Please Do Not Rub the Clams

          Please do not rub the clams. They are sensitive clams. They are Japanese. You may have them broiled with wasabi and ground radish, but please do not remind them that they will be eaten. We like to keep it a surprise. We think that’s more humane. Please do not say things to the clams like "mmm, I want the fat one." We know you want the fat one. Everyone wants the fat one. But think of the clams.

          The theme of Ethical Carnivism is that we must eat the finest, most succulent meats that nature offers us, but that we can try at least to be friendly with our food, to treat it tenderly, to give it a good life and help it to go out in style. Here is where we give shiatsu to the miniature holsteins. Here is where the chickens are petted by gentle farm girls. In this room, the pigs receive oral pleasure. Later they will be feted on broccolini, maize and spanish wine.

          We have ritualized the process of slaughter to bring these simple beasts closer to the divine mystery of their creation. These feathered head-dresses, though somewhat threadbare and blood-caked, still provide our beloved meat-friends with dignity in their final hour unavailable in the wild, or in your American slaughterhouses of industrial carelessness. The end, when it comes, is quick and unexpected. Usually we tell the animals that we are simply celebrating their birthday. When we blow out the candles on the cake, this large sledge swings down from the wings above the banquet trough, and the thing is done. After a brief memorial service they are bled, quartered and cooled in our Muzak-equipped meat lockers.

          Guilt is a uniquely human experience, one that we all share. Ethical Carnivism does not free us from guilt, but it does assuage the aura of injustice and cruelty which so often causes steaks to toughen and develop gristle. In short, Ethical Carnivism offers the best meat experience available. Because our foods are seasoned with kindness.









Mykle Hansen is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. His comic novel, Help! A Bear Is Eating Me, is widely laughed at; his novella collection, Rampaging Fuckers of Everything on the Crazy Shitting Planet of the Vomit Atmosphere, is also strangely popular. He is currently finishing a cute, charming novel about cannibalism. As a spoken word performer, he organized Portland's first and only "strip poetry" competition, and has been a regular guest of the d'Merde Salon arts & letters series and Night of the Living Tongue on Portland's public radio station KBOO. A jack of all trades since birth, Mykle Hansen still manages to spend most of his time writing. He lives in Portland, OR with his wife and daughter, in an orange castle surrounded by a moat of man-eating chickens. Naked pictures of his cat are available on the Internet: www.mykle.com.
(Photo courtesy of Kevin Shamel)