Two summers ago, while on a short cruise around the Great Barrier Reef with my family, I had the great honor of eating my very first kangaroo leg. Being part Australian, it felt like it was a rite of passage for me, but the moment was not what I had expected it to be at all. In fact, I was actually hoping to pass through the entire vacation without any Australians offering me kangaroo or crocodile meat or telling me what I was missing. Every family friend we visited, every restaurant we went to, and every hotel we stayed at would almost always offer a type of special Australian meat, such as crocodile, kangaroo, or emu meat. And every time I would politely refuse and go for the chicken. I was sure that I could just coast by the rest of my vacation without actually having to eat any of these specialties. But I was terribly wrong.
One day our cruise ship docked near an island for us to have a barbeque. The moment that I had dreaded-but I knew was going to come-had arrived. The captain and crew members of the cruise had not brought any hamburgers or hot dogs with them onto the shore, only kangaroo meat and gross vegetables. The rest of my family seemed to have no problem eating the kangaroo meat and the terrible-smelling broccoli. In fact, one of my sisters did not even realize that what she was eating was kangaroo until she had finished devouring it all. Everyone else on the cruise was complimenting the cook on his exquisite cuisine. I, on the other hand, was complaining bitterly to my parents about eating these poor little creatures.
Looking back, it does seem like I was a little bit of a wimp. After all, the kangaroo was already dead, cooked, and on my plate. But it was a few minutes before I allowed myself to take the first bite. After all, could I eat such an animal? People eat chickens and cows all the time without thinking, but it is different eating the kind of animal I had fed from my own hand just a few days before. It would be like asking the average American to eat a dog given how many Americans keep dogs as pets.
It seemed that no one else at my table was aware of the ethical battle that was raging in my head, and it also seemed that no one else was having second thoughts about enjoying the kangaroo meat. So I eventually gave up and ate it all, and discovered that everyone else was right. It did taste like chicken. I even went back for seconds because it was so good. After my vacation, I always pretended that no mental struggle had ever occurred, and I now even brag about eating kangaroo meat because it makes me feel like a real, hardcore Aussie. In the future, though, I think I’ll just eat food that looks like chicken and avoid asking what animal it really is. I don’t want to know.
