Call Me An Adultivore or An Adultetarian: I Do Not Eat Babies

There should be a name for people who do not eat babies. There are many of us who eat this way instinctively but we have not yet formed a movement. I personally like to refer to myself as an “adultivore” or an “adultetarian” but I am willing to go with whatever the majority decides.

Like many of you, I do not eat veal. Nor do I eat lamb. Say either of these words and I'm immediately looking into the enormous dark and tear-filled eyes of a Japanese cartoon character. I do not even eat baby potatoes.

Eggs, however, pose a dilemma. Are they properly considered babies or are should they be thought of as little more than pre-baby gloop? And if I do choose to think of them as edible pre-baby gloop (and here I must regretfully admit that I do), well, I am fooling no one but myself. After all, if our local French restaurant, the one we visit perhaps once every two years as a very special treat, suddenly offered up a delicacy involving the flesh of a fetal pig I'd certainly refuse to eat it on the grounds of my adultivore status.

My conscience is also a little bothered by cheeses, like mascarpone, that aren't aged. I  eat mascarpone but I don't feel good about it. Of course, that may have something to do with how fattening it is and how much of it I tend to eat. Nevertheless, it does not have eyes.

Perhaps you assume that my intolerance for baby-eating has developed as a result of becoming a parent myself. This is partly true -- but not for the gooey sentimental reasons you imagine. On the contrary, having a newborn baby in my home around the clock made me realize just how appealing the idea of devouring it could be. Nursing makes you hungry, you have to do it all the time, and it’s not easy to run to the kitchen with an infant dangling from your chest. After several weeks of sleep deprivation and under-nourishment combined with extremely close proximity to the deliciously soft flesh of a baby, you sniff the top of its head and tell me you don’t feel like eating the thing. I decided to go cold turkey late one evening when I found myself hovering over that soft spot on my baby’s head with the decorative silver spoon we kept on the shelf next to his piggy bank and the little knitted hat he’d worn home from the hospital. (Incidentally, I believe that nurses, who have been around the block when it comes to babies, surely put those hats on newborns for this very reason, although they will tell you it is to keep them warm. The next time you visit a maternity ward, take the hat off the baby and wait to see how long it takes for the nurse to put it back on, all the while shooting you a nasty warning look. Not long, I can assure you.)

Like a recovering addict, I recognize the beast within myself. Sometimes, though, I can get carried away with my adultetarian zeal. For instance, I have found that my personal ban on eating babies now seems to extend to miniature versions of foods, as well. Baby carrots and baby lettuce have recently joined baby potatoes on my list. Many otherwise innocuous h’ors d’oeuvres have also become off-limits – I can no longer eat mini-pizza, mini-quiches, or tiny pigs in blankets. I know intellectually that those tiny guinea hens are full-grown adults but when one is placed in front of me at a banquet my visceral reaction is a desperate attraction – my hands literally quiver over my fork and knife -- followed by intense revulsion. I usually have to excuse myself in order to go throw up in the ladies room.

But being an adultivore isn't all about restraint, deprivation, and guilt. There are some definite advantages. Imagine you are at a picnic in the park and you are offered a beverage. Say the choice is between apple juice and something alcoholic, perhaps a glass of wine or a bottle of beer or a two-litre plastic jug of Long Island Iced Tea. It is always more appropriate, regardless of the time of day, to take the alcoholic drink. "Fermented" is simply another word for "aged." God knows how young the apples in that "fresh" juice were when they were plucked from the tree and squeezed to death. I will have you know that it is only 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning and I am drinking a glass of wine right now. And feeling righteous about it. If you don't eat babies either, join me in a toast! To adultivores! To adultetarianism! And if you come up with a better name, let me know.

Comments

[Sara O'Leary]

Lovely piece, Steph. And I'd always suspected that about the little caps they put on babies in the maternity ward. Too much like the little soft-boiled egg warmers I remember from my childhood to be a coincidence.
Happy Mother's Day.

[Steph]

Happy Mother's Day to you, too, Sara!

[Kate C.]

Brilliant. Happy Mother's Day! :)

[Steph]

Right back at you, Kate!

[kittenpie]

We never had a hat in hospital. Maybe they could see in my eyes that I would not eat this baby.

[Jacinda]

So if you have a pearl onion in a vodka gimlet does fermented potato outweigh adorable miniature onion?

[Steph]

kittenpie: you call your little girl pumpkinpie on your blog. You are in denial!

Jacinda: Baby eater!

[vudean]

I just read this to my wife while she was nursing... I could barely read it I was laughing so much and my eyes were watering. She was laughing so much the baby almost fell off onto the floor.