Weirdmeat.com

Hello and welcome to Weird Meat. WeirdMeat.com is the online representation of a purely academic project I began a few years ago. I was studying the Humanities in college, comparing different cultures, and one aspect that really struck my curiosity was how different cultures around the world feel about food. Some foods are taboo, some are forbidden, some are considered inedible -- depending on the culture. Why does one human refuse to eat dog, and another refuse to eat pig? Why does one culture eat haggis, another one delight in slimy fermented soy beans? Do we only refuse some foods when we know what they are? Why?

For several years I was a dietary vegan. I was considering a long trek in the Congo with an ethnomusicologist -- also a strict vegetarian -- and he asked me would I eat meat if my life depended on it? I said no, but I realize that was foolish of me -- I am an animal and it's my instinct to try to survive. He had been to the region before and was served monkey for dinner, while stuck injured in a rural area. He survived.

So far I've survived all of my "weird meat" experiences. In fact, I've rarely gotten a stomach ache after these experiments. I've eaten dog, cat, rat, cockroach, camel penis, bee larve, scorpions, spiders, night hawk, and pre-born duck embryo without feeling ill. Can't say the same for Taco Bell or McDonalds. (continue intro)