Philosophy

Why Is It Okay To Eat Pigs And Not Dogs? Science Does Not Have The Answer

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Opening sentence of the abstract in the peer-reviewed paper “When Meat Gets Personal, Animals’ Minds Matter Less: Motivated Use of Intelligence Information in Judgments of Moral Standing” in Social Psychological and Personality Science by Jared Piazza and Steve Loughnan: “Why are many Westerners outraged by dog meat, but comfortable with pork?”

The single-word answer which explains everything—bacon—never occurs to the authors.

Neither does the well known truth that dogs bite back when chased (pigs can be nasty, too). I’ve eaten both animals and I know. Pig is more versatile. Everything from chops to the loin is juicy and delicious—where would we be without pickled pigs feet?—whereas dog has fewer choice cuts and is generally stringy or greasy. And don’t even get me started on sausage, though some dogs do resemble walking sausages.

Dog as food is still found in parts of the world. If this article is right “China, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Philippines, Polynesia, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Arctic and Antarctic and two cantons in Switzerland” still serve up barking burgers. (I had a dog taco in Mexico, you racist.)

But maybe bacon isn’t the answer after all. Fetching a dog bone is (as many article say) taboo in the enlightened cities of the West (I say cities), and when the media reports on dog-as-chow there is usually what is termed a flap.

Before venturing into the paper, why would you say there is this excitement? Custom, say I. We’re long used to eating pigs and have for just as long and maybe longer valued dogs as companions. We consider it rude to eat companions. Whereas we’re fine with slicing and dicing an animal kept in a pen far from eyes and fattened for feasting. Plus you can’t entirely discount bacon. Call this the commonsense, or Custom answer. Now let’s see what our authors say.

It’s Piazza and Loughnan’s theory that our dinners’ intelligence should be the driving factor in drawing lines between what’s acceptable and taboo, figuring it’s fine to chew less intelligent animals and eschew more intelligent ones. Yet

people will actively disregard intelligence information when considering the moral standing of certain animals that pose a moral challenge to the consumer. That is, while evidence for an animal’s mind is generally persuasive, it is not compelling when a person is motivated to defend their use of the animal as food.

Piazza and Loughnan don’t appear aware that many people know that people are people and not animals, in the sense that people are rational creatures and animals not. This is why “Rise, Peter; kill, and eat” makes (made) sense to most of us. Considering a beast’s “intelligence” is a recent phenomenon, constrained to Westerners who have forgotten the distinction between men and animals.

Anyway, our duo took to the internet and asked 58 people to “imagine that in the distant future, scientists went on an expedition to another planet and discovered a new species called the ‘trablans.'” Half the people were told the trablans were intelligent, half not, and they were then asked questions like “Is it OK to start eating the trablans?”. Lo, a few more of the folks who were told the trablans were dumb said yes than did the people who were told the trablans were intelligent. A wee p-value “confirmed” the difference was in fact a difference.

Two other sets of people and questions were asked with similar results.

Imagine the faux pas of you leading a team of scientists to a distant planet where you end up serving what turns out to be the native rational trablans for supper. No such embarrassment need happen if trablans are mere animals.

So there is a test: do the trablans possess a rational nature like humans, or are they mere beasts? If the latter, fire up the coals and ice the beer. If the former, they are really like us whatever they look like, and cannibalism, though at times and places accepted, is against natural law.

That “times and places” is key, incidentally. If you argue against natural law, how many people and in how many places have to act a certain way to make that way “right” or “moral”? One? A thousand? Must they all live contiguously, or is geographic separation allowable? Without delving into it, it’s easy to see that the only consistent solution is natural law.

Let’s let the authors have their final word: “Smart animals deserve our moral concern, unless, of course,
we want to eat them.”

Categories: Philosophy, Statistics

47 replies »

  1. One of the reasons folks prefer eating pigs (hogs, really) is that pigs and other domesticated meat animals have been (locate nearest fainting sofa, pls) “genetically engineered” to taste good and be cost-effective to breed and maintain.

    Most dog breeds have been bred to work, although some breeds (esp. in Asia) were bred as toys, created for amusement. I’ve never tasted dog meat (to my knowledge), but I’m pretty sure I’d prefer US Prime Black Angus to Afghan Hound.

