Re: Anthropophagy
Richard Spear (rspear@primenet.com)
Tue, 13 Dec 1994 06:55:35 PST
In article <3cik3l$ev7@newsbf01.news.aol.com> agalvin@aol.com (AGALVIN) writes:
>From: agalvin@aol.com (AGALVIN)
>Subject: Re: Anthropophagy
>Date: 12 Dec 1994 17:50:29 -0500
>There is no solid proof that humans have ever consumed other humans as a
>protein source. So, the idea that humans taste like pork is rather far
>fetched. All of the areas described by the other responses use pigs as a
>primary economic and food source. Maybe the reason humans are called long
>pig is due to the similarities in coloring etc. I don't really know.
There is considerable ethnographic evidence of humans consuming humans for
*ceremonial* reasons. This is sufficient for descriptions of the taste of
human flesh to be accurate.
>I do know though that bear meat is notoriously tough and grainy as well as
>not very tasty. The reason for this is that they are omnivorous. Given
>the fact that humans are omnivorous, it seems to follow that we would
>taste like other omnivors. That is, not very good. Notice that all of
>the major meat staples are herbivorous. Anyway, this is the argument that
>many archaeologists have made against cannibalism. So maybe the key is to
>check out archaeological sources on food use.
Humans eat herbivores because they are more easily domesticated (have been for
10,000 years) and because they represent reasonable package sizes (and for
other reasons) but not just because they taste good.
>I hope that this is helpful!
Regards, Richard
rspear@primenet.com
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