The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: CellarDweller on November 12, 2013, 08:11:44 pm ---I often wonder about how different foods become acceptable in one country and not others.
I'm sure people in India are horrified that we eat cow.
--- End quote ---
I think it has a lot to do with the lifestyles of the ancient people. For example, I have heard that kosher eating forbids eating pork because raising pigs requires staying in one place and the early nomadic Jewish people did not want to be rooted down. And if a social rule morphs into a religious rule, how much more effectively it can be enforced. Not sure how to explain the meat/milk issue, though.
I've always thought Catholics don't eat meat on Friday due to a slaughtering or selling schedule that meant that by Friday the (unrefrigerated) beef would go bad. Maybe fishermen came in late in the week.
As for cows in India, it makes sense that an animal that can provide milk, cream, cheese, butter and yogurt might be considered worth more alive than dead. Again, making the animal sacred is a stronger deterrent than just saying it's not fiscally prudent.
CellarDweller:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on November 12, 2013, 11:54:55 pm ---I've always thought Catholics don't eat meat on Friday due to a slaughtering or selling schedule that meant that by Friday the (unrefrigerated) beef would go bad. Maybe fishermen came in late in the week.
--- End quote ---
I had a friend who told me that the a decree was issued by the church to abstain from meat on Friday in an effort to help the fishing market, but I'm not sure how true that is, I've never researched it myself.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: CellarDweller on November 13, 2013, 09:12:53 am ---
I had a friend who told me that the a decree was issued by the church to abstain from meat on Friday in an effort to help the fishing market, but I'm not sure how true that is, I've never researched it myself.
--- End quote ---
That sounds plausible. In any case, that religious food rules would have developed to serve some practical social function, rather than being handed down from God -- makes sense (to me).
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: CellarDweller on November 13, 2013, 09:12:53 am ---I had a friend who told me that the a decree was issued by the church to abstain from meat on Friday in an effort to help the fishing market, but I'm not sure how true that is, I've never researched it myself.
--- End quote ---
I've heard that, too, with a slight variation for post-Reformation England: It was to support the fishing industry, because it was from the fishing industry that the navy derived extra sailors needed in time of war.
But that certainly didn't apply to the Mediterranean world of the early first millenium. Perhaps it had something to do with the value of cattle and sheep for other things besides their meat (dairy products, wool), but I don't know where hogs would fit into that scheme. (Muslims also don't eat pork.)
I'm sure the idea of fasting on Friday because it's the day of the Crucifixion must factor into the justification somewhere, but why fish should be considered permissable on a fast day when other forms of animal protein aren't brings us full circle back to the question again, I guess.
The meat/milk prohibition is a puzzle, too, especially when you think of it in terms of not boiling a calf or kid in its mother's milk, but maybe that was originally some twist on not butchering a cow or sheep or goat while it was still good for dairy products. Today farmers send cows to slaughter when they're no longer good milk producers.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on November 13, 2013, 10:22:20 am ---The meat/milk prohibition is a puzzle, too, especially when you think of it in terms of not boiling a calf or kid in its mother's milk, but maybe that was originally some twist on not butchering a cow or sheep or goat while it was still good for dairy products. Today farmers send cows to slaughter when they're no longer good milk producers.
--- End quote ---
Well, that seems logical. If you have a cow and a calf, and you've killed the calf (for meat) and kept the cow (for dairy), then in terms of livestock value you've probably killed the wrong animal. Maybe originally they wanted to encourage people to give up the milk in favor of the meat until the calf was old enough to produce milk. Therefor, keep the two foods separate. Or sumpn' like that. ???
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