Weird Meat Project Intro

Hello and welcome to Weird Meat. WeirdMeat.com is the online representation of a purely academic project I began a few years ago. I was studying the Humanities in college, comparing different cultures, and one aspect that really struck my curiosity was how different cultures around the world feel about food. Some foods are taboo, some are forbidden, some are considered inedible -- depending on the culture. Why does one human refuse to eat dog, and another refuse to eat pig? Why does one culture eat haggis, another one delight in slimy fermented soy beans? Do we only refuse some foods when we know what they are? Why?

For several years I was a dietary vegan. I was considering a long trek in the Congo with an ethnomusicologist -- also a strict vegetarian -- and he asked me would I eat meat if my life depended on it? I said no, but I realize that was foolish of me -- I am an animal and it's my instinct to try to survive. He had been to the region before and was served monkey for dinner, while stuck injured in a rural area. He survived.

So far I've survived all of my "weird meat" experiences. In fact, I've rarely gotten a stomach ache after these experiments. I've eaten dog, cat, rat, cockroach, camel penis, bee larve, scorpions, spiders, night hawk, and pre-born duck embryo without feeling ill. Can't say the same for Taco Bell or McDonalds.

So, I'm not here to mock or offend anyone or any culture. If you're timid, you can go away. I just want to document how different cultures have different eating habits, and how each has its own food taboos. I want to dispell some of the myths about weird meat. I'm quite serious. But I also have a sense of humor. Hope you enjoy weirdmeat.com

Here is the beginning of my list of the "weird" things that I have eaten. Keep in mind that these "weird" things are only defined as "weird" in my original culture -- I was raised in California, USA -- and even still, only considered "weird" by the majority populace. (I grew up as a WASP Caucasian middle class male -- the majority, dominant culture).

In fact, my first "weird meat" experience was in California. When I was in high school I had dinner at my friend's house. They were a Vietnamese immigrant family, and I ate dog meat for the first time. It's illegal to eat dog (and some other) meat in California, but California has a large immigrant population, so yes, some Californians eat dog. There are the jokes and the stories and the rumors -- probably overblown -- and I wish to remain objective here, but I wonder who's job it is to tell us (all of us) what we can and cannot eat. And if so, why? I'll explore that later.