[Sca-cooks] The Sacrifice of the Slaughter

[Craig Daniel]

On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 7:39 PM, Suey <lordhunt at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ana Valdes wrote:
>>
>> Again, my point was and still is many recipes we consider as cruel
>> were based on need and uses of the food and the food chain. As you say
>> animales must be killed to be eaten but you could kill the animals
>> with a sense of empathy and kindness. In Groenland and in the North of
>> Europe the same people ask the animal forgiveness before they hunt
>> them.
>> Ana
>
> I think that people who object to killing animals as those who have not
> experienced hunger over an extended period.
> The ritual of sacrificing a pig is performed in order to survive the winter
> months when no vegetable products are available.
> Its fine being a vegetarian today but a totally different story during the
> Middle Ages.
> Even today when animals are privately or as with the bulls in Spain,
> publicly killed, there is an art in the killing which seems to have been
> buried in Anglo-Saxon education. A slaughter man  or a bull fighter, and I
> cannot repeat this enough, is not invited back if the kill causes pain to
> the animal.
> In bull fighting we do see torreros knealing in the bullright asking their
> god or their virgin for assistence in a good kill, which means severing the
> aorta with one swing of the sword or the dagger..

While I can't disagree with you about slaughtering animals for food,
including ritual sacrifices (in which the animal is being slaughtered
for food, as humanely as any other slaughter but with attendant
ceremony and reverence), bullfighting is different. Yes, the matador's
job is to kill the animal quickly - but only after the picadores and
banderilleros have poked and prodded it until it is in enough pain to
be angry. The unnecessary suffering is not immense, but it's
absolutely an essential part of the bullfight.