    I think you’ll find that wild versions of domesticated species, like feral hogs, are also not the best eating because they’re too lean. I’m not sure you could even make bacon (in the culinary, not carnal, sense) with a feral hog. I do know from personal experience that fat must be added to ground feral hog meat to produce edible sausage, and game birds (e.g., wild turkeys) are notoriously dry and tough.

  2. Hans Erren: I so agree. I am tired of people saying “pet parent”—it’s my DOG, not my child. Did you know there are “duck diapers” so your pet duck can live in the house with you? How insane. This, to me, constitutes animal abuse, as does dressing the dog up in stupid costumes, etc. Dog do not wear clothes, they do not ride in strollers. They are dogs.

    Briggs: I think bacon sums it all up. I once saw a picture of a puppy and a piglet with the caption: “Why do we eat one and not the other? One is full of delicious bacon.”

    All: My criteria for eating critters has always been that if I named it and called it a pet, I do not eat it. I don’t eat it because I gave it the designation and I am sticking by my choice. If it has no name, then it’s freezer meat. (There is a difference between a name and a designation. I designate my male duck as “New Male”—the old one went to the freezer—but I named one duck “Baby” and keep her as a pet.)

  3. When I was in Korea we were warned to be careful of what you bought from the street food vendors. They might be selling dog meat.

  4. Intelligence can’t be the reason, pigs are smarter than dogs, just behind dolphins and apes. And those are eaten too in some parts of the world.

  5. I heard this story once. There was a man who while traveling in the back-country had car trouble. He pulled up to a rustic cabin to ask for some help. After talking with the cabin-owner about the situation for a minute, he noticed a pig seated on a rocking chair on the front porch. The pig was draped in shawl, surrounded by bowls of fruit, and looking contented as if it were a prized pet. The pig also was fitted with a wooden leg. The driver was curious, but not wanting to appear either too nosey or foolish, commented to the cabin-owner, “That looks like some special pig you have there.”
    “Why, yes. It sure is,” the proud owner replied. “That pig saved my life. One night the cabin caught on fire and that pig woke me up and dragged me out of the house.”
    “That’s quite a story. I noticed the pig has a wooden leg. I assume that it was injured in the fire while saving your life.”
    “Oh, no. Not the case at all. With a pig that special, you don’t eat it all at once.”

  6. It’s pretty much depends upon which tribe you happen to belong to.

    In the UK horsemeat is considered unfit for human consumption. Move further to the south of the English Channel it is not.

  7. One instance of westerners eating dog is provided by Amundsen’s expedition to the South Pole.

    “The meat was excellent, quite excellent, and one cutlet after another disappeared with lightning-like rapidity. I must admit that they would have lost nothing by being a little more tender, but one must not expect too much of a dog. At this first meal I finished five cutlets myself, and looked in vain in the pot for more. Wisting [the cook] appeared not to have reckoned on such a brisk demand.”

    http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3415

  8. Gary, I heard the same story except it was a St. Bernard with the wooden leg not a pig.

  9. If pigs were more popular pets, we wouldn’t eat them. But we are not exposed to pigs on that level, so it’s one of those things we just don’t think about.

    JMJ

  10. In some places, bugs are also eaten. But its not something your will likely see on a McD’s menu in NYC — now anyway.

    My guess is fat content plus pigs and cattle don’t run as fast as dogs. Easier to control and raise. If you eat nothing but lean mean (like rabbit) you will need to find a replacement for fat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning. Fattier meat seems more tasty than lean meat which is more bland.

    Let’s let the authors have their final word: “Smart animals deserve our moral concern, unless, of course, we want to eat them.”

    Sounds like the Donner Party code.

  11. For many years I’ve understood it simply as the flesh of herbivores (and omnivores in the case of pigs) tasting better than that of carnivores.

  12. You’re claiming the Donner Party WANTED to eat the dead humans?

    More than live ones. They put up less of a fight. Plus far less effort than hunting for game.

  13. Jonathan S
    Pigs are omnivores. You are right though the diet affect their flavour of course. The serial killers who have eaten human flesh say it tastes like pork.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Jill, the pig, aged 14 died in August. She lived longer than kunekune’s are supposed to and it was very sad she really wasn’t pretty to look at but definitely made up for it in character. The dog and the ducks noticed she was gone and looked for her. Ah poor Jill.

