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The modern-day cow has become less a
living creature and more a saleable commodity. In fact, the calculating
eyes of industrial farmers don't even see a cow at all. They see rib-eye,
tenderloin, filet and quarts upon quarts of heavy cream. "Beef"
strives to literally pick up the pieces, and to resurrect the cow as
an animal infinitely greater than the sum of its parts. The authors, Dr.
Fraser and Andrew Rimas, approach their audience tentatively, without the usual
bombast of environmental or social activists.
They take an intellectual approach to the meat industry and seek to tell
a story rather than promote vegetarianism.
The current state of the world’s cattle industry is the product of good
intentions gone awry. There is still
time for reform, but man must first learn to exercise restraint in his love
affair with meat. "Beef" is an
eloquent, poignant and influential account of man’s historical
relationship with the cow.
Before modern civilization, when the
world was fractured into feuding tribes and centralized governments, cattle
were the only stable form of currency and temporal power. Cattle-rearing
was considered by the Masai tribe of Kenya to be the most lucrative pursuit,
despite Africa’s vast reserves of precious stones and metals. The English lords and Germanic invaders of
the Middle Ages were constantly laying to siege to one another’s livestock as
an assertion of power. The Mongolians
brought their herds along for the invasion of Kiev in 1240, an event that
changed the cattle industry forever with the introduction of rinderpest, a
debilitating and infectious livestock disease.
The authors make the transition from one epoch to the next with
fluidity, allowing for an entire history of the world to be contained in less
than three hundred pages. The story is
never lost to abruptness or unnecessary interjection, and a reader takes
pleasure in historical facts relayed in an anecdotal fashion. “Beef” is an epic tale, and the authors’
flair for story-telling is such that individuals of any literary persuasion may
enjoy it. Fraser and Rimas speak of
passions, and man’s for meat is so great that, according to Beef, its
influences may be felt in every major cultural, religious and
political occurrence throughout history.
Once prohibited from indulging all
pleasures of the flesh, members of the clergy were not able to contain their
lust for a good steak, and bended doctrinal interpretation accordingly. Though
the monks made some fantastic cheese, they could not hold their taste for blood
at bay. It is telling that, between sex and steak, man believed he could not
live without the latter. Fraser and
Rimas explore this romantic relationship, following its roots in religious and
social iconography. Familiar myths are
relayed with delightful attention to detail, and without deviation from the
authors’ immediate subject. Man’s first
attempts at artistry use the bull as its subject. Ancient religions both feared and respected
the bull, and surviving relics prove that it was a central figure in mythology.
“Beef” is the product of
extensive research, and historical documentation is blended with personal
anecdotes of the authors’ recent visit to Kenya, “culinary interludes,” and
literary excerpts. The grandeur of the
past is starkly contrasted with the reality of the present. The Masai tribe,
once a powerful force of Kenyan cattle farmers, has fallen victim to poverty
and familial fragmentation. An excerpt of Caesar’s praise of the past is in
shocking contrast to Upton Sinclair’s censure of the present. Reverence for the
cow and ceremonial sacrifice have given way to industrial meat production and the
depersonalization of the killing process. Cash crops grown as cattle feed are
depleting our water supplies at alarming rates, and their reliance on continual
hydration is endangered by climate change.
The final chapters expose the true nature of industrial cattle
production as a "businesses that traffics in passions
[and] mirrors a darker aspect of the human character, one that, as long as
it's gorged, doesn't worry about consequences." But there are
consequences. Global Warming, water waste and soil degradation have
finally reached their critical point. Nature will force change and we
must be prepared to make sacrifices. Rimas and Fraser make an excellent
argument for necessary change, and it is a rare reader who walks away from this
book untouched by the modern plight of the cow.
-Natalie Fasano
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