The word “meat” appears fifteen times in Lucifer’s Hammer. With only one exception all uses of the word meat are literal. The exception is the word’s first use in the book, on page 35 when Harvey Randall is in the shower and, “he imagined himself as meat being massaged by hydraulic pressure.” This is a scene in which Harvey is trying to relax and momentarily escape from the outside pressures of overwhelming debt. The last use of the word pre-Hammer is by the astronauts. Johnny warns Rick that he is burning the meat to which he responds, “burn, baby, burn” (99). This could serve as a foreshadow to the Hammer itself as both of these astronauts end up being the ones witnessing a burning mass of rocks pummel the earth.
The remaining thirteen uses of the word meat are used post-Hammer and refer to actual meat. All of these instances seem to be linked to the notion of survival. Many times the meat being described or talked about is human meat. The horrifying notion of cannibalism is confronted. Some in this new society view it as a necessary vehicle of survival while it still of course repulses and deeply offends most. When not referring to human meat, it is animal meat that is being spoken about, often in the context of hunting or rationing. Food, meat particularly has become an increasingly valuable commodity in this post-Hammer world. It could represent the population’s physical ability to survive.
Obviously in today’s world, meat doesn’t carry such a heavy significance. Meat is, after all, the body and flesh of another, once living being. That can be easy to forget today because of how easily attainable it is. The people living in this post-Hammer world are forced to act more primitively not just in the procurement of meat since there are no more supermarkets, but in the ways of society since their civilization has been crushed.