    Bacon means something rude over there. I remember telling a sharp tongued New Yorker once that we had hog roast at The Oaks hospital and received the oddest response. When English people speak of hog roast they just mean hog roast.

    My friend who was also called Jill had a horse and a pig in her London Garden. She is a lady who had a long career as a psychoanalyst. Patients who had little or no regard or apreciation of fellow creatures and nature generally had a poor prognosis for recovery from illness of the mind; having no natural point of reference and being low on empathy and a sense of belonging to the world around. Narcissists, she said, were the other group. That is real narcecists, not the pretend ones which people spot all day long in their enemies.

    In Wanstead Churchill, as her pig was called was a local hero. I lived in the flat above the conservative club which was Churchill the man’s club and along with Epping forest was his constituency. The pig was named after the man of course. Churchill then man kept pigs and remarked that dogs look up to you, cats look down at you and pigs look you in the eye as an equal.

    Whenever the TV needed a pot bellied pig, Churchill the pig was on hand to perform for the cameras. He appeared on ’this morning’ and could often be seen holding up the traffic in the high street, refusing to move without payment of a treat. I was eating a bacon croissant when Jill came past with Churchill and sat down for a chat. I couldn’t eat it and felt really bad.
    If I eat bacon it has to be nearly burned so that it’s eaten quickly and I don’t have to contemplate the texture and feel it in my mouth.

    We had to do Human direction classes for several weeks as a student which wasn’t a help either. Pectorals major is a dead ringer for that greasy kebab meat, the grey flat shredded stuff. I don’t eat kebab.

    Rabbits aren’t poisonous they just have a limited amount of high biological protein, insufficient iron and essential vitamins or fatty acids which means that you can’t survive on rabbit alone. There is a toxic amount of vitamin A in Cat heart though There’s enough in a lion to kill a man if he ate Lion’s heart and what heartless man would do that.

    Briggs:
    I wouldn’t mention your food history when on the bookseller stand if I were you. Leave that part out. They will just assume you’re a non dog eater.

  14. …and my friend Mark who loved to show off and did survival courses reported that spiders taste of almonds.

  15. Isn’t there an issue of motivation in play here as well? If one isn’t particularly hungry then I suspect one would be happy to “hold out” until the pig became available, taste being a valued feature. At the opposite end of the scale anything will do.

  16. Hans: and here in Christendom we enjoy a grilled pork tenderloin with a balsamic glaze as well as a bacon wrapped filet mignon. Of course if you take it as axiomatic that all cultures are equal then that’s equally illogical.

  17. To be clear, it was the members of the Franklin Expedition, not the Inuit, who preferred human flesh to available seal.

  18. Marvin Harris – Bueno para comer. Desde la antropología, 20 años atrás, ya hay respuesta. Saludos

  19. Culture defies logic, muslims and jews don’t eat pork and hindus don’t eat beef.

    Though perhaps it does not defy reason. The ancient Babylonians and Egyptians also abominated pork. There is an ancient story of an Egyptian who threw himself into the Nile because the shadow of a pig fell upon him.

    The reason is simple: Pigs don’t sweat.

    That means that in an arid climate, the only way for pigs to keep cool is to wallow in the nearest oasis. But the water in an oasis is far more valuable for drinking and cooking to allow it to be turned to muck by pigs. Pigs are useless for anything but eating — you can’t milk them, ride them, or hitch them to plows. Dogs are better scavengers. And pigs fatten best on the same foods that humans eat. They are, however, delicious and so their flesh must be forbidden at the highest possible level.

    Beef, however, comes from cows and where pasturage comes at a premium, as in India, cows are a burden. However, cows produce bulls, which are not sacred, and are used to pull plows. Cows also produce milk and ghee, the butter universally used for cooking there, and cow chips, which were used for cooking fuel. When dead, their hide is used to make leather products; and so on. They are far too useful to be forbidden like pigs in the Middle Eastern deserts, and so they are held sacred instead. (Although Gandhi pointed out that the poor cows are exploited to the max and squeezed for anything of value.) For a Hindu peasant to kill a cow for its meat would be like an Iowa farmer burning down a John Deere tractor factory to get the heat.
    +++
    A popular restaurant in Chennai is a steak house. My friend Raj took me there once and I said, Raj, I thought you were a Hindu. I am, he answered, but I am a southern Hindu and we are not as strict about that. Besides, the restaurant specializes in Kerala cooking and Kerala State is Christian.
    +++
    A useful book on the subject is Marvin Harris’ Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture.
    https://www.amazon.com/Good-Eat-Riddles-Food-Culture/dp/1577660153

  20. DAV: How, exactly, does one hunt for game in a snowstorm and when the area is covered in very deep snow?

    Johnbuk: Correct. I was told that in survival training in the desert, lizards as food starting looking less objectionable as hunger increased.

