It’s difficult enough when you’re on your lonesome to get the timing of the osso buco right...
Now imagine a posse of kale-stuffed vigilantes outside your small shop, mean from hunger and envy, glaring zombie-eyed at you and your customer.
To set the scene, let’s go with the first paragraph ( slightly) edited from a National Post story with the fetching headline “Toronto chef butchers, eats deer leg in front of animal rights protesters outside his restaurant.”
“A Toronto chef … exasperated at an animal rights protest outside his restaurant … carried a leg of raw venison to the front windows facing the sidewalk. As the protesters watched, he took a knife and began separating the meat from the bone.” Deliciously, the story continues with the account of how an hour later, the chef returned to those same front- facing windows, plonked down his plate and tucked into a seared steak with great relish and gusto, on full display to his dismal tormentors.
Let us salute a hero of our times: Michael Hunter, owner-chef of Antler Kitchen and Bar, Toronto. Let me go further: Jordan Peterson, wherever you are on this twirling, politically correct, cringingly apologetic globe, come home soon and eat, defiantly (go for the deer tartar) at Antler!
Hunter, an industrious and fine gentleman, has been much pestered lately by a herd of bullying evangelist vegans drooping outside his shop window, holding miserable, hate-filled (“Murder”) signs, trying to kill his business and in the process libelling the ancient natural practice of peoplekind everywhere, that of meat- eating. He’s been haunted mercilessly by a pack of zealous planteaters.
It’s difficult enough when you’re on your lonesome to get the timing of the osso buco right, to get it to that exquisite equilibrium between perfectly well cooked, meat dripping from the centre bone, tenderized to perfection, but not mushy, not yet tipped over to flavourless overdone. Now imagine a posse of kale- stuffed vigilantes outside your small shop, mean from hunger and envy — though they won’t admit either — glaring zombie-eyed at you and your customers as you try to run a kitchen serving up seven or eight different dishes.
It’s not a nice picture. Thin, sallow faces pressed against the window pane, eyes sharp as daggers from a fresh binge of carrot munching, staring at you while you’re multitasking — one minute timing the marinade for the New York striploin, the next about to begin the delicate, almost surgical, removal of the fur from rabbit mortis (it is Easter after all), in prep of the rabbit pastry pie.
Pro tip on skinning rabbits: It is essential to remove all cats from the area of the autopsy board. Fluffs and patches of rabbit fur will ignite demonic frenzy in even the most placid feline. A priest I knew back home, in St. Brides parish out on the Cape Shore, lost the use of his right hand ( the benediction hand) for months after the church Tom went berserk at the sight and smell of Father Kerry skinning a rabbit. He (the tom), all teeth and claws, went for the fur flap of half-peeled bunny leg like some harpy from Hell itself. He ( the priest) had to cancel Confessions for a month ( how the sins piled up) and his hand stammered ever afterwards when he made the sign of the cross. Liturgically, he was never himself again. Said there were times in his dark night of the soul he felt like an Anglican, poor man.
Back to Mr. Hunter. He’s probably braver than he knows. He’s up against a surprisingly rough bunch.
Does he know, for example, that vegans have, almost paradoxically, tougher, sharper teeth than the rest of peoplekind, grinders with which they mill flour, and incisors with gleaming razor points that would credit Dracula. “Almost,” because a little reflection informs that those who eschew ( or don’t chew) meats, f requently go for the nuts. Half a day cracking the shells of walnuts, if it doesn’t decimate the dentures, leaves them hard as granite, and sharp as a scalpel. It’s like Nietzsche recommends somewhere — chew on iron, spit out steel. Beware the abyss. Something like that.
There’s more. These tofu lads are a scary lot.
A recent study, conducted by a researcher at the University of North Carolina, revealed alarming facts. ( This study is a must- read for the Liberal member for Whitby, Ont. It teems with wonderful insights on the deadly nexus between root vegetables and white privilege.)
According to a “scientific article” by vegan instructor Mari Mycek, men who go vegan show an increase in “uphold(ing) gendered binaries of emotion/rationality and current ideas of middle-class, white masculinity.” Sharper teeth and more aggression. In other words it’s our old friend “toxic masculinity.”
It gets even darker. Veganism is sexist and classist, too. For it is “primarily men” who go on “vegan, paleo, or other alternative diets.” Further, veganism itself is an undeniable sign of “food-choice privilege at the expense of people in less privileged positions.”
Her conclusion is stark: “It is evident that a certain amount of privilege is needed in order to eat a (vegan/ vegetarian) diet.” And QED to that.
So you see, Michael Hunter of Antler restaurant, you have set an example to raise the spirits of us all. Standing up to a band such as this, a knot of hardened privileged, masculinist, high-starch bullies, took courage and conviction, and particularly the kind of stamina that comes only with good food, finely prepared, and fresh off the bone. Three cheers, sir.
And Jordan, straighten up your shoulders and make that reservation now.
THIN, SALLOW FACES PRESSED AGAINST THE WINDOW PANE, EYES SHARP AS DAGGERS FROM A FRESH BINGE OF CARROT MUNCHING.... — REX MURPHY