Interesting point about how living among animals you eventually eat makes you notice them — or the act of eating meat — more. Unlike most American carnivores, I don’t think I would be bothered by that. In fact, I’ve sort of harbored fantasies of taking a butchery class, learning to carve a whole animal. It’s part science, part culinary art. I think I would have trouble, though, if I were the one raising the animals, and growing attached, and then having to butcher one.

I loved this line. So true: The first time I tried it, our nanny Patricia saw me hacking away pointlessly and immediately took over, carving up three birds in 30 seconds flat with the expertise that only years spent around real live chickens can give you.

Vivid paragraph, great descriptions: “Have you ever seen a plate of bones when everything edible is truly, truly gone? Pork ribs look like delicate small pieces of a reed-like musical instrument taken apart for tuning. Beef becomes a hard white stack of bolts—something you would buy at the hardware store. And chicken vanishes to almost nothing: a dainty heap of sticks no thicker than straw that you could fling into the wind without anyone noticing.” Definitely cultural differences around how we consume meat — and of course being in a more affluent society means that we don’t have the same kind of pressure to eat meat down to the bone, and therefore we deprive ourselves of the full experience. Interested to watch Lila develop those bone-licking habits. She’ll be a good eater!