    Steve E: I have read of several instances of cannibalism by choice, often as a way of “devouring” one’s enemies, etc. This did not apply to the Donner party, so far as I know. (Interesting link. Extreme conditions apparently lead to madness.)

  21. How, exactly, does one hunt for game in a snowstorm and when the area is covered in very deep snow?

    The same way as when its not covered in snow. Just slower.

    Snow storms rarely last more than a day or two. Better to hunker down during one.

    Ever watch Survivorman? Food is often all around but you need to recognize it as such. Could be why the Franklin Expedition’s last survivors ignored the seals. It’s not like the mountains the Donner Party was in are barren ice plains. The real answer though is preparation. The Donner Party was clearly unprepared.

  22. DAV: Have you ever been in 30 feet of snow at 7000 feet? Even the bunnies move to a lower location. There may be a few snowshoe hares and an occasional bear that hasn’t started hibernating yet. Survivorman did not do an episode in a blizzard at 7000 feet because he wanted live. Also, Survivorman is one lone person—try adding 80 more to his survival episodes and go 2 1/2 months with the episode. (If you would like to show me how smart you are and how one can live in such conditions, I’ll fly you in and drop at Donner Pass in a blizzard with a cabin with a dirt floor and oxhide roof and come back in a couple of months . Just in case you’re not so adept, you go alone. I don’t want you eating any innocent victims.)

    The Donner party made a wrong choice to go on through the mountains. Apparently, they also made some bad choices of the route they took getting there, the Hastings Cutoff was so rugged they made less than a mile a day. Had they had the all-knowing, never wrong DAV there, I’m sure you would have talked them into not trying to cross the pass nor have taken the Cutoff. Without a resident psychic of such vast knowledge, the Donner party unfortunately made a fatal mistake in their trip west.

    (I have to wonder why you think the Donner party was so eager to eat each other—do you a secret desire to try the practice? Most people I have known believe the Donner party’s cannibalism was a last resort. Not you….)

  23. Wow! Nice rant button ya got there. Whoda thunk it would be so easily pushed by an offhand comment? Your meds run out or something?

    Google “deep snow hunting” turns up 1M+ references. What makes you think it’s impossible? And, yes, I do have some experience. Even in really deep snow, foraging is possible. There was one Survivorman episode where he was hunting (foraging really) in 30-40 ft of snow. The bushes around him were actually the tops of trees.

    Clearly though, you think you have more experience than I do. Let’s have one of those urination contests to see who does.

    The Donner Party was woefully unprepared to spend the winter in the mountains. Made a lot of bad choices. Being there was the first of many. It’s not like they were in a plane crash and suddenly forced to fend for themselves without tools or weapons.

  24. Yeah that’s quite a leap.

    Know somebody not quite as smart as a fox do that on skis ending up buried in about 10 feet of powder with eveyone above wondering where he went.

  25. DAV: Best not to go for the urination contest. You might not win.
    Hate to crush that huge ego of yours—beaten by a female.

    I googled—really deep snow of 10 feet or more did not come up in the hits. Again, did you or Survivorman have to get food for 80 people in three cabins, snowed in for 2 1/2 months. No? So I don’t really understand the comparison. (Survivorman had to take breaks between his really long one week survival trips because the deprivation of survival existence really wore on him. I believe he stopped doing the show for a while to recover. 2 1/2 months could have fatal.)

