One of my nieces, when she was young, once asked if it hurt the turkey when they harvested the meat. She thought that it was like shearing sheep for wool, and that the bird itself was re-usable.
Her sister, meanwhile (mother of that niece) once went through a semi-vegetarian phase where she wouldn’t eat any meat named after the animal. So she had no problem with beef, pork, or even venison, but she wouldn’t eat chicken, turkey, or fish. She knew what meat was; she just didn’t want to be reminded of it.
Which is why English borrowed such terms from French when naming foods served to the aristocracy. Otherwise, they’d have been eating cow, swine, deer, and (in the case of mutton) sheep. Not at all appetizing!
Apparently we ate liver for dinner several times when I was a kid, but my mom never told us it was liver. I think she told us it was some kind of steak. Years later she did tell us that we had been eating liver and I said “I don’t remember ever eating liver.” But then I realized I didn’t know it was liver and I developed an aversion to meat. I didn’t completely shun it but I never looked to eat it. Because I thought steak was liver.
Now every so often I get this memory smell in my nose and I can’t place it because I’ve not had it for 30+ years. I finally realized recently that it’s liver and onions.
This reminds me of a story told me of a woman I know. She grew up in south Jersey near a town called Carmel. They would get sour cream (and it really is just cream that has turned sour) from a nearby farmer who would otherwise have thrown it away. One day the farmer asked what they did with it. “We eat it”. The farmer was incredulous at first, but he eventually tried it. That was the end of their free sour cream.
As for me, I had very few food dislikes when I was growing and the ones I did, I had tried at least. Canned string beans were (and probably still are) awful. And I didn’t like asparagus, but I love it now.
I thought pepperoni grew on trees. And honestly until literally a month ago, I had NO idea kiwi fruit grew on BUSHES. Blew my freakin mind. I was certain they were grown on big ol’ trees.
Oh, on the mincemeat business: I once made a mincemeat pie, for some sort of school project. We had more mince than we needed, and so the extra went into the freezer. I had heard from some sources that mincemeat was actual animal parts, and from other sources that it was just raisins and the like, so I checked the ingredients list on the package. Where it very helpfully stated “Ingredients: Mince”.
The aristocracy ate beef and pork because, being Normans, they spoke French. The peasants raised cattle and swine because, being Saxons, they spoke English.
