It is important to understand who writes these words. I am a hedonist, deeply and spiritually. It is not just indulgence, it is a spiritual component of my life. I share food with my loved ones as an act of affection despite the food aggression I picked up during my couple of bouts with homelessness. To take turns passing a bowl around a circle is as much a ceremony to me as a Catholic's Communion. Feasting is foundational to human society, even before sedentary civilization coerced their itinerant neighbors into settling in little mud holes to be taxed by priests.
I am someone who cherishes food. I miss meat, have sought out some compromise in accepting eggs from my neighbors. I can see the chickens and know they are treated with care. I cannot in earnest deny the improvement to my quality of life that this one concession has provided; their eggs would otherwise rot. In my most romantic fantasies, I hang morsels of hare meat plucked from a bowl, oily with hot fat, over my husband's mouth. Sweetmeats, one headmate of his calls it, with affection for all the romanticism we both still share about feeding one another.
( Below the cut: Vegan Woes )