    Yes, it is like they were in a plane crash and had to fend for themselves. They had no way to know what the weather would be—no app on a cell phone so they could check. They had no maps and no way of knowing the Hastings cutoff went through the Wasatch Mountains. No GPS or satellite to check with. It wasn’t on someone’s Facebook page. Indians stole their cattle and supplies. They did have guns and they had some supplies. There were 80 people, including women and children snowed into 3 cabins for 2 1/2 months. They ate the oxhide roofs off the cabins trying to stay alive. Yet you somehow seem to believe they enjoyed eating the dead. Maybe it’s you who needs medication.

  26. Yes, nonpreparedness and bad planning gets you that. The situation they were in didn’t occur overnight. Everything that happened to them they did to themselves. Lack of experience? Maybe. Poor excuse though and deadly all the same.

    Old saying from flying days: it’s not the last mistake that kills you — it’s the first.

    But enough of this. Rant away if it makes you feel better. But stop telling me what I think.

  27. You told me what you think.

    To some extent but not at all in the way you’re saying. Go back and reread. Not really interested in your incorrect suppositions about my thoughts.

  28. DAV: Sadly, no.

    “Let’s let the authors have their final word: “Smart animals deserve our moral concern, unless, of course, we want to eat them.”
    Sounds like the Donner Party code.”
    “You’re claiming the Donner Party WANTED to eat the dead humans?
    More than live ones. They put up less of a fight. Plus far less effort than hunting for game.”
    No sarc tag. Seems to be a claim that the Donner Party found it preferable to eat dead people rather than hunt, even though every journal indicates cannibalism was their last resort.

    You’re demanding 20/20 foresight based on 20/20 hindsight. There would be no need for Survivorman shows if he simply had taken everything needed for every possible contingency. He should know all those contingencies and never need to make snowshoes out of seat cushions. If we apply your 20/20 foresight based on 20/20 hind sight to him, he becomes “Contingency Man” and lists every possible supply to take for every possible emergency. That could cover an hour. However, as presented, he was responsible for failing to plan, just as you say the Donner Party was.

  29. Sounds like the Donner Party code.”
    “You’re claiming the Donner Party WANTED to eat the dead humans?

    No. That’s the conclusion you leapt upon.
    The question struck me as shrill with that all caps “wanted”.
    Afterward, I stopped taking you seriously.

    More than live ones. They put up less of a fight.
    A true statement, I believe.
    If not, are you saying they wanted to eat live ones more?

    Plus far less effort than hunting for game.
    Is this a false statement?

    I never once said what they WANTED to do yet you go on and on as if I had.

    At the risk of arguing semantics, even if initially reluctant, when they did it, they wanted to. Otherwise, you are saying you (and perhaps anyone else) can be forced to do anything. Are you really that weak willed? There are no lines you could not be compelled to cross?

    Clearly, they gave into temptation. Perhaps they didn’t know any other way but, yes, they could have done something else. Did they try? Did they try to go back down the mountain in the hope of finding better conditions then wait until spring? Apparently not. They made a mistake and compounded it with more mistakes like riding it out while things got progressively worse. They made an investment and stuck to it.

    You seem to be eager to make excuses.
    Like this 30 ft snow pack. Well, that didn’t happen in one day or even a week. It’s more a seasonal accumulation. Did it also mean they were buried in snow?

    In any case, you seem to have been triggered by this WANT thing and what you supposed I believed about it. Silly.

  30. Bacon is the correct answer – as is pork, ham, gammon etc. None of these words refer to the animal – pig. Us squeamish “developed” societies have taken the relationship to the animal out of the equation by not using the animal’s name is describing the food. We don’t eat cow or sheep; we eat beef, veal, lamb, mutton. Even when people actually go out and shoot their own deer, they still call it venison when they eat it (in my experience in North America).

    OK, this is not a complete example – poultry gets eaten in its animal form in many cases – but I have noticed how people’s face changes when they see menus with “Reindeer” listed in Norway. Quite instructive.

  31. Rob,
    ‘lamb’?
    There’s a lot of truth in what you say. The other issue people have is when they can recognise what’s on the plate. A particular part or even a whole if the creature is small. If you’ve studied anatomy and work with muscles, this is a problem.
    My dog, Darcey has reindeer biscuits as of very recently and for veterinary reasons.
    …………..
    In Dec 07 Jukkasjärvi when reindeer was the only thing on the menu in the Sami tent, one of us went hungry.
    We spent the evening driving reindeer and had to catch one with a lasso (because we were told how grumpy they can be) from a corral if that’s the right word.
    They weren’t daft, knew what was going to happen, not that those ones were on the menu but that they were being caught for the sleighs.
    1. They are just like horses in a riding school. Once they think they’re in front they slow down to a lazy crawl which I thought was really cute.
    2 They didn’t take off.
    3 I ‘caught’ a reindeer and was able to stand and stroke it.. The rope lasso wasn’t necessary. Twenty minutes or so later the others had theirs.
    YOS,
    It’s not whispering, it’s that universal language which you dismiss.

