Chapter Eighteen: Hunting: The Meat

1. A WALK IN THE WOODS
"Walking with a loaded rifle in an unfamiliar forest bristling with the signs of your prey is thrilling." The more I read this book, the more I realize that Pollan and I are on completely different wave-lenghts. While Angelo has taught Pollan to notice the signs of animals, from poop to soil and clear water, Pollan has been able to look for food, and with more success. Since Pollan must wait for the pig to cross tracks with his own, his energy goes into his excitement, boosting up the "drama of the hunt." Pollan goes on to tell of an amusing story about himself writing "hunter porn" which confuses me for a while. He goes on to describe the irony that I cannot seem to get and describe what it is like to be considered a hunter. And right here is when Pollan dissapoints me. "I enjoyed shooting a pig a whole lot more than I ever thought I should have." The irony here is that Pollan doesn't realize that he represents the same people he feel are contributing to America's eating disorder.
2. A CANNABINOID MOMENT

Hunting in the Californian woods:
similar to smoking marijuana?

Before going hunting, Pollan had second thoughts. Hunting boar in Sonoma County would be to finally face his fears. He was hunting a vicious pig not even native to that part of California, the "dog ripper." Pollan does some more rationalizing here, says that these pigs are growing out of control without predators and are threatening the ecosystem. So just kill them all, good idea. But Pollan really liked his meat, I'm not surprised his vegetarian phased didn't last long. Pollan found himself alone in the woods, tuned into nature, overanalyzing every movement. "Later it occured to me that this mental state, which I quite liked, in many ways resembled the one induced by smoking marijuana: the way one's senses feel especially acute and the mind seems to forget everything outside the scope of its present focus, including physical discomfort and the passing of time." The hunt is "authentic", and to many people pleasing. Even if I don't agree with it.
3. READY, OR NOT.
Pollan had not shot an animal on his first trip, although his companions did. He describes how it feels to pull a dead pig across rocky ground. And shares stories of the hunt, including how Pollan had a chance at a pig, but gave it away because his gun wasn't ready. He goes on to tell how he felt obliged to kill a pig so he could tell a better story and join a cult of hunters. He had his meat, and his experience. No he wanted to kill for a story and popularity. Sick.
4. MY PIG
The second time Pollan went hunting, it was just him and Angelo. After waiting some time, Pollan spotted some pigs, and waited some more until Angelo told him it was time. And so he killed a pig. The details are all here if you really want to read them, about confusion and death. And Pollan stated that he was, above all else, happy and proud. He even took a picture with his poor dead pig. And, he wasn't even disgusted. Just interested, and overwhelmed.
5. MAKING MEAT
"The sense of elation didn't last. Less than an hour later I found myself in a much less heroic role, embracing the pig's hanging carcass from behind to steady it so Angelo could reach in and pull out its viscera." Next, Pollan had to clean and prepare this 190lb pig. The awkward body had to be dressed and shaved, skinned and more. Angelo even removed the bullet to give to Pollan as a souveneir. Pollan first felt disgust when Angelo was butchering the pig and talking about delicious food at the same time. There wasn't a separation between animals and food like the one most people believe in. "Since it was my plan to cook, serve and eat this animal, the revulsion at its sight and smell that now consumed me was discouraging, to say the least. . . Disgust, I understood, is one of the tools humans have evolved to navigate the omnivore's dilemma." When Pollan went through the pictures, he is ashamed by his large grin next to a dead body. "This for many people is what is most offensive about hunting--to some, disgusting: that it encourages, or allows, us not only to kill but to take a certain pleasure in killing." And yet, in one of the pictures, Pollan found a sense of history, there in that picture "sun-soil-oak-pig-human" was a food chain that helped sustain life on Earth for thousands of years.