Meat Should Not Be an Abstraction

I grew up in countries where meat was butchered before your eyes, and a massive cleaver and a bloody smock were common market sights. I suspect most young people today have never seen a sheep sectioned or a stomach hung on a hook. In America, meat comes shrink-wrapped on styrofoam trays with little napkins on the bottom. We are so far removed from the thing, that the animal and its death is an abstraction.