  32. We don’t eat cow or sheep; we eat beef, veal, lamb, mutton. Even when people actually go out and shoot their own deer, they still call it venison when they eat it

    It’s an English-language thing. Animals in the field are Saxon. Animals on the table are French. That’s because the swineherds and cowboys were Saxons and the lords were Norman. English is a magpie language and has at least two words for everything; and the French word generally denotes higher class than the Saxon word. Chef is better than ‘cook’; restaurant, better then ‘eatery’. Even ‘faith’ has a more exalted connotation than ‘trust’ even though they are the same word: the former comes to us from French, the latter is native Saxon.

    So it’s not squeamishness over what we’re eating. To the Norman lord, venison was just as down-to-earth as deer to Saxon peasants. As the English moved up in class, one of the markers was the adoption of the “upper class” (Norman) way of speaking.

    In Sweden, otoh, one sees on the menu oxfleisch, “ox-flesh,” or oxkött, “ox-cut,” because no one ever conquered Sweden and imposed an alien language on the Germanic substratum. But one does sometimes see in tonier restaurants there bifstek. Or at least when I was there.

  33. YOS what you need is some culture!
    (2) Goto song at bottom.

    I don’t call Frogs legs and raw egg on raw mince sophisticated. It’s cheap and lazy.
    One might even say the food of the peasants. Calling it Steak TATA doesn’t help it slip down any easier. It just depends which example you choose.

    In Puis St Vincent I had 1 frog leg, or perhaps shin it was hard to tell on my tongue and couldn’t do it. Now I am wiser, I wouldn’t lower myself even to try. It looks like shredded grey chicken and what a pretentious thing to still eat these days when protein is rather more readily available. There’s so much pretension in food preparation and the catering business. It’s just like the art world.

    The English have a valued culinary history and it predated norman influence.

    Some people just want to eat the weirdest thing so they can say they did it! I’m thinking of rotten cabbage and duck tongue in particular. If you knew what ducks pick up to filter you wouldn’t want one in your mouth. Boys will be boys. Slugs and snails and puppy dog tails and all that.

    People like to say they’ve eaten locusts, spiders, scorpions, worms, coffee made from poo from I forget what furry creature, nastyfungus and maggoty cheese. What else is left but human flesh and some have gone that far.
    There really is a better and a superior way to eat. Those listed in this paragraph aren’t amongst them. I bet they don’t tell their girlfriend what they’ve eaten if they want a kiss.
    Just because other nations have lower standards of living and a poorer supply of protein doesn’t mean you have to
    join in. I’m all for trying all sorts of experiences and as Branson said try not to say no when a door is opened to you and that is his secret of success. There is a limit. I’d rather try something dangerous than disgusting. Some even like to combine the two and there’s no accounting for taste.

    The French and the easily pleased have been selling the line that French cuisine is so much more interesting or high quality than the English in particular for years. The truth is that the two countries stole ideas from each other. In some cases the French call a thing English and the English call it French. Probably to sound exotic to the locals in each example. For goodness sake, the Scots have been pretending they invented shortbread for ages, the cornish think they invented fudge. They did ‘invent’ clotted cream. It’s the same in horticulture.
    Which directly influences cuisine. As less people own a garden they have altered their eating habit to what the supermarkets provide and then declare is more popular!

