In all seriousness, there's a certain degree of chauvinism (aside from general disease and sanitation issues) involved in sanctioning the consumption of one animal and condemning it for another. It would seem that the general taboo in Euro-descended culture is against eating carnivores -- perhaps because they are more similar to us (i.e., large analytical brains, an instinct to confront rather than or as well as to flee, eyes on the front of the head, ets.) and for eating herbivores. (Pork, of course, is a tricky sort of middle ground, since pigs will eat just about anything.) Which is not to say, of course, that I don't find the idea of eating cat or dog distasteful, but, as someone who does eat other animals (birds and fish, for the most part), I recognize this aversion as a cultural inheritance rather than some deeper instinct.
Very little to do with bagels, of course, unless it leads to a discussion of Kosher...
I actually agree. It's rather arbitrary when you get down to it.
You mentioned somewhere not reading the NYT mag recently, so I suppose you didn't see Michael Pollan's piece called
"An Animal's Place" It's long, but I highly recommend it. It touches on that issue, among many others surrounding it.
Quote:What is going on here? A certain amount of cultural confusion, for one thing. For at the same time many people seem eager to extend the circle of our moral consideration to animals, in our factory farms and laboratories we are inflicting more suffering on more animals than at any time in history. One by one, science is dismantling our claims to uniqueness as a species, discovering that such things as culture, tool making, language and even possibly self-consciousness are not the exclusive domain of Homo sapiens. Yet most of the animals we kill lead lives organized very much in the spirit of Descartes, who famously claimed that animals were mere machines, incapable of thought or feeling. There's a schizoid quality to our relationship with animals, in which sentiment and brutality exist side by side. Half the dogs in America will receive Christmas presents this year, yet few of us pause to consider the miserable life of the pig -- an animal easily as intelligent as a dog -- that becomes the Christmas ham.
sozobe wrote:There's a schizoid quality to our relationship with animals, in which sentiment and brutality exist side by side.
The same quality exists in our relationship with other human beings, though, right! There was a time when I felt I heard and read the phrase "cognitive dissonance" far more than I should have, but it certainly does encapsulate a great deal of human relations, both within society and with "the rest of the world."
Ah, to live in an or a place where the line between "like" and "other" was very clearly drawn, and cooperation with the former and exploitation of or wariness of or wanton abuse of the latter was a given, and not cause for self-reflection.
Who was it that said that suicide is the only honest action (or words to that effect)?
Ha! I pulled "cognitive dissonance" out before I clicked on the mag link and found it in the second sentence there! I guess I'm bound to read it now...
Well, all that you have said is true, of course.....sigh....which is why - lacking, it seems, now, the resolve to be vegetarian again - I eat only free-range chicken and, as far as I am able to determine, non-farmed fish.
However, I harbour no illusions as to the manner of death of either critter...
sigh.
Pigs appear to be MORE intelligent than dogs!
If pigs were really so much smarter than dogs then they wouldn't taste so darn good!
Yes, they absolutely do. By the same coin, dogs appear to have worked much harder over the course of the past several millennia to earn their keep, at least for those people of the Eurasian steppe and the fertile crescent who kept sheep (and others).
(Limited knowledge of all but the broadest paintstrokes of human history becoming abundantly clear -- but, anywho, you've got to stand far away from a van Gogh to really see it.)
Chjsa - WE taste like pork!
The cannibals of New Guinea referred to humans as "long pig"......makes you think, don't it?
We got crackling, an all, I hear tell...
Apple sauce anyone?
teehee
Such a nice fellow has moved in next door. Lecter. Dr Hannibal Lecter. Said he'd love to have me for dinner someday. And could I bring over some Chianti......
I'm sure he'll serve you very nicely...
[A Clockwork Orange]
Food alright ? Try the wine . . . [/size]
[/A Clockwork Orange]
It seems as though this discussion has abandoned bagels in favour of more unusual food choices. Some of the more curious ones:
Dog, favoured by Polynesians who probably didn't need them as hunting animals (pretty useless when you go fishing)
Rat, a bit of a staple amongst farming communities on the Mekong - "rat-on-a-stick" to go anyone?
Cavey (guinea-pigs), domesticated by the Incas
Fruit-bat, popular in the Philippines and Indonesia and some Pacific Islands
Any recipe ideas, anyone?
You forgot a whole category of delicacies: insects and arachnids
I'd like to know the thought process which leads a culture to develop the relatively complex procedures necessary to get something edible out of acorns. Not as bizarre to most of our palates as rats or bugs (though a lobster has a lot more in common with a grasshopper than it does with a fish), but a whole lot harder to prepare and probably not as gastronomically rewarding...
an acorn falls in the fire, someone eats it by accident, lo and behold, it doesn't make them sick......
Pig food . . . Europeans would drive their swine into the forest to eat the "mast"--what fell from trees, including twigs and leaves, but most of all, the acorns . . . a practice that assured the spread of trichinosis.
getting dictionary.......
Acorns caused the pigs trichinosis?
I don't think cooking is enough to make acorns edible. There's a pretty considerable grinding and leaching process to make them safe to eat (tannins, which squirrels can eat, god bless 'em).
Making Acorn Meal -- MMMMM
Actually, now that I look at it, it doesn't seem like as much work as, say, establishing agriculture. Seemed like it would be a hell of a chore in 4th grade history, though.
soooooo........
an acorn falls in the forest, dries in the dappled sunshine, someone walks on it to crack the shell, it rolls down a hill (to lose it's hull)....
ok, gawd knows!
