Pork Bellies

This past July, pork bellies, a central commodity at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange since 1961, were delisted from the Exchange. At the very same moment I heard of their economic demise, I also learned that they were not a metaphor for something else – that, in fact, actual pork bellies (at least in terms of weight) were financially assessed and traded. Granted, bacon is made from the cut of the belly, so it wasn’t entirely surprising to me that they were a popular commodity to trade. After all, I’m sure bacon has kept more than one person from becoming a vegetarian (or staying one), and it’s become such a popular ingredient that it appears even on Voodoo Donuts’s maple bar and in high-end chocolate bars. Come to think of it, though, perhaps that trend was part of the pork belly’s last gasp to remain on the Exchange. Hard to say for sure.

Last night I took some reading out for dinner. What I really wanted at the moment was a beer with my dinner, which narrowed my options. I considered my favorite pizza place, though I knew if I sat at the counter (which I prefer when I’m on my own), it would be harder to work. I was also in the mood for a veggie burger – with bacon, mind you – but my favorite place for them in town doesn’t serve alcohol. So I chose the local fancy pub where I thought I might have a salad and a beer while reading. Bizarrely, they didn’t have a special salad on the menu last night, and before I really thought it through, I decided to go with the waitress’s suggestion to try the special pork belly tacos.

I’m going to have to say this was a learning experience. Lesson number one: I don’t think wait staff are as prepared to talk about texture as much as taste. When I asked, the (very sweet!) waitress said that the pork was a bit “stringier” (which she admitted might not sound appetizing, though she promised it was also “rich”). I said my concern was that it would be “soft like a belly,” and she assured me that it was not.  Lesson number two: If I am worried something called “pork belly” will actually resemble a belly and if I am tempted to use the phrase “soft like a belly” in a conversation with wait staff, I should not be ordering said entrée. For many this would probably be a no-brainer. But the problem, too, was that I had also considered tacos for my night out, though I had forgotten once I started focusing on beer. So the possibility of the special tacos with the beer I already chose seemed perfect!

When the plate arrived, the food resembled exactly the image I had in my head when I was talking to the waitress. (Lesson number three: I have very good instincts!) As a means of distracting myself from the image, I tried rearranging it on the tortilla, I removed my reading glasses to make it blurry, and I started with the side salad. Finally I took a bite of the taco…and it freaked me out. I tasted literally nothing – I could only feel the sensation of the meat. I tried another, and it was very much the same. At this point I shifted my attention entirely to the tiny salad and beer, as I read the work I’d brought with me. But the reading was on television drama, and I found myself accosted with the (rhetorical) image of an exposed brain.

I know, in my heart and in my mind, that my accrued aversion to meat does not have to do with my own exposed brain. It has to do, rather, with my non-functioning nose. I am not thinking about eating my own brains when I eat meat! But at this moment of coincidence between the pork belly on my plate and the brain surgeries on the page, I began to wonder.