[Sca-cooks] To cat or not to cat

[Aruvqan]

On 8/2/2012 9:57 PM, Ian Kusz wrote:
> huh.  I'm clueless as to why this is a big issue (unless she's taking
> someone's pet), but then I don't understand most social cues.  So I'll stay
> out of the mix, here.
>
> I'm wondering, though, do you folks have the same attitude toward, say,
> wildcats, like lynx?  I mean, some of them are almost as small as a
> housecat (depending on the breed)....how about possum, or "ring-tailed cat"
> or polecat or whadyacallums .....uh, raccoon?
>
> Do you have the same objection to bunnies?  Muskrat?
>
> For me, society is a minefield, and I'm trying to figure out the "trigger,"
> here.  Hard to avoid it if you don't understand it.
> That's what I get for growing up in the woods.  My dog wasn't a mine of
> information on taboos.  I guess I'm lucky that I figured out that sniffing
> crotches wouldn't fly....although that dog was amazingly smart....just
> not...uh...the same outlook....
>
Hm.

In the US in most communities there are laws against the use of 
nontraditional [for the US] animals as food, generally cats, dogs, 
horses. There is a very strong cultural aversion to eating any meat that 
is more or less not: chicken, pig, cow, lamb, duck, goose, rabbit, 
alligator, rattlesnake, ostrich, emu, buffalo, beefalo, 
deer/elk/moose/reindeer. Probably missing a few that are legitemate. 
Most people refuse to eat anything other than cow, pig and chicken [and 
mild fish like cod, salmon, tuna, shrimp, clams] It is purely cultural. 
I personally find horse rather nice, and have eaten dog [raised as a 
food animal] but would prefer not to. [I will eat anything I am not 
actually allergic to with the exception of insects, many amphibians and 
reptiles and such seafood as I have already tried and found I dislike.]

I think it comes from the heavy anthropomorphism of cartoons and Disney 
movies about wildlife. Certainly the generations prior to World War 2 
had fewer inhibitions as to the source of meat - I have a few cookbooks 
that offer recipes for squirrel, rabbit, opossum and porcupine. Well my 
Larousse  also offers serving suggestions for cat, rat, dog, beaver, 
seal, whale and pretty much anything that walks, crawls, slithers, flies 
or swims. Heck, now I am remembering *lots* of stuff people won't eat 
currently.

[I got accused of spit roasting a poodle that went missing temporarily 
at an event about 15 years ago. Stupid mundanes camping in the same 
campgrounds as an event. As if I would cook a toy poodle, not enough 
meat and the diet the stupid woman probably fed the poor thing would 
make it taste horrible.]