...and as I was cracking an egg, I had a flashback. I remembered when I was pretty young (it seems like we were still living in Terre Haute but I can't remember for certain) and I was sitting at the kitchen table. Mom was cooking something that used eggs, and somehow we started talking about what eggs were. She explained that eggs were actually the way chickens had babies. She said that if a hen hatched an egg by sitting on it and keeping it warm, a little chick would develop from the egg. I think she kept talking about how the yolk was actually the part that fed the chick while it grew, but I didn't really hear that part. All I could think about was how many little yellow chicks I had unknowingly murdered, and how this terribly cruel practice was so widely accepted! These poor little chicks never got a chance to grow up and have wonderful chicken lives. I imagined all the hens, sitting in their nests with their heavy hearts, thinking of all their children they would never get to meet. Needless to say, I may have been overly sensitve to the situation. When mom realized I was upset, she quickly pointed out that she didn't believe the eggs we were eating were actually fertilized, so they wouldn't have turned into a chick whether we ate them or not. I have no idea if this was true (I should look that up) but it certainly went a long way in calming my guilt-ridden heart for all the eggs I'd eaten in my life.
I'm not sure what I thought was so fantastic about being a chicken, or if I realized that most chickens are eaten at some point anyway. Apparently I realize it now though, because I was able to crack all four eggs and whisk them without a bit of guilt.
2 comments:
Perhaps there was a longing to be likened unto something more glamorous than a turtle or a monkey! Actually, I think it was the maternal instinct in you, giving you such a tender heart toward those hens, and you certainly had your opportunity with 3 younger sibs!
Was this your brief childhood vegan stage?
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