Food and drink prohibitions
Food taboos usually seem to be intended to protect the human individual from harm, spiritually or physically, but there are numerous other reasons given within cultures for their existence.
For example, Judaism prescribes a strict set of rules, called kashrut, regarding what may and may not be eaten, and notably forbidding the mixing of meat with dairy products.
Likewise, horse meat is rarely eaten in the English-speaking world, although it is part of the national cuisine of countries as widespread as Kazakhstan, Japan, Italy, and France.
Sometimes food prohibitions enter national or local law, as with the ban on cattle abattoirs in most of India, and horse slaughter in the United States.
A fairly recent addition to cultural food prohibitions is the meat and eggs of endangered species or animals that are otherwise protected by law or international treaty.
[9] However, environmental concerns over the endangerment of frogs, even possibly pushing them into extinction, due to overconsumption has prompted legal action in nations such as France to limit their use in food.
[15] Rabbis have frequently inferred that traditions that explicitly prohibit birds of prey and natural scavengers create a distinction with other avian species; thus, eating chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys is allowed.
[8] In contrast, Islamic dietary rules permit the consumption of ostrich, while birds of prey (defined specifically as those who hunt with claws and talons) are forbidden, as in Judaism.
The tiny birds were captured alive, force-fed, then drowned in Armagnac, "roasted whole and eaten that way, bones and all, while the diner draped his head with a linen napkin to preserve the precious aromas and, some believe, to hide from God.
The Torah considers the camel unclean, even though it chews the cud, or regurgitates, the way bovines, sheep, goats, deer, antelope, and giraffes (all of which are kosher) do, because it does not meet the cloven hoof criterion.
[citation needed] In the town of Kudus on the Indonesian island of Java, there is also a taboo on eating beef, despite most people being Muslim, to avoid offending Hindus.
[8] The consumption of dairy products together with meat is also prohibited as non-kosher in Rabbinic Judaism, based on Deuteronomy 14:21: "You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk."
In East Asia, most countries rarely consume dog meat with the exception of China, Vietnam, North and South Korea either because of Islamic or Buddhist values or animal rights as in Taiwan.
[51][52] There are taboos on eating fish among many upland pastoralists and agriculturalists (and even some coastal peoples) inhabiting parts of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, and northern Tanzania.
As "Grant Manyheads" from "Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park" explains in a YouTube video archiving one of his lectures;[57] the Blackfoot's cuisine was based in a belief that only certain animals, those which possessed four legs, with hooves and which grazed on grass, were seen as "clean" and thus suitable for consumption (not too dissimilarly to the taboo of pork or the kosher diet in Abrahamic religions) this meant that any other animals were not considered suitable or clean enough to eat.
Norse settlers in Greenland (10th–15th centuries AD) may have developed a taboo against fish consumption, as recounted in Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
[61] Foie gras, the fatty liver of geese that have been force-fed according to French law,[62] has been the subject of controversy and prohibitions exist in different parts of the world.
This is in contrast to the days of the Roman Empire, when mushrooms were viewed as a delicacy of the highest order and were held in high regard as food for emperors.
It is believed that the cross was discovered in 325 AD by Saint Helen on a hill covered in beautiful, fragrant basil bushes, a hitherto unknown plant.
In 732 CE, Pope Gregory III instructed Saint Boniface to suppress the pagan practice of eating horses, calling it a "filthy and abominable custom".
Offal is a traditional part of many European and Asian cuisines, including such dishes as the steak and kidney pie in the United Kingdom or callos a la madrileña in Spain.
[116] Mary Douglas has suggested that the reason for the taboo against the pig in Judaism is three-fold: (i) it transgresses the category of ungulates, because it has a split hoof but does not chew the cud, (ii) it eats carrion and (iii) it was eaten by non-Israelites.
[126] In most Western cultures, rats and mice are considered either unclean vermin or pets and thus unfit for human consumption, traditionally being seen as carriers of plague.
Many Hindus discourage eating onion and garlic along with non-vegetarian food during festivals or Hindu holy months of Shrawan, Puratassi and Kartik.
Jains not only abstain from consumption of meat, but also do not eat root vegetables (such as carrots, potatoes, radish, turnips, etc) as doing so kills the plant and they believe in ahimsa.
The amount of bad karma generated depends on the number of senses the creature possesses and so it is thought prudent to avoid eating onions.
[citation needed] Vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower, while not taboo, may be avoided by observant Jews and other religions due to the possibility of insects or worms hiding within the numerous crevices.
[133] The common Egyptian dish mulukhiyah, a soup whose primary ingredient is jute leaves (which did not have any other culinary purpose), was banned by the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah sometime during his reign (996-1021 CE).
[citation needed] Some religions – including Buddhism,[136] Islam, Jainism, Rastafari movement, Baháʼí Faith, and various branches of Christianity such as the Baptists, the Pentecostals, Methodists, the Latter-day Saints, Seventh-day Adventists and the Iglesia ni Cristo – forbid or discourage the consumption of alcoholic beverages.
[citation needed] There is a widely reported story, possibly apocryphal, that around the year 1600, some Catholics urged Pope Clement VIII to ban coffee, calling it "devil's beverage".
