Facing Dinner - Head On

I have plenty of friends who are squeamish about looking their meal in the eye. Some of those folks have simply turned to vegetarianism. Others, just are the types who always ask waiters to make sure that the "head" is removed when they order fish at a restaurant.

Well, it looks like these timid pals are going to have to forgo the latest foodie trend - whole carcass cuisine. According to the Wall Street Journal:

After barbecuing anything and everything from baby zucchini, to pizzas, to scallops skewered on rosemary branches, you'd think there was nothing left for Americans to throw on the grill. Unfortunately for those who prefer their food without a face, you'd be wrong.

This year's summer backyard curiosity is the whole-animal carcass roast. To the surprise of many barbecue professionals, whole pigs, lambs, turkeys, chickens and goats are being sacrificed in increasing numbers across the nation. Rejuvenating a practice that dates back to cavemen, these animals are being impaled on spits, tossed on the grill, or entombed in special, outdoor-oven type boxes that look disconcertingly like coffins on legs.

Coffins on legs...Doesn't that just whet your appetite? Those Wall Street Journal writers really know how to turn out that food porn, huh?

Here's my favorite part of the article:

Pig roasts tend to include the pig's face, complete with sharp little teeth that often surprise and disturb guests. "There are people who are grossed out but you know, they just have to understand that it came with a face," says Colleen McGlynn, who held a pig roast last month at her home in Healdsburg, Calif. Ms. McGlynn, who also regularly roasts lambs, is hardly sentimental about her meat. Every Mother's Day she spit-roasts a pig that she herself raises from a piglet.

I wonder if Colleen's middle name is Cruella.