    Lavender with ‘wings’ or tufts is called ‘french’ and the French call it English. The reality is it’s neither and it’s native to an arid place nearer Turkey, Afghanistan or the middle East anyway. Many herbs and even more spices require hot dry conditions or hot humid conditions in the latter case because their aromatic nature is part of their native adaptation. This adaptation is a handicap in England and effected what grew easily without the help of a human hand. The Victorians with the many walled gardens and knowhow in horticulture changed so much and to the benefit of the whole world. Just to be clear, Many Mediterranean will and do grow here and I grow them but if you go out into Epping forrest, or onto Exmoor, an Irish or an English bog, The Norfolk coast and from Malvern to the Welsh mountains, the Scottish Highlands, Lancashire Dales, Derbyshire limestone pavements or on
    Ilkla Moor Bartat! You won’t see any wild plants, true natives growing next to lavender or olive. They might set seed, grow for a short time and the prevailing conditions will kill them in the end. People used what they had to hand. Yet with a very small amount of help these plants will thrive in the Temperate English climate.

    There is a strip of chalk loam which runs through the Kent countryside which is exactly the same as the soil type in the Champagne region in France. English wine growers could (If temperatures were consistently hotter which would allow enough sugar to develop in the grape) rival Champagne, not cava, mind, Champagne. So it has little to do with what snobs like to boast and more to do with what grows, what’s available and nothing to do with naming things or owning a name. Having said all that, I love Champagne and I like the stories told by the wine industry, the snobbery can be enjoyable so I don’t want to spoil the romance.

    As a little girl on a narrow boat holiday on the Thames we stopped for a meal at ‘The Rose Revived who had just taken on a new French chef by the name of Raymond Blanc I wonder why he came to England. Now he has a restaurant and grows the produce in the garden.
    http://www.belmond.com/le-manoir-aux-quat-saisons-oxfordshire/

    The example ‘chef’ as opposed to cook et cetera are born of that same French idea about what is ideal. We had “bakers”.
    What is foreign is often considered exotic.

    The Americans fall into this trap same as the English have. It leads to the next part of the lie that there is no such thing as ‘American culture’. Make sure you don’t get rubbed out. You might have to draw yourselves again and discover the wrong people perhaps even the English! have been given the pen.

    Sing along with Joy!
    Wheear ‘as ta bin sin ah saw thee,
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at?!
    Wheear ‘as ta bin sin ah saw thee?

    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at?!
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at?!

    Tha’s been a cooartin’ Mary Jane
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    Tha’s been a cooartin’ Mary Jane|

    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at

    Tha’s bahn t’catch thi deeath o’cowd
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    Tha’s bahn t’catch thi deeath o’cowd

    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at

    Then we shall ha’ to bury thee
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    Then we shall ha’ to bury thee

    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at

    Then t’worms ‘ll cum and eat thee oop
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    Then t’worms ‘ll cum and eat thee oop

    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at

    Then ducks ‘ll cum and eat oop t’worms
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    Then ducks ‘ll cum and eat oop t’worms

    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at

    Then we shall go an’ ate oop ducks
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    Then we shall go an’ ate oop ducks

    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at

    Then we shall all ‘ave etten thee
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    Then we shall all ‘ave etten thee

    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at

    That’s wheer we get us oahn back
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    That’s wheer we get us oahn back

    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at
    On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUsQ9Qs2DQo

    Goto line 2.

  34. The English have a valued culinary history and it predated norman influence.

    Naturally. I commented only on the linguistic consequence of the Norman Conquest. (A Panamanian woman of Chinese descent once asked me on behalf of her daughter, ‘Why does English have so many words?’ She meant compared to Spanish. It is basically because we have a Saxon word and a Norman word for nearly everything, and due to the social structure of the 11th/12th centuries, the Norman word had higher cachet.
    http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_normansaxon.htm

    Then layer onto that everything we learn from the kindergarten or the pizzeria or the ranch….

  35. Yes YOS’YOS (bless you for reading)…and the Viking, and the Mercians and the Celts, the Pictish, the Cornish later on,
    (the Angles) Those are the ones we know about.
    It’s not all about Saxony and France. Where would we be without sausage and garlic I ask myself. Stuck with roast pork and apple sauce. Where would we be without Yorkshire pudding or Bakewell tart? CUSTARD! or ‘creme Anglaise’ as they serve in posher restaurants. Or Wet Nelly!

    The language It’s Richer than people realise because they’ve stopped, temporarily, teaching English history fully and roundly.
    Have you read the Angelo-saxon Chronicles? I ought to know better than to ask.

    I couldn’t help myself, my sensory appetites got the better of me.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alS7X1ugKrw

    Enough now, I promise.

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