.

Comments

[Bea Elliott]

Mary, I think the jokes come as a defense mechanism. Studies have shown (and it's only resonable to assume) that once people attach a face to their meal they are disquieted. What better way to deal with the dissonance than to gorge in numbing laughter?

[Nick]

People are sick.

[Angus]

A bit off topic perhaps, but worth noting: Jane Goodall turns 75 today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InsBxq8Hxjc

[Patricia]

I will never understand people. I will never understand this level if inhumanity. We are a morally reprehensible species.

[Dan]

Another socially acceptable psychopath due to society's deep epistemically irrational prejudice.

[Joanne M]

I love goats. They are so friendly, affectionate and curious. I am sure if he really got to know one he'd quickly change his mind, and hopefully become repulsed at the thought of eating one. I think their beards are adorable.