In the Devil's Garden_ A Sinful History of Forbidden Food Part 4

The Greedy Diner You might think that a romp through the historic relations.h.i.+p between greed and food would dwell (lovingly) on obscene feasts. Illicit delicacies. Evil gourmands s.n.a.t.c.hing lollies from the hands of wailing babes. All good fun, which you will find richly represented in the chapter on gluttony, but not here, because the cla.s.sical sin of greed consists of an insatiable desire to increase one's worldly wealth. Eating well is, of course, the ultimate expression of power, and some historians have argued that the ability to do so is the most important litmus test of one's power, and that, therefore, all political/financial struggles are fundamentally about who gets to eat what. In some Ecuadoran cultures this is literally true; the elder female who serves dinner has the power to designate the tribe's leader because she decides who gets the biggest portion at mealtimes. Conversely, in many places the female's exclusion from the power structure is indicated by the rule that she eat only after the men have dined. But more interesting to me is the ingenious ways power-hungry leaders from the Pope to lumber barons have manipulated food taboos in order to enrich themselves. The unintended results, ranging from the most horrific plagues of the twentieth century to medieval genocide, are poignant reminders of how strongly we feel not only about what dishes the waiter is allowed to bring to the table, but also who gets served the fattest slice.

Lazy Luscious Land To get to the country the Dutch call Luilekkerland Luilekkerland, "Lazy Luscious Land," you must eat your way through a ten-thousand-foot-tall mountain of rice pudding. The people of Luilekkerland Luilekkerland live in houses constructed of chocolate cake surrounded by fences made of sausage. The flowers are made of scones- already b.u.t.tered-and clouds of dreamy fried chicken float in a gravy-colored sky. It rains Chardonnay. Peasants doze under ravioli trees by streams that flow with melted goose fat. Even the s.h.i.+t, they say, is delightful: horses p.o.o.p poached eggs; donkeys drop figs. But beware! Everywhere are "birds winging south/just gape-they'll fly into your mouth!" live in houses constructed of chocolate cake surrounded by fences made of sausage. The flowers are made of scones- already b.u.t.tered-and clouds of dreamy fried chicken float in a gravy-colored sky. It rains Chardonnay. Peasants doze under ravioli trees by streams that flow with melted goose fat. Even the s.h.i.+t, they say, is delightful: horses p.o.o.p poached eggs; donkeys drop figs. But beware! Everywhere are "birds winging south/just gape-they'll fly into your mouth!"

The Hogs you meet on every street Are sleek and fat and crisply fried; They carry knives-it's very nice!

And stand by while you carve your slice!

Luilekkerland exists in almost every culture. The French call it exists in almost every culture. The French call it c.o.c.kaigne c.o.c.kaigne, the Italians Chucagna Chucagna, and the Germans Schlaraffenlad Schlaraffenlad, but they're all folk utopias in which life is one long luxurious feast. Harmless enough, but when they first became popular in the medieval period, this lifestyle belonged exclusively to Europe's royalty, and any suggestion that others might deserve a sampling was considered dangerously unpatriotic. So when the German version of Luilekkerland Luilekkerland was finally put on paper in the 1600s, a surprise ending was added, which read, "To warn my readers this was writ/now go and do the opposite!" The writer was Hans Sachs, Germany's approved poet-for-the-poor, and his moralizing coda was a way of warning the lower cla.s.ses to keep their hands out of the rich man's piggy bank. Peasants, went the subtext, should just forget about the rich and famous lifestyle and get back to work. Mapmakers emphasized the point by publis.h.i.+ng maps that placed these utopias next to the Infernal Kingdom and populated them with cities named d.i.c.k-head, Incontinence, and was finally put on paper in the 1600s, a surprise ending was added, which read, "To warn my readers this was writ/now go and do the opposite!" The writer was Hans Sachs, Germany's approved poet-for-the-poor, and his moralizing coda was a way of warning the lower cla.s.ses to keep their hands out of the rich man's piggy bank. Peasants, went the subtext, should just forget about the rich and famous lifestyle and get back to work. Mapmakers emphasized the point by publis.h.i.+ng maps that placed these utopias next to the Infernal Kingdom and populated them with cities named d.i.c.k-head, Incontinence, and w.a.n.k en doff w.a.n.k en doff.

