The sociology of food is an academic subdiscipline all on its own. Different societies eat at different times, structure meals differently, and avoid different foods. Kashrut is just one of many sociological food avoidance systems. For example, Americans will not eat horse, though it is massively popular in central Asia. Southeast Asians eat dog and even have specific breeds for meat production but that would be deeply frowned upon in Europe and the US. Guinea pigs, insects, and frogs are all foods that are eaten in some places but not in others.
What is strange about alligator meat? (Maybe me having lived in Texas for 20 years, it doesn't seem strange to me.) Allegedly it tastes like chicken. And I remember as a kid, visiting Maine, seeing whale meat for sale. Did they have any whale meat?
Everything supposedly tastes like chicken when we don't have experience with it. Gator has its own relatively mild flavor which depends a lot on what it has been eating same way that a factory chicken tastes different than one which spends it's day walking around eating seeds and bugs.
And from an ethical perspective a sheep just wants to be stupid, eat grass, and make little sheep. A chicken or gator would gladly eat me :)
Kosher (or Jewish) makes more sense than Israeli alone. U should not have to run thru multiple aisles to compare American, Israeli, and British gefilte fish.
What is the problem of fully boxed kosher and non-kosher items near each other? In the old days, neighbors shared a communal oven, and it was deemed kosher if the pots had lids. Apparently, there was no khshash of taking the wrong pot.
Why is Balut not kosher? Does an embryo require shechita? I don’t know the halachic term for it, but I recall that if a pregnant animal is shechted, then the fetus is kosher without shechita, even if it survives. Is Balut an issue of Ever Min HaChai?
I would not refer to the museum's fundraiser as "legendary". While worthwhile events, that is too exaggerated and inflated a term. Also, יהללוך זר ולא פיך.
The sociology of food is an academic subdiscipline all on its own. Different societies eat at different times, structure meals differently, and avoid different foods. Kashrut is just one of many sociological food avoidance systems. For example, Americans will not eat horse, though it is massively popular in central Asia. Southeast Asians eat dog and even have specific breeds for meat production but that would be deeply frowned upon in Europe and the US. Guinea pigs, insects, and frogs are all foods that are eaten in some places but not in others.
"The British aisles even had Marmite!"
So do the British Isles.
What is strange about alligator meat? (Maybe me having lived in Texas for 20 years, it doesn't seem strange to me.) Allegedly it tastes like chicken. And I remember as a kid, visiting Maine, seeing whale meat for sale. Did they have any whale meat?
Whale is banned except in Japan and Iceland
Still legal for subsistence hunting for indigenous peoples in the Faroe Islands and parts of Greenland and North America
And I really don't want to go back down that rabbit hole. Just adding for completion
Everything supposedly tastes like chicken when we don't have experience with it. Gator has its own relatively mild flavor which depends a lot on what it has been eating same way that a factory chicken tastes different than one which spends it's day walking around eating seeds and bugs.
And from an ethical perspective a sheep just wants to be stupid, eat grass, and make little sheep. A chicken or gator would gladly eat me :)
It sells in Australia too and doesn't taste as bad as kangaroo.
thank you for the tour lol... and yeah, I would not touch their kosher food w/ a 10 ft. alligator tail.
I've always associated Balut with the Philippines, where the locals seem mostly to use duck eggs.
A quail egg is barely a taste :)
The download to your excellent "Chicken Wars" monograph seems to be broken.
Kosher (or Jewish) makes more sense than Israeli alone. U should not have to run thru multiple aisles to compare American, Israeli, and British gefilte fish.
What is the problem of fully boxed kosher and non-kosher items near each other? In the old days, neighbors shared a communal oven, and it was deemed kosher if the pots had lids. Apparently, there was no khshash of taking the wrong pot.
Why is Balut not kosher? Does an embryo require shechita? I don’t know the halachic term for it, but I recall that if a pregnant animal is shechted, then the fetus is kosher without shechita, even if it survives. Is Balut an issue of Ever Min HaChai?
We once bought a dozen duck eggs and discovered they were balut when we got home. The dogs appreciated them more than we possibly could have :/
Nice write up.
I would not refer to the museum's fundraiser as "legendary". While worthwhile events, that is too exaggerated and inflated a term. Also, יהללוך זר ולא פיך.
Fascinating stuff
I'm just wondering how many people actually buy the insects.