De gustibus non est disputandum--"There is no arguing about taste"--runs the Latin proverb. But taste did not just happen. Cultural, historical, and ecological events have interacted to cause frogs, for example, to be esteemed as a delicacy in southern China but to be regarded with revulsion in northern China. "Even though much remains unknown, tastes cannot be dismissed as inarguable or illogical; an attempt will be made here to discover why, as Lucretius [a Roman poet and philosopher] put it, "What is food to one man may be fierce poison to others."
Among the approximately thirty million tribal people of India, a total of 250 animal species are avoided by one group or another. Most of these people will not eat meat from a tiger or any of various snakes, particularly the cobra. Although they say they feel a kinship with these animals, it is obvious that both are highly dangerous and that hunting them systematically would be foolish. Monkeys are avoided, probably because of their close resemblance to human beings; in these tribes, cannibalism is viewed with extreme horror. A reluctance to eat the females of edible species of animals has been attributed to veneration for the maternal role, but it could also be due to a policy of allowing the females to reproduce and provide more edible young. Many tribes avoid eating any animal that has died of unknown causes, an intelligent attitude in view of the possibility that the animal might have died from an infectious disease that could spread to humans. . . .
--Peter Farb and George Armalagos, Consuming Passions: The Anthropology of Eating
De gustibus non est disputandum--"There is no arguing about taste"--runs the Latin proverb. But taste did not just happen. Cultural, historical, and ecological events have interacted to cause frogs, for example, to be esteemed as a delicacy in southern China but to be regarded with revulsion in northern China. "Even though much remains unknown, tastes cannot be dismissed as inarguable or illogical; an attempt will be made here to discover why, as Lucretius [a Roman poet and philosopher] put it, "What is food to one man may be fierce poison to others."Among the approximately thirty million tribal people of India, a total of 250 animal species are avoided by one group or another. Most of these people will not eat meat from a tiger or any of various snakes, particularly the cobra. Although they say they feel a kinship with these animals, it is obvious that both are highly dangerous and that hunting them systematically would be foolish. Monkeys are avoided, probably because of their close resemblance to human beings; in these tribes, cannibalism is viewed with extreme horror. A reluctance to eat the females of edible species of animals has been attributed to veneration for the maternal role, but it could also be due to a policy of allowing the females to reproduce and provide more edible young. Many tribes avoid eating any animal that has died of unknown causes, an intelligent attitude in view of the possibility that the animal might have died from an infectious disease that could spread to humans. . . . --Peter Farb and George Armalagos, Consuming Passions: The Anthropology of Eating
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