The decision to try meat again

I'm not adverse to trying new things: this would also encompass trying things that I haven't tried for some time, if I enjoyed it at one time. Fairly recently I'd been thinking about my diet and have watched a couple of episodes of Kill It, Cook It, Eat It, which I find interesting and informative. I reasoned that, as my drinking palette has matured (I used to dislike Guinness and whisky, for example, both of which I like now), my taste for food will have matured too. Perhaps I would enjoy some of the foods I used to dislike? Diet should never be immutable: there is much I have not tried. I should like my food passport renewed and look forward to stamps from foreign climes.

What about how animals are treated, I hear you say? I still care about how animals are slaughtered and kept (battery hens are a case in point), and I watched a documentary about how some companies inject water and other things into chicken to make more profit. I have no qualms about trying meat again: after all, I can always stop eating it again should I feel like it in the future.

I've been talking about trying meat again with a good friend and, with his encouragement, I decided to try a little bit of scotch egg at a buffet we were at a few days ago. My knowledge of meat is so limited I'm not even sure which meat is in scotch eggs. I think it is pork, but I could be wrong. I've eaten several vegetarian scotch eggs which I've enjoyed, so I thought this would be something I may enjoy. I took a bite of a quartered scotch egg and it didn't taste that nice, if I'm honest. I had another couple of bites and left it on my plate. It tasted quite bland; not dissimilar to how some vegetarian fare does. My conscious Peep Show-style narrative probably didn't help matters.

Here I go. I'm doing it! I'm eating meat! Hmm, it's not very
nice is it? Another bite. No, quite bland. What's Jeremy up
to?

Still, I had knowingly, purposively eaten meat for the first time in nearly twenty years. I wasn't sick and I don't feel guilty. In fact, I'm looking forward to trying more in time to come. I even have an idea of what to try next. I'll be sure to write about it when I do.