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Patriarchy On Your Plate
The weird sex change steaks have in my country.
About ten years ago (before I went vegan) I was visiting Finland with my Argentinian ex-boyfriend when my grandmother decided to take us out for dinner to my hometown’s best steak restaurant.
We gladly accepted. But when I started translating him the menu, I remembered the strange phenomenon that happens in every Finnish restaurant: a sex change for the animal you’re eating.
‘Härkä’ is the word for a bull, while ‘lehmä’ is the one for cow. In the supermarket, meat carries the generic name nauta, which applies to both the male and female, but it’s usually cow meat. But when beef is sold in a steak restaurant, it’s suddenly called ‘härkä’ on the menu, as in “bull meat”.
Fun fact: even the restaurant was named after the word ‘bull’, albeit in a different language. Because that’s their marketing strategy.
In Finland, beef has a sex change when it’s marketed as high-quality. This could be a steak, but it could also be a very posh burger or a pasta Bolognese. Even if it’s ground, you need to know your meat doesn’t come from a female, right?
If you think this is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard, you’re absolutely right.
