Strange Foods. Jerry Hopkins
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Название: Strange Foods
Автор: Jerry Hopkins
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Книги о Путешествиях
isbn: 9781462916764
isbn:
Some chapters here include animals found on endangered-species lists. I am not advocating irresponsible or illegal hunting activities. These species have a long history as food that continues to the present time, so they cannot be denied from any survey that has any pretensions to historical accuracy. More importantly, some of these animals are not always threatened in every location and circumstance. That many mammals have disappeared from the menu can be explained in part by the unfortunate number of species added to the endangered lists, and their removal from the approved diet may be applauded. At the same time, the Gang of Four-beef, pork, lamb, and goat—has gained ground because of fashion and the outside influence that accompanies the press of history. In Japan, for example, meat was virtually untouched before the country opened up to the West in the mid-nineteenth century, and in China, where tofu was first produced some two thousand years ago McDonald’s outlets now rival the number of vegetarian restaurants in Beijing.
Notions of class and caste exerted other forces. Some animal foods, such as possum in the United States, became associated with the poor, the “lower class,” and thus were not accepted at “better” tables, just as what is called “bush meat” in Africa and “bush tucker” in Australia traditionally was consumed by indigenous peoples, and thus shunned by those who fancied themselves fancier. At the same time, a number of specific mammal parts-blood, brains, certain innards, and sexual organs, for example—were disdained because they were not considered a “proper” food for the proper lady and gentleman.
Certain religions also played and continue to play a role. Hindus do not eat beef, Muslims and Orthodox Jews do not eat pork, and even today many Catholics eat only fish on Fridays. Some of these guidelines and taboos have their origins in practicality. Pork has been banned for thousands of years in the Middle East and remains on the taboo list for many hundreds of millions today because it is an unclean animal and spoils quickly; modem refrigeration has eliminated most of the threat, but the belief remains in force. It may also be argued that beef in modem India is an inefficient food source because grazing cattle would take away land required by more productive crops such as rice and vegetables; before 800 B.C., however, when India was lightly populated, beef was welcome at mealtimes.
In the chapters that follow, I talk about mammals ranging in size from the mouse and the bat to the elephant and the whale, including animals both domesticated and wild. I’ve also selected foods from all comers of the earth, from horse tartare in France to dog soup in Korea.
Some the chapters may offend some Euro-Americans because the animals they regard as pets or partners are eaten elsewhere in the world. Perhaps with no other food is the “gastronomical gap” made more dear than with the dog, welcome on laps by Euro-Americans, and on plates in China and Southeast Asia, where it is ordinary fare. Second to the dog comes the horse as man’s closest companion and helper through history. Yet, horses are regarded highly at mealtime in many countries, from France and Belgium to Japan, where horse is cherished by many as a delicacy. A recent Indian prime minister began each day with a glass of his own urine, and on a program produced by the BBC in London in 1997, human placenta was blended into a delicious paté.
Held in the soil-encrusted fingers of a south Indian rat-catcher, a newly born mole-rat, found in a nest under a rice field, will be a part of the evening meal for the family. Rats threaten the country’s rice crop, and the catchers are noncaste tribal peoples who eke out a living by selling the animals, which are also an essential part of their diet.
dogs Et cats
In most Euro-American countries (except in some immigrant communities, of course), dog is man’s best friend, or so they say. That explains why so many North Americans and Europeans get so upset when this animal is eaten so matter-of-factly in many Asian and Latin American countries, and why one-time movie sex goddess in France, Brigitte Bardot, is campaigning so vigorously to get the government of South Korea to ban the eating of dog—a cherished staple in that country—in advance of soccer’s 2002 World Cup tourney.
Ms. Bardot speaks for an animal-rights foundation bearing her name that is telling soccer fans not to attend the games if eating dogs is not outlawed and all the restaurants in Seoul offering dog on the menu aren’t closed. While hers is a valid point of view shared by many Euro-Americans, in other parts of the world-especially in numerous Asian countries—it is incomprehensible. Dog is an affordable protein source not only Korea, but in most of southern China (including Hong Kong) and much of Southeast Asia, as well as in parts of Latin America.
How Much Is That Doggie in the Paddy?
“The Lao [residents of Laos and northeastern Thailand] say eel is the best water meat and that dog is the best land meat,” Chavalit Phorak, a man in the dog-slaughtering business in Thailand told The Nation, a Bangkok newspaper, in 1997. “It’s much tastier than beef and not as tough. In the past, families used to kill a dog to eat each week. People liked the meat, but they had to be careful not to exhaust their supply. After all, there’s not much meat on a big dog, let alone a pup, and a dog takes time to grow, so farming them is still impractical.”
In most countries where dog is eaten, farming is not necessary, as strays and other unwanted canines are plentiful. For this reason, there are men like Chavalit, who travels the back roads and barters for village dogs, then sells the meat, entrails, and skins. “My truck has a loudspeaker,” he said. “Everywhere I go I tell people that I will give them pails for their naughty or lazy dogs.”
A healthy dog, in 1997, was worth two buckets. It took Chavalit three or four days to collect a hundred dogs, the number at which he broke even and possibly earned a small profit, as each trip cost as much as US$400 for petrol and pails. He then returned to the slaughterhouse, where butchers were paid twelve cents for every dog they killed, with a blow to the head with a hammer so as not to damage the skin.
Another twelve cents was paid for skinning the dogs, plus sixteen cents for butchering the meat. The meat was then sold for up to $2 a kilo, with each dog contributing about three kilos, and the skins were sold for between $1 and $2 to factories in Thailand, Taiwan, and Japan, where they were turned into golf gloves. (Think about that next time you step up to the tee.) The genitals were also sold, for about forty cents, and used in soup and wine, mainly in China, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan.
There are precedents for Ms. Bardot’s proposed ban, however. In 1988, the South Korean government ruled that restaurants serving dog soup, or poshintang, be closed to present a better image for foreigners attending the Olympic Games. Ten years later, in 1998, Philippine President Fidel Ramos signed into law a statute banning the killing of dogs for food, although its extreme popularity in the north made success of enforcement questionable.
Similar action has been taken elsewhere. In 1989, two Cambodian refugees living in Southern California were charged with animal cruelty for eating a German Shepherd puppy. The charges eventually were dropped when a judge ruled that the dog was killed by the acceptable practices of slaughtering agricultural livestock. That did not satisfy activists who later the same year convinced the California legislature into passing a law making it a misdemeanor to eat a dog or a cat, punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of $1,000. Later still, the law was amended to include any animal traditionally kept as a pet or companion. Presumably, those charged with enforcing this law were expected to look the other way when 4-H Club members led their prize cattle and pigs to slaughter, animals they had raised from birth and for whom they frequently developed great affection. Furthermore, rabbits could still be killed and eaten and so could tropical СКАЧАТЬ