Wednesday, Day 25: Magiritsa
After a 40 day fast, Greek families slaughter a lamb, roast
it on a spit, and eat every last bit of it.
Perhaps relatedly, I am a vegetarian. Perhaps it was the
wide open eyes of the lamb on the spit—it always looked like it was still
alive. Or maybe it’s because my cousin Connie liked to gross us out by eating
the lamb eyes. Or perhaps it’s because, when I was five, I once wandered into
the kitchen for a drink of water after playing in the backyard and found a
giant, dead lamb sitting on our counter. My mother was casually reaching into
its gut to pull out the innards.
Magiritsa, also known as lamb-gut soup, is a staple on
Easter. The soup is actually pretty delicious, if you can forget what goes into
it.
“Why do we have to eat the guts?” I asked my mother once.
“Because we shouldn’t waste anything,” she said, simply.
As I got older and learned about the meat industry in the
U.S., I became more convinced that refraining from meat was probably a just
act—why support any industry that so often exploits its workers and the
environment and does not properly care for the animals we end up putting in our
bodies?
Here in Minnesota, there is a strong and vibrant local
farmers’ movement. Farmers are trying to take back the family farm, to raise produce
and meat in ways that are sustainable for the environment and the economy. They
pay attention to their water footprint and the depth of the topsoil and produce
only what they can sell or eat. If I thought I could go back to eating meat—if
my stomach could handle it—I’d consider doing so now that I’ve met so many of
these change-makers who want to create a new food system.
But the largest factory farm in the country is also located
in our county. In one specific way, the farm has been a blessing to me: it
employs hundreds of highly educated Mexican engineers and veterinarians, many
of whom come with their families, families I’ve gotten to know well. I can’t
condone the business practices of this farm but I am grateful for the blessing
of the people they bring, who have so deeply enriched my community.
“They aren’t so different from us,” my father said one time
when he visited, and I was surprised. He liked to believe that the Greeks were
the most responsible and committed immigrant group, the one that had done most
for the U.S. culture and economy (think the dad in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”).
But in his old age, he had gained perspective. He wasn’t so special. The
20-something men walking main street in a pack toward the bar downtown reminded
him of himself when he first arrived in the U.S. at 28.
Things always come full circle, if we wait long enough.
Sometimes we see the whole picture as a society long after the generations that
put change in motion are gone. But sometimes we get a glimpse of a changed
heart, a changed society, in small ways in the immediate present: the “townie”
who tells me he wants to get to know these newcomers so “I don’t die a racist.”
His wife, who asks if I can someday make her some “Greek food, because all I’ve
ever really eaten all my life is hot dish.” The Latinas who gather every week
at the library of the church I attend now, trying to make sense of this new
place, building friendships, welcoming each new family. The daughter of one of
these women who participated in the Day of Silence at her elementary school as
a 6th grader, even though she was told by administrators that only
students at the high school were permitted to participate—risky for a kid who
is already viewed as different.
The magiritsa is a reminder that we should cherish even the
small, seemingly inedible morsels for what they are: tiny blessings that can be
the seed for something delicious. So what if that “townie” couple is racist and
a little distrustful of me because I’m not one of them—they’re trying, at
least. And, yes, the Latinas have encountered racism here, and closed doors—but
they are determined to build community. The 6th grader who didn’t
get how I could be married to a woman a year ago took a stand for LGBT people
earlier this month.
That’s progress—not in the old sense of the term, the
version my father knew: work hard, pull yourself up, make a better life. But in
the new sense of the word: create something good out of hardship, not just for
yourself, but for the whole community.
Which brings me back to the lamb-gut soup, the first thing
every Greek eats after the long fast. At 3 a.m., with lit candles clutched in
our hands, we savor eat bite, and the red egg, and the Easter bread. Every
crumb. And we eat the rest of the lamb, too, down to the bone, because we’re
not ashamed to be hungry for food, for time together, for a little light after
the dark season of Lent. We are part of a long tradition of eating the whole
lamb, guts and all, of not wasting.
Because we shouldn’t waste anything, my mother said,
offhandedly, as if this was obvious-- not one morsel of food provided you, not
one insight, not one sunrise, not one holy moment. And perhaps there are no unholy moments. Pay
attention.
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