Wearing Seal Skin Dresses and Abominable Shrimp
This post is from a series of blogs related to Matthew Scully’s book, Dominion*.
In the book, Scully talks about how society arbitrarily categorizes animals. For example, most of us would feel creeped out if we saw someone wearing a seal skin dress. But we could walk by 50 people wearing leather jackets without blinking.
Scully uses Japan’s eating habits to make the point. The western world arbitrarily pressures Japan not to eat marine mammals, which is a convenient conviction for us, since they aren’t part of our diet to begin with. If they were telling us not to eat farm animals though…
Why do we arbitrarily choose to protect certain animals (punishing those who mistreat dogs and cats, for example), but issue licenses for those who kill others (deer, fox, fish, etc.)? Is morality really regional, with certain animals being worthy of protection in some countries, but mistreated in others? Or, is there some sort of global standard that could either legitimize the killing of all animals at a whim or insist on basic humane standards for all of them?
But I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: I don’t think its entirely arbitrary.
It may even go back to ancient times. In the Old Testament laws (the tedious writings that a lot of us probably just skim), the Bible lists which animals were considered clean (edible) and which animals were considered unclean. They weren’t supposed to eat whales, but could eat salmon; weren’t supposed to eat dogs, but could eat cows. (The list may have been intended to keep humans from digesting things that could be harmful to them??)
God talked “menu” in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, in which God noted which animals could be food.
- Essentially, they could eat cows, sheep, ox, deer, antelope and goats, but told them to keep their chops away from pigs, camels and rabbits.
- Other animals that weren’t supposed to make the dinner plate included dogs, ham, horses, hyenas, lizards, mice, pork-sausage, possums, rabbit, rats, skunks, snakes and spiders.
- By Lev. 11:9-10 standards, edible fish included anchovy, bass, cod, flounder, haddock, halibut, mackerel, perch, pike, salmon, sardine, smelt, snapper, trout, tuna and white fish.
- Things like catfish, eels, swordfish, clams, crabs, lobsers, oysters, scallops, shrimp and whale would be amongst those on the “do not eat” list. Fish without scales and fins were called an “abomination”.
- Birds considered clean would include chicken, pheasant, quail, partridge, song birds, duck and geese.
Did anyone else catch that shrimp was an abomination?!?!?
Many people of faith consider the Old Testament the “Old Covenant”, meaning that they don’t necessarily believe they are required to follow some of the ancient, cultural practices (like not wearing blended-fabrics or not leaving the house during their menstrual cycle). So some might say that Jesus instituted a new way of looking at things and these regulations about meat no longer apply. Or that, logically, because of modern food regulations, the meat from some of these animals are no longer a threat to human health.
Either way, beware of those fiesty abominable shrimp. :)
To read the next blog in this series, click here.
*Please see “shop local” in the blog categories at sarahcunningham.org for purchase options.