confessions of a first time meat eater.
AMANDA AS TENNESSEE: Tennessee started eating meat. After twenty-seven years of being a vegetarian. His whole life! At first, it was like a fun party trick. He would walk up to attractive men at dinner parties and say, “Hey, what kind of meat is that? I’ve never eaten meat before, and I’m giving it a try tonight.” I accepted all kinds of dates.
DOCTOR SUGAR: From the men at the parties?
AMANDA AS TENNESSEE: It was not just men, it was women too, they all wanted to feed me meat.
VIOLET: Such as?
AMANDA AS TENNESSEE: All kinds!
Amanda brings out her meat log and shows pictures to the audience like evidence.
The meat log prop:
Laminated pictures of all the meat Amanda has eaten this summer. The back of each image has a detailed description of the date, place, and person who was eating with Amanda.
AMANDA AS TENNESSEE: This is a fried chicken. I had it with my friend Scotty. We were going to have coffee but we had fried chicken instead
This is a lamb burger. I got very sick from eating it
This is steak from Stella’s. It was a very fancy, very beautiful romantic dinner. But a few weeks later I found out that the owner of Stella’s has been harassing the women…this was a #MeToo steak! And I won’t be having any of that…I have to say I feel a bit guilty about this one.
This is just, you know, a classic beef soup.
This is a hot dog. I ate it at a bar
Oh this is the first steak I made. I learned something very cool. When you’re cooking the steak you use the fat, meaty side of your thumb. Right here. You touch it and then you touch the steak, and if the steak feels like your thumb, then it’s ready to eat!
DOCTOR SUGAR: So, you eat meat all the time now?
AMANDA AS TENNESSEE : Yes. It makes me feel powerful. I felt so deflated and angry this whole year, meat is the literal answer to these feelings.
VIOLET: So, it’s just about power?
AMANDA AS TENNESSEE : I also realized, after eating a bit of meat, how sexy it was. Nobody had ever told me that meat was sexy.
VIOLET: It is sexy..
DOCTOR SUGAR: When you eat it, can you feel the blood change direction in your body?
AMANDA AS TENNESSEE: When I eat meat, I sit and wait for the blood to change direction in my body. I feel everything.
VIOLET: This happens every time?
AMANDA AS TENNESSEE: Well, there was one night I was at another barbeque; it seems to be one of those summer gatherings we Americans do in the heat.
VIOLET: It was hot?
AMANDA AS TENNESSEE: The air hadn’t cooled down that evening. I sat in the heat with an Italian Sausage...
DOCTOR SUGAR: And?
AMANDA AS TENNESSEE: I realized what I was doing for the first time.
DOCTOR SUGAR: What did you gather?
AMANDA AS TENNESSEE: Well, just how strange it was eating an animal. The whole picture of a cute pig filled my brain as I ate the sausage.
VIOLET: What did you do?
AMANDA AS TENNESSEE: I was disgusted, but delighted as well. I said to myself, “This is what you do now. Take it as it is. Stay the course, keep chewing Tennessee.”
