Je viens de mettre la main sur Eating Animals de Jonathan Safran Foer, paru cette semaine dont un extrait publié dans le New York Times magazine en octobre m’avait séduite. Fruit d’une recherche exhaustive, on y (re)découvre les horreurs de la production de viande industrialisée. Mais Eating Animals est surtout un récit personnel et profondément humain qui s’attarde sur nos rapports émotifs avec les animaux, vivants et dans nos assiettes.

While the cultural uses of meat can be replaced — my mother and I now eat Italian, my father grills veggie burgers, my grandmother invented her own “vegetarian chopped liver” — there is still the question of pleasure. A vegetarian diet can be rich and fully enjoyable, but I couldn’t honestly argue, as many vegetarians try to, that it is as rich as a diet that includes meat. (Those who eat chimpanzee look at the Western diet as sadly deficient of a great pleasure.) I love calamari, I love roasted chicken, I love a good steak. But I don’t love them without limit.