What is a "Traditional Food Product"?

As defined by Vanhonacker et al (2010) a traditional food product is "a product frequently consumed or associated to specific celebrations and/or seasons, transmitted from one generation to another, made in a specific way according to gastronomic heritage, naturally processed, and distinguished and known because of its sensory properties and associated to a certain local area, region of country." ...Which bears all the hallmarks of a definition created by a committee.

Basically there is a category of food that are an integral part of local culture and festivities.  Exactly what this involves varies between countries and regions, but this is the kind of food that is important to people, it has meaning for them.  As such, a wide definition that includes many elements that make a particular food meaningful seems appropriate.

References:

• Vanhonacker et la (2010). How European consumers define the concept of traditional food: evidence from a survey of six countries. Agrobusiness, 26, 453-476.

Feeding Meat to Herbivorous Animals: the Taboo

In later posts I will look at the very real health and safety consequences that can occur when animal flesh is feed to herbivorous livestock such as sheep, cows and horses.  But in this post I want to discuss how our aversion to this practice has pre-scientific roots and functions as a cultural taboo.

Many people have feeling about the natural order of things. The sheep eats the grass, the man eats the sheep.  Much of this natural order is no longer literally necessary.  Stock feed may be safely made from many different products, processed to extract their consituent nutrients.  The same is true of the human diet which no longer needs to include meat for nutritional reasons.  However the "natural order" remains intuitive pleasing to the majority, and has for a rather long time.  This may explain the existence of cuationary myths about how animals may be driven mad by feeding them inappropriate foods.

Several myths tell how horses were driven mad by being fed flesh, and went on to attack an devour their owners.  Glaucus, King of Ephyra, was said to feed his chariot horses human flesh--ultimately causing them to turn on him during a race and eat him alive.  Likewise the Thracian King Diomedes was said to feed human flesh to horses and turned upon him and ate him.  These myths can be read as encoded warnings that animals should be feed that which is natural for them.


Sources::
Papakostas YG (2005). et al Horse Madness (hippomania) and hippophobia. History of Psychiatry 16, 467-471.