Wednesday we returned to our frequent lunch spot The Sea View Café for duck curry, which is a special menu item. They offered it a few weeks ago also and Deborah enjoyed hers so much that a few days ago when she passed Dave, the friendly Indian proprietor, in the street she asked him when it would be offered again. He said he didn’t have any immediate plans to offer it, but a couple of hours later he tracked us down while we were picking up our laundry in town to tell us that duck curry would be on the menu for Wednesday. What this meant of course is that (a) we were obligated to have lunch at the café on Wednesday, (b) we would be ordering the duck curry, and (c) some unlucky duck would loose its life that same day as a direct result of Deborah’s craving.
Naturally, some poor creature must die whenever we eat meat, but there is seldom so direct a connection between us and our dinner as when it is killed specifically at our request. We don’t eat animal flesh that often, but when we do we eat mostly seafood and avoid eating factory farm animals – so common in the US – in favor of the organic, free range variety. But it is a safe bet that the duck we ate was running happily around in someone’s yard before Deborah personally gave it a death sentence. It may have even been one member of the flock of ducks we see most days toward the bottom of our road. It would have been interesting to count them before and after our lunch. The cook at the café came out of the kitchen to ask us how we liked the duck curry and to please let them know the next time we’d like to have it. But, as good as the lunch was, Deborah is not so sure she wants another execution on her conscience.
The Hidden Paradise Guest House and Sea View Cafe -where ducks go to die
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