It's odd that a book a "love story" would be so lacking in love. Susan flies around the world diving into different cultures on how and why people enjoy eating meat. It has the making and potential for quite a story.

She travels north to dine with Eskimos, dines in Louisiana to eat boudin, tries raw meat and happy meat (the pigs were raised in an organic and happy environment) ... but I want to say the book lacks warmth. Maybe she's too cerebral. I could see the jokes and mentally make a courtesy laugh in my head.

But mostly throughout the book, the book had a sad undertone. It's a book about the love of eating meat. Where's the love? The climatic moments of bliss when she takes that first savory bite? Most of the time she didn't really like it. And when she did, it was more like a blip than a boom. ( )

Journalist Susan Bourette begins the journey with an undercover assignment at a slaughterhouse and then she takes us along on her search for the perfect meat. She spends time with a celebrity chef, on a ranch in Texas, in the Arctic and others. I cringed at some of the stories especially those of eating raw meat, but I enjoyed the history of our love affairs with meat as well as vegetarianism. I was surprised to learn of the number of vegetarians in the past.
"Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs. We live by the death of others; we are burial places! I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men." - Leonardo da Vinci
Despite attempts at vegetarianism, Susan remains an eater of meat but only a few days a week - I can eat less meat as long as I do not have to give up chicken noodle soup! ( )

After the author goes undercover at a slaughterhouse, she vows to become a vegetarian. This doesn't last and so begins her journey into the world of meat. Bourdette visits a far range of places, people, and ideas in search of a healthier meat. And by healthier - she means for the animals, for us, and for the planet vs. the slaughterhouse's methodology (I was amazed at how poorly the workers are treated). It's fairly graphic in parts, and she uses light humor throughout to counter that. I found it enlightening in many areas I knew nothing about. I'm neither a meat lover nor a vegetarian, living in a happy medium but I thought this was a fine piece of culinary and cultural writing. ( )

This should have been more interesting than it was. Ms. Bourette explores "carnivore-ism" in all its shapes - from factory meat to whale hunts to raw meat cuisine to the new "locally grown" meat. Maybe the reason it failed to capture my imagination is that Ms. Bourette never goes deeper than the surface. She finds all these environments alien and, although she is interested and at times fascinated, she never digs deep. On the front of making a case for eating meat, Ms. Bourette does a good job of exploring the arguments for and against - but that feels like an old story. ( )