Chapter 24 - I'd Like To Teach The World To Eat

It had been a difficult day at the animal rescue centre and I was looking forward to tucking into a delicious cat-burger. You know when you've been on your feet all day and the only thing keeping you going is the thought of a hot meal? That sesame seed bun, a few slices of salad, a squeeze of secret sauce and a piping hot slab of cat meat - hold the pickles. That's what I needed, and that's what I ordered.

"Sorry mate, we're out of cat."

"Oh," I said dejectedly. "Got any Fillet-of-Dog?"

"Nah, mate. Out of that too. They always sell out whenever 'Animal Hospital' is on TV. We've got plenty of chicken-burgers if you want one?"

The thing is - and don't judge me too harshly - chicken just doesn't do it for me any more. Spending the day looking after sick kittens and puppies just gives me cravings. You understand, right? I know you've seen the cutest little critter and said "Oh! You look good enough to eat!" - well, now you can! When you think about it, the list of animals people eat is pretty arbitrary, isn't it? The French chomp down on snails and horses whereas the Brits find them repulsive. The Brits eat cows but the Hindus consider them sacred. Dog meat is a delicacy in Korea but a crime in the USA. Where do you draw the line?

I draw the line at chicken. It just tastes so... generic. In a world where you could eat anything, why would you eat chicken? You've got the whole of creation to chow down on and you choose chicken? Like, live your best life and all that, but if you voluntarily eat a regular drumstick I'm judging you. Harshly.

Sensing my doubt, the oik behind the counter offered "...Or a double bacon burger?"

Nominally, I'm Jewish. It isn't like I'm particularly religious, it's more cultural at this point - we celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah - but the faith I grew up with still has a hold over me. If anything, the taboo makes it taste even better! I grew up thinking it was treif - but the Chief Rabbi had recently come down in favour of it, so who was I to argue? I ordered my double bacon burger - with extra cheese and no pickles - and ate it with glee. They say that bacon is the number one thing which turns vegetarians back to the dark side; I understand why. I looked around the burger bar and saw people of all faiths tucking into the flesh that was so recently forbidden to them.

I hummed the jingle from the omnipresent commercial - "It's juuuuust like the reallllllll thing!"

A few years ago, I was in the middle of doing my mandatory overseas service, when someone told me I simply had to visit a little restaurant in the back alleys of Donetsk. They were one of the few places selling meat and they had the most marvellous cuts of steak and prime-rib. Like everyone in the restaurant, I assumed the proprietor had knocked off a military convoy from somewhere. Turns out, it was a couple of students who introduced the world to the new reality of synthetic meat. They were bored with the vat-grown fungus that served as a vegetarian meat-substitute in the rubble of their homeland. They scraped the DNA from as many dead cows as they could find, got lucky with some bio-engineered bacteria, fed it a bunch of irradiated corn-starch, and watched as their small additive printer spat out a perfectly decent steak. It was meat, Jim, but not as we know it. With perfect control over the layering of muscle and fat, they could tune the taste, reduce cholesterol, and create a perfect cut every time. It wasn't something that tasted like meat. It was meat. Just without the animal.

Night after night I returned to the ВОВКУЛАКА restaurant and they never ran out of steak. I was hoping to get into PR when I was demobbed and thought working with these local entrepreneurs would help me get noticed. That's how I got a tour of the "abattoir"; a sterile lab in a bombed out university. I interviewed them, took a bunch of photos of them looking moody in lab coats, and broke the story to the world - fake meat was real. Their patented process was hellishly difficult to replicate and that only fuelled interest. I raised whatever cash I could and became the students' business partner. The economic boom was incredible; everyone wanted a slice of the future.

Slowly, they began adding increasingly exotic meats. Personally, I suspect they bribed the local zookeepers for access to the DNA they needed. Elephant steak was a bit too chewy, and dolphin was the sort of thing you ate once to say you tried it and then never again. But everyone loved a bit of Panda. Seriously! You haven't lived until you've eaten Panda Fricassee - and we donated 5% of the profits to a wildlife charity! By now I'd invested a considerable amount into the venture and thought that this was the perfect way to raise money for endangered species. Fate had other plans. It turned out that the real money spinner was domesticated animals. Deep down, humans have a primal need to eat our companions. It's weird. Although it's probably better we eat the lab-grown Lassie rather than our own canis lupus familiaris, right?

But what really caused the world to tilt on its axis was the fact that all the major religions agreed that "no animals were harmed in the making of this burger". The holy books were consulted, ancestors were prayed to, and divine inspiration was sought - and no objection could be found. There simply wasn't an animal behind this meat. There was no prayer to say because nothing had been slaughtered. The 3D printer didn't chew the cud, nor did it have a cloven hoof, and there was no spinal cord which could be accidentally severed. Fast-food chains which had been previously inaccessible to one faith or another suddenly had a whole new market to address. And, it turns out, everyone loves a burger. Hell, even the dour-faced vegans could be found stuffing their pie holes with Pangolin Pie.

With the money I made, I was able to quit the rat race and open a shelter for strays. The cats and dogs I deal with refuse to touch synthetic meats. Given that dogs eat their own vomit and cats lick their own arseholes, this is a little strange. It's also expensive. No one wants to eat real beef any more. The synthetic stuff is healthier, cheaper, and is stuffed with fewer hormones. Same is true with all other livestock. Even grumpy celebrity chefs prefer the predictability and shelf stability of the new food. Of course, the collapse of the farming industry due to reduced demand has made feeding pets more expensive. So our shelter takes in all those abandoned animals and tries to look after them. And to feed them.

I'll admit, I didn't quite see where this would end up. I thought we were just producing an ethical alternative to factory farming. The first cannibal wedding I went to was a little odd. The couple had decided to cook for each other. She made bride-Bibimbap - the delicate spices and noodles augmented with thinly sliced chunks of her synthesised flank. He made a groom-Goulash with perfectly stewed haunch of him. They ritually consumed each other to symbolise their eternal commitment. It was kind of sweet, I guess? In any case, it was all perfectly legal - there was no human sacrifice, only a 3D meat printer and some voluntarily donated DNA. Thankfully, the guests were all served a fairly traditional chicken Kyiv.

Everyone will tell you that it was the K-Pop fans who started the craze of eating their idols, but that's not strictly true. It was a Death Metal band out of Delaware, I think, who were the pioneers. Their stadium tours sold chewable ears and band-blood milkshakes to eager gig-goers. The profits were incredible, and so it became the template for all other concerts. The Kpop nuggets and Southern-Fried Banjo-Player-Fingers all came later. And, for a time, that's how the world went.

Remember those late-night commercials where some has-been held up a case of compilation CDs and said "these are not available in shops"? Any faded pop-star could revive their fortunes by hawking "limited edition" cuts of their own meat. Someone stole one of the suits Elvis wore from a museum in Vegas. From the sweat stains they were able to produce "The King Of Burgers - With Authentic King" which, as you can imagine, kicked off a lawsuit between the vendors, his record company, his estate, and - for reasons I don't fully understand - the Ontario Teachers' Pension Fund.

I'd sold my shares in the company long before then. I could see that this was taking a direction that made me feel uncomfortable. Boxers trained on great frozen slabs of their opponent's "carcass". Angry exes held divorce parties where guests enjoyed chewing on fresh prairie oysters. You'd read reports about warlords eating the "heart" of their enemies in order to defeat them in battle. I didn't know where this would end.

As I walked out of the burger joint, I passed a church. It sounded like Mass was starting. There was a queue outside the door as worshipers waited to receive the Corpus Christi.

Thanks for reading

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You can read the complete set of short stories in order.