“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.”
James Michener
There was a soft knock on our front door and I opened it to find my obviously distraught five-year-old. “It’s crying!” he sobbed. Knowing where he had been, I empathized and wrapped him in a hug. It was a sight I had not wanted to see myself.
The day had started out with an invitation to witness a yearly ritual at our Italian neighbors’ farm. Their land sprawled across the hillside below our villa. The family was self-sufficient in many ways. They grew fruits and vegetables, made their own wine, and raised animals for meat. Most years they had plenty, not only for their own consumption, but enough to sell at the market in Rome. They used the market profits to buy whatever else they needed.
My husband is a photographer and he had already enjoyed documenting their winemaking process, from the scrubbing out of the giant vats, to the picking and crushing of the grapes, the bottling and the tasting. So he was excited to witness the annual pig slaughter and meat preparation as a learning experience and photo op. He said yes. Our young son was curious and followed after him.
Watching the slitting of the large animal’s throat and hearing its squeals as its blood dripped into a bucket had unnerved my son but it had not quelled his curiosity. After he calmed down, he said he wanted to go back! I voiced my concern but he was determined to see it through. I watched my little guy make his way down through the farm’s vineyard hoping he would not be traumatized by a very graphic demonstration of how meat is obtained for food.
Both of my guys returned together later in the day and they were quiet but somewhat in awe of what they had observed. The farmer had demonstrated how they would make use of every part of the animal to sustain them throughout the year, even drinking the pig’s warm blood!
One of my son’s school friends also had a startling animal experience in Italy due to different cultural expectations. His neighbor raised rabbits and the little boy loved to play with them. One day the family asked to buy one and their neighbor agreed. When he brought it to their house later in the day, it was dangling from his fist freshly slaughtered. The family had wanted a pet for their son but the farmer assumed they wanted dinner.
Like many other countries, Italy presents you with a close-up view of freshly slain meats in the shops and markets. Rabbits, for example are often hung from hooks with their fur still attached. I assume it’s a way of demonstrating they are fresh-killed. The animals are limp with their eyes closed and the fur is attractive so they are not hard to look at.
Not so with the guinea pigs we saw in Ecuador. This locally popular food is cooked on a spit. We often encountered these grills set up on the pavement outside restaurants, kind of like we sometimes see roasting chickens here. The big difference is that the heads are left on with eyes wide open and mouths that appear to be screaming under torture. They are definitely not a sight for the squeamish.
In some cultures, animal slaughter takes on other meanings. When our friends visited a small village in Mali, Africa where their son was volunteering in the Peace Corps, they were presented with a slain goat. It was a sign that they were honored guests but it was a bit unsettling. They were unsure what they were supposed to do with it but the locals had a plan. In the evening, the goat was roasted over an open fire for a celebratory meal.
Through years of travel, we have been presented with many foods we were previously unfamiliar with— Venezuelan goat stew and squid in its own black ink, German Leberkäse (liver loaf) and sautéed calf brains, Polish head cheese (aspic jelly with meat chunks), French frog’s legs, Florida fried alligator bits, and Italian cinghiale (wild boar). We’ve also had Montana’s buffalo beef, Vietnamese dragon fruit and grilled elephant fish, Thai prawns in green curry and squid in red curry. Most have been delicious but a few not so much. They all provided memorable experiences though.
Have you eaten something interesting and different on your travels?