Edible Animals
Feb. 11th, 2018 04:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithMy inner teenage boy was deeply amused by this billboard showing a spectrum of pets to food animals.
Me, I'm a pragmatist. Anything I can get into my mouth and digest safely is potential food. In practice, I strongly prefer not to eat other sapient beings unless I am starving to death, so things like cetacean, elephant, and primate are off my list of edibles outside of that context. There are a few things I choose not to eat because I disapprove of their production methods; farmed veal exceeds my personal tolerance for animal abuse. However, historic veal is in the same class as buckling for me -- used to be, all the milk animals would drop about 50% male offspring that you didn't need, so you dressed them out right then and had the tenderest meat ever. That I would gleefully eat if I had the chance. There are plenty of things I'd like to try, haven't encountered yet, and probably wouldn't want to eat routinely; dog and horse are both in that category. So are insects, a key indicator that I am not culturally an American despite living here. My everyday category is wider too: rabbit, goat, and lamb are all things I actively look for and order when I find them. I also enjoy some animal parts that most Americans do not, including tongue, brains, heart, gizzard, and testicles. I loved haggis the one time I got it. However, I have tried kidney and wasn't fond of it; I really dislike liver and would have to be ravenous to eat it willingly.
These are all things that vary widely by culture and time period. What are some of your settings?
Me, I'm a pragmatist. Anything I can get into my mouth and digest safely is potential food. In practice, I strongly prefer not to eat other sapient beings unless I am starving to death, so things like cetacean, elephant, and primate are off my list of edibles outside of that context. There are a few things I choose not to eat because I disapprove of their production methods; farmed veal exceeds my personal tolerance for animal abuse. However, historic veal is in the same class as buckling for me -- used to be, all the milk animals would drop about 50% male offspring that you didn't need, so you dressed them out right then and had the tenderest meat ever. That I would gleefully eat if I had the chance. There are plenty of things I'd like to try, haven't encountered yet, and probably wouldn't want to eat routinely; dog and horse are both in that category. So are insects, a key indicator that I am not culturally an American despite living here. My everyday category is wider too: rabbit, goat, and lamb are all things I actively look for and order when I find them. I also enjoy some animal parts that most Americans do not, including tongue, brains, heart, gizzard, and testicles. I loved haggis the one time I got it. However, I have tried kidney and wasn't fond of it; I really dislike liver and would have to be ravenous to eat it willingly.
These are all things that vary widely by culture and time period. What are some of your settings?
Re: Foods and preferences
Date: 2018-02-12 07:39 pm (UTC)But some places we go are awesome. At Yanni's he was talking to the Greek-American family next to us, and we just sort of got rolled into the conversation.
Re: Foods and preferences
Date: 2018-02-14 05:01 pm (UTC)We get that a lot, too. One way we've found that seems to reduce the issue (fortunately, fairly easy to do around here) is to filter by how many of the patrons look like the place the cuisine is from: if you're a round-eye, and walk into a place like that, there seems to be a general presumption that you know what you're doing once you can convince them you haven't wandered into the place by mistake. Which we usually confirm by getting at least one instance of Stuff White Folks Don't Eat.
Speaking of culinary racism, spouse got a stiff dose of that once at a supposedly renowned dim sum restaurant in Hong Kong, where they got shunted off into a side room and served mostly mundane stuff. Having seen more interesting stuff in the main room, they went back, the staff attempted to put them back in the side room again, and they got across that they wanted to be in the main room -- where the dishes were much more varied and quite enjoyable.
More locally, they were taking a break to have lunch with a colleague, and went to a halal Chinese place we frequent once. One of the lunch specials was tripe, which the colleague loves and ordered. The server asked whether colleague knew what they were ordering, got "yes, bring it", and filled the order. When the order came out, a number of the wait staff and a few folks from the kitchen positioned themselves discreetly to check out what the round-eye was going to do with the order. According to spouse, there was visible relaxation once the colleague's enjoyment of the dish was observed.
Re: Foods and preferences
Date: 2018-02-14 07:53 pm (UTC)And just about every time I'm in a crowded ethnic Chinese restaurant, the staff will do a double-take, because I'm ambidextrous enough to use chopsticks with both hands. That means I can switch to whichever side isn't bumping into someone else at the moment. Apparently almost nobody can do that, so it attracts attention. But after that, they take me quite seriously.