Scholar Hal Rammell believes that Europe's n.o.bility felt that these fairytale feasts contained "significant subversive implications" because they suggested "that hunger, and all the social constraints that perpetuate it," should be removed. As the ensuing centuries grew more politically restive, the subversive element of the tales grew. In a seventeenth-century English version, called An Invitation to Lubberland An Invitation to Lubberland, we again read how ". . . hot roasted pigs will meet ye/they in the streets run up and down/all crying out, Come Eat Me!" But Lubberland is now also a place with no "law nor lawyer fees/all men are free . . . without a judge or jury." There are no landlords, and all men are created equal. The tale has morphed from one about everlasting dinner to one in which everyone has the right to sit at the aristocrats' dinner table, an idea soon realized when avant-garde London coffeehouses posted rules ending cla.s.s-segregated seating. The Germans' get-back-to-work message was replaced with an outright suggestion that the reader should revolt; the last line tells all to hurry and join the s.h.i.+p for Lubberland, which "waits but for a gale" before setting out.

During America's Great Depression these quasi-socialistic utopias again became popular in songs by artists like Harry "Haywire Mac" McClintock. His famous 1928 "Rock Candy Mountain" sings about a hobo-Heaven where bulldogs have rubber teeth and cops have wooden legs and "there's a lake of stew and of whisky too/you can paddle all around them in a big canoe." Even children's literature of the era was not safe from these subversive influences. In a chapter t.i.tled If the Ocean Was Whiskey, Dorothy-of Wizard of Oz Wizard of Oz fame-finds a tree that sprouts tin lunch boxes. In each box, attached to its side with a stem, Dorothy finds a sandwich, an apple, and two pickles. While some believe this kind of "free-lunch" populist imagery may have played a part in the banning of the Oz books from public libraries, America's moguls should have kept their s.h.i.+rts on. Author Frank Baum had put another shrub sprouting napkins next to the Lunch Box tree so everyone could clean up afterward. You can't get much more American than that. fame-finds a tree that sprouts tin lunch boxes. In each box, attached to its side with a stem, Dorothy finds a sandwich, an apple, and two pickles. While some believe this kind of "free-lunch" populist imagery may have played a part in the banning of the Oz books from public libraries, America's moguls should have kept their s.h.i.+rts on. Author Frank Baum had put another shrub sprouting napkins next to the Lunch Box tree so everyone could clean up afterward. You can't get much more American than that.

The Magic Cannibal The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 was the most important political gathering of the Middle Ages, and representatives from secular and religious powers were packed so tight in the tiny church that one bishop was actually trampled to death. A number of interesting reforms were pa.s.sed during the monthlong meeting-idiots and incompetents were banned from the priesthood, and Muslims and Jews were obliged to wear funny hats- but perhaps the most bizarre was the council's interpretation of the Eucharistic bread eaten during the Catholic High Ma.s.s. Until then, the eating of the communion wafer had been considered a symbolic breaking of bread between Christ and his followers. The Lateran Council ended that by declaring that in a "true" Christian ceremony, the wafer and wine of the communion were "truly changed by divine power into the body, the wine into the blood . . ." of Jesus Christ. Any other view was heresy punishable by death. From then on the Eucharist wafer was the literal and true flesh of Jesus Christ, raw human meat, and the taking of it cannibalism. changed by divine power into the body, the wine into the blood . . ." of Jesus Christ. Any other view was heresy punishable by death. From then on the Eucharist wafer was the literal and true flesh of Jesus Christ, raw human meat, and the taking of it cannibalism.

The man who convened the Fourth Lateran Council, Pope Innocent III, claimed to be merely taking at face value the pa.s.sage in the New Testament where Christ says, "Take, eat; this is my body," while handing out bread to his followers. The reality is that the Pope was a sophisticated Roman who had devoted his life to making the church Europe's supreme power and not the kind of man to take the Bible literally. He was, however, keenly aware of the psychological power held by the sacred meal that crowned the Catholic High Ma.s.s.

Holy Communion is the most sensual of religious ceremonies: the priests in immaculate white robes glowing in the candlelight, the bloodred wine gurgling in ma.s.sive golden goblets, the paper-thin wafer slipped reverently between the lips of the faithful. Religion as it should be. During Innocent's time, however, the Eucharist wafer's relevance was being undermined in every direction. Only 150 years earlier the Church's Eastern wing had left after a dispute over how to bake the wafer. Heretic cults, like the Albigenese Church, declared that the wafers had no meaning or made their ceremonies more dramatic by claiming to put human embryos into the dough. Considering these challenges to the holiness and authority of the Holy Communion, Innocent's "fundamentalist" interpretation looks less like a literal take on the Bible and more like an attempt to sensationalize his own Ma.s.s.

He was not, however, the first to note Christianity's man-eating propensities. The following description by the pagan Roman Minicus Felix of this new Jewish cult might even have given the Pope a few ideas.

As for the initiation of a new (Christian) member, the details are as disgusting as they are well known. The novice himself, deceived by the coating of dough (covering a sacrificial infant), thinks the stabs (into the bread) are harmless. Then it's horrible! They hungrily drink the blood and compete with one another as they divide (the child's) limbs . . .

