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Gia-Gina Across the Pond

So I've decided to follow my husband to his native Italy. Follow our adventures as we eat, drink, travel, adapt to and explore this remarkable country. Part food blog, part photo blog but mostly my rants and raves. After our two years in Italy, we relocated across the Atlantic "pond" and are back in the States.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Another Market Find



The giant furry thing is a lepre, a hare.

The giant feathered things are fagiani, pheasants.

The signs say "Please Do Not Touch" and for the respective prices, you can have your game cleaned and ready for cooking.


All contents copyright 2004/2005.
All rights reserved.

11 Comments:

At 11:44 AM, Blogger Cynthia Rae said...

It makes me wish that Carlos was still at the butcher's shop!

Nice talking to you last night. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Cyn

 
At 5:09 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

poor creatures... I cannot stand such exhibitions of corpses...

 
At 4:22 AM, Blogger Alice Twain said...

Corpodibacco: nobody forces you to like them, but do you eat meat? Now, I can understand a vegetarian saying that he or she is displeased with seeing some meat for sale, but if you eat meat I honestly can't jutify your attitude. The fact that the meat has been cleaned and cut into manageable chunks to make it look a bit less like an animal that had beena live sometimes in the past does not change its nature: it's meat, food. Since you say that you don't like the fact that meat foods are exposed for sale, I just hope that you don't eat any meat or fish.

 
At 11:46 AM, Blogger Mona said...

WOw, those are amazing!
Happy Thanksgiving GG!
HOpe you're well. I swear the Italian butcher shop on Arthur Avenue had a very similar window on Tuesday-the animals hanging and fur still on 'em. And I thought that only happened in Europe.

 
At 11:47 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

typesetter, I do not agree. I know your argument, but the point is not being a vegetarian or not.
I am not a vegetarian, and I can handle life.

But I also know something. I know that buthcering of animals is done in the most cruel manners; that their transportation, when alive, is done with methods that can be compared to the ones of the nazists, without any human compassion; that animals suffers; that animals have feelings: not only dogs or cats, but cows, pigs and chickens too; that we actually eat drained corpses, and this should make us think.

For this reasons, my attitude towards meat is contradictory, and is continuous cause of doubts, sometimes even anguishes, and excessive awareness.

There's also something else. I think that meat has dignity on our table one time a week, or even less.
But billions of humans, that every day on the earth expect to have cooked meat to eat... it's a daily massacre, a sheer, voracious useless vaste slaughter without any sense. Our bodies and senses do not need all this, and the price animals pay for it is too high. Too high.

Sorry if this sounds "animalist" or "fanatic", I am neither of the two. I always enjoyed the pleasures of cooking in one of the countries in the world were food is the most important thing.
But my sensibility regards animal, not humans only. I (unlucky me) NEVER forget that those cratures where alive, few days or hourse before the moment I put dead pieces of their body in my mouth.
In front of the dangling corpses of this picture I am not disgusted because I hate cooked meat or because I am a fanatic animalst. I am simply crushed by awareness.

All the beauty of cooking, and the richness of recepies is not enough anymore (for me) to justify all of that.
We're too many on the earth. We all should contain our desires and habits.

my opinion.

 
At 3:09 AM, Blogger Alice Twain said...

Onme pojt you got very wriong is that the animals that are likely to have suffered (even wildly) in their life and death are those cows that are turned into nice steaks that you buy once a weeek or less. The hare and pheasants of Gia's photo are product of hunting, they lived a happy and free life until they hit sudden death by bullet.
So, what is the difference between a happy hare that lived her life in liberty until the day it was turned into meat and a beef that spent its whole life being secluded int a too small cage, forcibly fed pulverized bones and drugs to fasten its growth than painfully killed and turned into nice, almost de-naturated steaks?

 
At 8:54 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Gia! I haven't posted in a while...Wow! I have never had hare nor pheasant...wish I could but I don't think they have either here!

BTW, I did almost cry at you post below...very heartfelt :)

 
At 9:15 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't get the point. What is the difference? You tell me. A part of the fact that the hunted italian wildlife is largerly breeded and artficially introduced into woods before season hunting, I don't get how your argument affects in any way what I said.
I named cows just to make an example. My concern regards all animals we eat. This picture was just an occasion for this argument, not the main point. Even if those animals are not breeded in harsh conditions and cruelly transported and butchered, there are even worse aspects in hunting, because eventually, year by year, the hunted animals disappear from the face of the earth (thus the wildlife breeding for the gullible hunter).
Having in mind all of this, I see a dangling corpse for what it is: a dangling corpse. If you want to see only 'nice steak' it's your right to.
But I have to look at life straight in the eyes.

 
At 4:39 AM, Blogger Alice Twain said...

Than stop eating meat and fish.

 
At 6:32 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi!

My name is Carla and I'm a spanish girl. I wish a could visit Rome next summer, so i searched Italy in internet. I found your blog :). Congratulations for it, it's really nice! I've been reading for a while (it helps improving my english).

I started a blog with my boyfriend during our summerholiday in the UK (never finished)!!

I also love cooking/eating pasta!

Have a nice day!!

Carla

P.S: My "summerblog"

http://albertocarla.blogspot.com/
(spanish is similar to italian!!)

 
At 7:23 AM, Blogger Gia-Gina said...

I get back form the holidays to find Typesetter and Corpodibacco really duking it out, it's nice to start debates and interesting to hear both points of view. I won't get into it though as I have strong views that support both sides.

 

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