We take it for granted that in European culture, dogs and cats are not considered appropriate for eating. How far back in history does this taboo go, and is there any known explanation for it?
IIRC the kosher and Muslim diet laws also generally forbid eating carnivores. Most societies tend to follow this rule with minor exceptions. (i.e. some fish) This is because (a) it’s expensive to raise and feed a meat-eater and (b) wild meat-eaters especially are more likely to collect diseases, since there is no accounting for the food they eat… and © carnivores generally are more dangerous to hunt and kill and (d) since they are at the top of the food pyramid, there are more herbivores to hunt.
As for cats and dogs - the coat of raising a meat eater for the small amount of meat produced is generally prohibitive. These anmals are generally more for utility, and when put to work - as hunting aids or rodent control, for example - they more likely pay for themselves.
Note that North Americans have an aversion to eating horse, another working animal. Eating your capital, your productive assets, is not a good choice.
Irrational food taboos explain most of it. Prehistorically, and among recent hunter-gatherers, eating dogs, cats, fox, marten, badger etc. was common. Dog bones with cut marks as per meat separation are consistently found among the refuse faunas of European Stone Age societies. The evidence has even tempted a hypothesis of special small dogs being grown for food in places. Wildcat, fox, marten, raccoon dog etc. also regularly appear in these bone assemblages, with the same butchering marks. Most of these are small predators, and it is most likely they were not hunted especially for meat, but eaten after skinning, anyway. Every calorie, and especially amino and fatty acid gram, counts.
Among recent hunter-gatherers (the Americas, Northern Eurasia, Australasia), many predator species were considerd fit for eating, or even relinguished. Fox, badger, marten and of course bear were among the most common ones. Among one late Australian Aborigine group subsisting on small game and gathering, feral cat was found the most important meat provider, in terms of kilos consumed. That being said, every human society has food taboos, too. On any given geographical area, one society might savor fox meat, for example, another consider it taboo.
Domestication. We don’t like to eat animals we regard as pets. Hence some people don’t like to eat rabbits or horses, despite them being common foodstuffs amongst other, less sentimental, European cultures. The anglosphere, in particular, gets sentimental about its pets.
Anthropologist Martin Harris explained many foodways as being essentially pragmatic. His assessment agrees with that of md2000 – we don’t eat dogs and cats because they’re carnivores. You could more efficiently eat the meat you need to raise them than you would get from eating the cats or dogs. (This doesn’t keep you from eating dog on special occasions, rather than as a regular item of diet, as happened among the Plains Indians or in Polynesia. Or if you are eating a wild animal that you aren’t gathering the meat for).
In the case of horses and cows, you don’t eat them if their utility outweighs the meat you get. People have eaten horse throughout history (as a recent thread on this Board brought up), but Harris claims that the need fore horses as beasts of burden and for military purposes brought an end to horse eating In Europe. He similarly explain the “sacredness” of Indian cows on their utility in providing milk, motive power, dung, and calves in resource-poor India.
Cats, dogs, and horses serve more use as work animals than as food sources (for rodent control, hunting/security, and farm work). In theory, a society could use them for dual roles - keep some around for their work and eat the rest. But eating an animal is a short term good while keeping it alive to work is a long term good. In most societies, there’d be too many people thinking about the short term good of the next meal and most of these animals would be getting eaten. So society develops a taboo against eating these animals so they’re around to do work.
Horses have long been widely eaten across Europe. You will find specialist ‘equestrian’ butchers in the smallest villages of France and Italy.
Yes – the need for horses as military materiel has passed.
To add to the working animals angle: They tend to be smart and get along well with humans, otherwise they wouldn’t be useful for the type of work humans have them do. To an extent, they come to resemble humans, acquire physical & psychological neotenous traits and learn how to communicate & influence humans.
IOW, they’re smart fluffy toddlers.
Also, don’t carnivores tend to be smarter than herbivores, with some exceptions?
This brings up a question… I’ve heard it said that since cows are sacred animals in Indian culture, they aren’t consumed. So for the most part, do Indians treat beef the way that westerners treat religious dietary restrictions (fasting on particular days, Kosher and Halaal rules, etc.) and doing so is impious rather than gross, or is it more that beef is disgusting to eat the way westerners think of dogs and cats, rats, insects, and so on? I’m sure different people have different opinions but what is the prevailing attitude?
Because we don’t eatr our best friend.
We used to, and up until fairly recently in Spain and Switzerland. (The internet is full of the idea that some Swiss eat cats, but I don’t think that’s true. Dogs, yes, though not as a regular dietary item, and only in a couple of places.) I can’t find a good source: Wikipedia, but their sources aren’t that good. I suspect if I read German it would be easier: hundefleisch. I recall the same for Spain: it was a local tradition in one place, not nationwide. I’m sorry I can’t find better cites; I think I read it in *Eat Not This Flesh *by Simooms.
I think the pragmatic aspect of food taboos is exaggerated. The U.S. and western Europe are similar in a lot of ways, but in the U.S it is taboo to eat horse, whereas it is tolerated in much of Europe.
Similarly, it is hard to think of a pragmatic reason not to eat shellfish. Yet some groups do not.
Biologically, you are what you eat. Culturally, you are what you don’t eat.
In days before refrigeration and where water supplies were often contaminated, it would make sense to avoid shellfish in hot countries.
Pragmatism doesn’t explain everything, but it does explain an awful lot. Read Harris’ Good to Eat (AKA The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig)
Well said!
The amount of meat on a dog is small. for a cat, even more trivial. It makes no sense to use there animals for food, when a steer yields much more, for the same effort.
This is why I never understood the cliche that Asians are big cat eaters. I can understand a few festivals where they might eat a dog or cat, sort of like how in Louisiana you can get alligator to eat, but there’s no way the average person in China or Vietnam, etc, eats dogs or cats as a normal part of their diet.
Also, some Asian countries such as Korea or Japan, the people really like cats. You wouldn’t think eating them would be very popular.