That pa.s.sage was written in the first century A.D., around a thousand years before Innocent came to power. But during the pope's own time there were huge outbreaks of cannibalism, including a scandal over baby eating among his church's knights on the First Crusade. Russian Tartars to the north were said to have an insatiable appet.i.te for the succulent meat of young ladies' b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and firsthand accounts of the Egyptian famine of 1201 agreed, "It was not unusual to find people selling little children (their own or others), roasted or boiled." Early medieval Europe made cannibalism punishable with fines of not more than 200 s.h.i.+llings-the same fine levied if you killed another person's cow-indicating the act was too common for serious punishment to be practical. Holy Roman emperor Charlemagne soon upped the ante by making cannibalism punishable by death. His law, however, is something of a puzzle, because it bans not only man eating, but also the belief belief in it. Historians have hypothesized that this second clause indicated that Charlemagne wanted to curb superst.i.tious rumors. An equally logical interpretation is that the Christian king was not outlawing belief in it. Historians have hypothesized that this second clause indicated that Charlemagne wanted to curb superst.i.tious rumors. An equally logical interpretation is that the Christian king was not outlawing belief in in cannibalism but the beliefs cannibalism but the beliefs of of cannibalism, i.e., the rituals and religious ceremonies a.s.sociated with the act. cannibalism, i.e., the rituals and religious ceremonies a.s.sociated with the act.

Charlemagne might as well have banned prayer itself, at least judging from the writings of some scholars who imply that man eating, or at least sacrifice, was as common a religious practice as saying amen. One of the founders of the Celtic Church in the fifth century appears to have consecrated a church by burying a monk alive in the building's foundation and the Christian Ma.s.s itself is believed by many to have evolved from an ancient rite involving the sacrifice and eating of the firstborn child.

But the most sophisticated religious cannibals were in the New World, a group that inadvertently gave us the word itself when Christopher Columbus misp.r.o.nounced the tribe Carib Carib (Caribbean) as (Caribbean) as Canib Canib (cannibal). The Aztecs of Mexico went through up to two hundred fifty thousand victims each year in their religious feasts. The most vivid descriptions come from the Spanish prisoners taken to what is now Mexico City in 1521, as in this one by soldier Bernal Diaz del Castillo: (cannibal). The Aztecs of Mexico went through up to two hundred fifty thousand victims each year in their religious feasts. The most vivid descriptions come from the Spanish prisoners taken to what is now Mexico City in 1521, as in this one by soldier Bernal Diaz del Castillo: Again there was sounded the dismal drum of Huichilobo and many other sh.e.l.ls and horns and things like trumpets and the sound of them was terrifying. . . . We all looked towards the lofty Cue (temple-pyramid) where they were being sounded and saw that our comrades whom they had captured when they defeated Cortes were being carried by force up the steps, and they were taking them to be sacrificed. When they got them up to a small square in front of the oratory, where their accursed idols are kept, we saw them place plumes on the heads of many of them and with things like fans in their hands they forced them to dance before Huichilobos, and after they had danced they immediately placed them on their backs on some rather narrow stones which had been prepared as places for sacrifice, and with stone knives they sawed open their chests and drew out their palpitating hearts and offered them to the idols that were there, and they kicked the bodies down the steps, and Indian butchers who were waiting below cut off the arms and feet and flayed the skin off the faces, and prepared it afterward like glove leather with the beards on, and kept those for the festivals when they celebrated drunken orgies, and the flesh they ate in chilmole.

The Aztecs fed the victims' hearts, called "precious eagle-cactus fruit," to the Sun. Mere mortals had to make do with the leftovers in a stew called Tlacataolli Tlacataolli which, according to Aztec chronicler Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, was considered "something from Heaven, eaten with reverence and ritual." which, according to Aztec chronicler Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, was considered "something from Heaven, eaten with reverence and ritual."

Europe's most avid man eaters appear to have been the Celtic Druids of northern and western Europe. Roman historian Strabo reported in the first century B.C. that the Druids "count it an honorable thing, when their fathers die, to devour them," being, horror of horrors, "man eaters as well as herb eaters herb eaters." Imperial Rome was constantly at war with the Celts, so these comments might have been mere war propaganda, but two-thirds of all of Europe's confirmed cannibal sites are in Celtic/ Druid regions like Normandy, England, and Ireland. The Druids' recipes are, unfortunately, lost, but we do know that they kept the heads of their deceased leaders (or revered enemies) preserved in oil, an ancient method of conserving meat used today in the making of duck confit. This might have been the source of the "mystic meat" that Druid priests chewed while staring at breaking waves or smoke until they experienced a prophetic vision.

