Friday, June 12, 2020

Food in Film: Lamb

Friday: Comic Relief

I came across the draft of a  post I had intended to use during the 2017 Blogging from A to Z Challenge with my Food in Film theme. It would have been used for the letter L -- Lamb -- but I went with "Lobster" instead.

Still... why waste the post? It can give some comic relief.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I love this scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) when Ian Miller (John Corbett) meets Toula Portokalos' (Nia Vardalos) Aunt Voula (Andrea Martin).

AUNT VOULA
Ok ok. Why don't you come to
my house and I cook for you.

TOULA
That may be a problem.

AUNT VOULA
Why it a problem? Don't you tell him
I'm the best cook in the family?

TOULA
Oh, I did.

IAN
Twice!

TOULA
Ian is a vegetarian. He doesn't eat meat.

AUNT VOULA
He don't eat no meat?

TOULA
No, he doesn't eat meat.

AUNT VOULA
What do you mean he don't eat no meat?

(Everyone in the room stops and stares.)

AUNT VOULA (cont'd)
Oh that's ok. That's ok, I make lamb!


I used to eat lamb when I was little. Lamb chops, leg of lamb. But when I was in high school, I went with my mother to a neighboring town to pick up a lamb from a slaughter house. It had been killed and skinned in preparation for my parents to cut and wrap in freezer paper.

The skinned animal, cloaked in a white bed sheet, was loaded into the back of our station wagon and we drove 30 miles home with the smell of the carcass attacking my senses.

I was no stranger to the butchering of our own meat. Our kitchen table turned butcher table numerous times. I'd even helped my brothers skin deer. But something about the smell of that lamb made me so nauseas I have not been able to eat that type of meat since.

So even if I was a vegetarian and your Greek aunt wanted to cook meat for me anyway, please don't let it be lamb!


(To find my 2017 Food in Film posts, click here and scroll down.)

2 comments:

  1. We used to have leg o' lamb at home a lot when I was in grammar and high school, but we don't make it here (might have something to do with the fact that Mary's a knitter), and frankly I don't miss it. Gyros meat is increasingly beef and pork, probably because lamb is so expensive.

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  2. @John ... Since I don't buy lamb, I didn't realize it is expensive. Come to think of it, though, I notice on Guy's Grocery Games, when the chefs are challenged to make an upscale meal, they often turn to lamb. I always assumed it meant lamb was difficult to cook, but now, after reading your comment, I'm wondering if perhaps the price tag makes it upscale.

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