Bugs for Breakfast ?
Bone marrow soup and sautéed snails are favorite food choices of some people in France; however, what pleases the palate of some people can be absolutely disgusting in others.
Horsemeat is a favorite food in a large area of North Central Asia. but Is rigidly avoided by many people in Islamic countries. Dog is a popular food in Borneo, New Guinea, the Philippines whereas snake is a delicacy in China. In some countries, people enjoy insects while others consider it fit only for animal feed. And then there are steamed clams and raw oysters, food passions for some, but absolutely disgusting to others.
A highly influential Jewish philosopher in the Middle Ages, Maimonides, included pigs on his taboo list due to rapid spoilage of pork in in hot climates and in their despicable habit of rooting garbage, declaring them “unclean”. However other animals have the same habit, for example, goats.
Pork attained its unique status in 165 B.C when the Syrian monarch, Antiochus, slaughtered pigs in the Temple of Solomon. The Jews who were so enraged organized an army and reestablished the Temple and ended with a triumphant revolt that is celebrated at Hanukkah.
The fledging Christians pointed instead of Roman rules to the book of Matthew in the New Testament.;” “It’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but that what comes out”, Jesus said.
“Burger chomping Americans express incomprehension over the sacred status of cattle in India, where their 1947 Constitution spells out the right of cows. Yet those same Americans would never think of eating whale, monkey, dog, cat or parrot that Americans consider companion animals.
All cultures have their comfort foods, “super foods”. In Russia and Ireland its potatoes; in Central America, it’s corn and yucca and in Somalia, it’s rice.
In the U.S food choices can be regional. Southern cooking is considered “soul food” and provides comfort in the form of grits. A tasty bowl of chili is in the “soul” of Texans while in New England, there’s nothing better than a bowl of clam chowder or a lobster roll in Maine.
“However, hunger still overrides food aversions from any type or origin. When German armies laid siege to Paris in 1870 cutting off this city from traditional country farms and gardens, many bourgeois restaurants offered such delicacies such as rat ragu and saddle of cat.
Many simply said “tastes just like chicken”
Sources:
Judith E. Brown, Nutrition Now. 7th Edition
Patrician Harris, David Lyon, and Sue McLaughlin, The Meaning of Food, 2005.
FOOD, FACTS and FADS 