Meat

The German branch of the ‘green’ organisation Peta (‘People for the ethical treatment of animals’) is demanding that, until men stop eating meat – apparently they cause 41 per cent more pollution than female carnivores – women must deny them sex. The same sanction had its origin, of course, in Aristophanes’s comedy Lysistrata (411 bc), staged during the war between Athens and Sparta (431-404 bc), just after Athens had suffered a disastrous defeat in a failed attempt on Sicily. Naturally, an organisation like Peta might well think the play was in earnest. Was not Lysistrata proposing a noble, female-instigated sex-strike, by the women of both sides, to stop a war?

The dominant wolf gets the liver, at least according to the American podcaster Joe Rogan. In one episode, a bodybuilder called ‘CarnivoreMD’ (real name Paul Saladino) tells him: ‘If you eat liver, you get to be an alpha male… or alpha female.’ Offal has taken a markedly macho turn in recent years. No longer resigned to memories of the postwar school canteen, organs have become the preferred food of a certain type of gym bro. The word offal implies wastage – from the Middle Dutch for offcuts – but it can also be a delicacy. Recently saved from a government ban on cruel foods, foie gras is only the most

Two years ago, I enrolled on a butchery course. I rather fancied seeing how the sausage was made, and also envisaged taking home handsome pork chops and having an ‘in’ when I needed to order my Christmas turkey. But the amateur course was no longer offered by my local college. So instead of a four-week, two-hour evening course, I signed up for a year-long Level 2 NVQ in craft butchery that involved a lot more anatomical theory and hairnets than I had anticipated. Butchery work is physically demanding — I wasn’t made for carrying beef forequarters over my shoulder — and comes with the usual risks of a job involving

Trust us Sir: I refute Charles Moore’s assertions (‘Broken Trust’, 5 June) that the National Trust frowns on local expertise, ignores its members and is prone to ideological zealotry. National Trust houses are historic treasures of national importance and we are very proud to care for them. Before the pandemic, the Trust was spending three times more on its houses than on coast and countryside. Covid has caused regrettable staff reductions, but we still have more curatorial posts than we did several years ago. This is hardly an organisation ‘attacking the very idea of country houses’. The report looking at links with slavery and colonialism was not driven by ideology,

On 19 December last year, some chicken nuggets were sold in a restaurant called 1880, in Singapore. This doesn’t sound like a significant turning point in history, but it was. That small plate of chicken nuggets might well have been the start of a major industrial, social and cultural revolution — one the UK needs to prepare for. That Singaporean chicken nugget was the first time in history that meat that did not come from a slaughtered animal had been sold commercially. It was genuine chicken meat, not a substitute, but it had been cultured from cells in a vat called a bioreactor. The cultured chicken meat was approved a

‘Do you want some of the private stuff from out the back?’ said the butcher to the builder boyfriend, leaning forward over the counter and winking theatrically. The builder b winced a little for this was starting to feel like the terrifying scene in League Of Gentlemen when Mr Briss starts selling a mysterious and highly addictive ‘special’ meat to the residents of Royston Vasey. Thankfully, this butcher was only selling private lamb. He revealed his secret stash to the BB because he took a liking to him. The butcher grinned, revealing big teeth between rosy cheeks, before disappearing out the back and returning with an entire side, which he