A meat for some seasons

Walking along a circuitous path that had me longing for the griddy streets of Chicago, and reflecting on the upcoming meals of that night and the following, I was hit with the following flash of insight: pork is an essentially autumnal meat. What meats, one might wonder, correspond to other seasons? It would be too easy to assign spring to lamb—but then would be too easy to reject that assignment as "too easy". This leaves summer and winter. One is tempted to say that summer, season of grilled burgers, is the demesne of beef, but winter, which suggests to me stews (which suggest to me, again, cowflesh) also has a strong case. This is probably the result of beef's domineering hold on the American meat-eating imagination, but I confess myself stumped. Ideas?

Comments

[dave zacuto]

Wait, how is pork an autumnal meat?

[rone]

I'm with Dave. Pork is a meat for all seasons, for crying out loud. You're telling me i can only have bacon during football season?

[Matt Weiner]

Winter: Hearty goat stew.

[dave zacuto]

Winter: Shepherd's pie, any stew, chicken pot pie, et cetera.
Spring: Rack of adorable lamb, pork chops, fried chicken, turkey portmanteaux
Summer: Steak, buffalo wings, buffalo vestigial dorsal fins, seared ahi, fillet of chicken breast with white wine and basil sauce, hot dogs
Autumn: Shark, prime rib, modest steaks, brisket (sandwiches), venison served by a Geat

[washerdreyer]

Chili is clearly a winter dish, and I assume this encompasses both pork and beef Chili.

[Chopper]

What of elk? Or bison? Lamma? Gator?

[Chopper]

I think there should be an animal called the lamagator.

[dave zacuto]

washerdreyer has clearly never enjoyed a hot bowl of chili on a hot summer morning, accompanied by a hot thermos of flat beer, and followed by an indeterminate period of semi-consciousness in the hot summer neighbor's yard

[bitchphd]

Summer is salmon, shrimp, ceviche, and all things seafood. Except oysters.

[casey]

here's an idea: this meat for a season stuff is nonsense, or essentially nonsense to put it in your terms.

[Adam Kotsko]

Spring chicken?

[ben wolfson]

Mussels are also not summery, I think. I was thinking trout earlier.

I'm not even going to defend the idea that pork is autumnal because it's so completely obvious. Come on, people. THINK about it.

[Michael]

Spring is crawfish, don't be dense. April-November is squid season. Oysters are especially good Fall and Winter. Soft-shell crab season begins late spring. Sea urchins season lasts from Autumn to early Spring. Anyway, Autumn is associated with turkey.

[ben wolfson]

Anyway, Autumn is associated with turkey.

Don't be thick, Michael.

[Michael]

Pork is traif.

[ben wolfson]

Really? Man, I'm fucked.

[Michael]

Really, if you had wanted to avoid that you should have thought better about being birthed.

[Kriston]

C'mon, people: lamb rib roast for the winter. And do take the time to French the roast—it's cold out.

Dave Zacuto's got it right—too many people overemphasize the "hot" component in chili, when "promotes indigestion" marks it unmistakably as a summer dish.

[apostropher]

Pork will not be restricted to any season, you heretic. Somebody better get right with the PorkGod before he strikes you down with a bolt of hamhock.

Spring: Squab, grubs.
Summer: New world monkeys.
Fall: Opossum, groundhog.
Winter: Venison, old world monkeys.

[ben wolfson]

You can eat pork at any season, of course, but only in the autumn will the inner nature and outer determination come together in a free play of beautiful eating.