You Are What You Refuse to Eat

You are what you refuse to eat. However broad we may claim our tastes to be, all societies have foods that disgust or intimidate them: substances that can theoretically be eaten for nourishment but which, if eaten, would mark the consumer as ignorant, gross, unclean, unfit for human company, and (possibly) racially inferior. Whales, dogs, frogs, locusts, and horses all provide protein to some human communities somewhere, although even discussing those creatures as menu items can make many Western readers queasy—just as unsettled, in fact, as religious Muslims and Jews become in the presence of pork or ham. These fears are richly illustrative for social attitudes. Sometimes the dislike can have religious roots; sometimes it reflects human attitudes toward one particular kind of animal, although not to its near-related kin; and sometimes it claims to be based on a conviction that the food in question is actively harmful or dangerous.