The exact extent to which these ancient practices continued during Innocent's era is impossible to measure. The Pope would, however, have been acutely aware of the Druid/Celtic belief in hallucinogenic meat thanks to King Arthur and the Holy Grail. This cycle of romantic tales, so popular it verged on a religious cult, essentially tells the story of how a Christlike King Arthur and his crew scoured the Celtic regions in search of a dish called the Grail. The popular belief is that the Grail held the blood of Christ. In fact, it also held his flesh. Arthur and company were essentially a group of Celtic priests actively seeking the body of Christ to consume it in a completely true and unsymbolic feast of cannibalism.

The notion that the Messiah's body was being gnawed by a group of warrior-priests in the Celtic regions posed a threat to Roman power because, if true, it meant that Christ's body was in England and therefore that the heretic Celtic churches had a stronger claim to being the center of Christianity than Rome. Catholic chroniclers agree that the Vatican was "very aware" of the threat posed by the Arthur cult but refrained from proclaiming it heresy for fear that doing so would have given it a theological legitimacy it then lacked. The Catholics held this fear with good cause-the tale of the Grail was one of the ecclesiastical arguments used by England's King Henry VIII when he created his anti-Roman Church of England.

Faced with so many threats centered on the dining rituals of the Holy Ma.s.s, Innocent's transubstantiation doctrine simply closed the circle and returned his church to its ancient roots of sacrifice and violence. It also made his Ma.s.s the wildest show in town. Declining church attendance soon revived, and the concept proved so popular that the Church established the Feast of Corpus Christi, literally the "Feast on the Body of Christ," which became one of the most popular of the medieval festivals. Some churches put up murals showing Christ being sliced into cookies and served up by the Pope. A more appropriate image would have shown Europe being consumed by the Pope; thanks to empire-building tactics like this, Innocent's successors soon controlled an estimated one-third of all the wealth in Europe.

By beatifying one of civilization's deepest taboos, however, Innocent also flamed the pa.s.sions of a society addicted to morbid fantasies. Peasants began reporting that consecrated hosts screamed in agony when bitten into. Some bled profusely, supposedly leaving permanent bloodstains on the faces of the faithful. Disbelieving prelates pulling a wafer out of a bag found their hands in a ma.s.s of raw, bleeding flesh, and according to the X-Files X-Files of the time, Caesarius's of the time, Caesarius's Miraculorum Miraculorum, a family who had put a wafer in their beehive to ensure sweeter honey returned to find thousands of bees gathered about the wafer on bended knee. The church made taking a host from a church a capital crime. Innocent himself barred Christian girls from working as nursemaids in Jewish homes, because "when such nurses accept the body and blood of Jesus [during High Ma.s.s], their employers force them for three days thereafter to spill their [now sanctified] milk into a latrine before again breast-feeding the [Jewish] children."

Then a Parisian Jew named Jonathan stole a consecrated host with the intent of proving how ridiculous the whole thing was by serving it to some Christian friends for breakfast. According to court doc.u.ments, however, the bread refused to be cut by a knife. After a fruitless struggle, Jonathan attacked it with a small ax. The wafer then magically divided into three parts representing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. A piece tossed into boiling water turned to cooked flesh. The pot began overflowing with blood. The horrified Christians handed Jonathan over to the authorities, and his death at the stake became an annual Parisian festival for the next six hundred years. Similar accusations against a wealthy Belgium family-apparently part of a plot to gain their wealth-resulted in the burning of every Jew in Brussels, a ma.s.sacre again celebrated with a holiday until the late 1800s. These slaughters continued sporadically until 1510, when thirty-eight people were burned alive in Berlin and Jews were banned from the city for two hundred years.

The most perverse of these pogroms was led by an obscure German n.o.bleman with the unusual name of Rindfleisch ("Beef Man"), who, after another incident of Jews allegedly abusing the Christian wafer, gathered a small army of drunken peasants and in 1298 set out to eliminate "the accursed race" from Germany. For six months Rindfleisch and his henchmen ravaged the countryside. They stormed major cities and threw all Jews into the flames. Christians who tried to protect their Hebrew neighbors were overrun, and many Jews burned their own children alive rather than let them fall into the hands of the psychotic mob. In all, Rindfleisch destroyed 146 towns and killed an estimated one hundred thousand people, only ending his campaign when the weather grew inclement. Or perhaps it was only put on hiatus; almost a thousand years later, in nearby Lublin, Poland, a presumed descendant of Rindfleisch, camp doctor Untersturmfuhrer SS Rindfleisch, oversaw the asphyxiation of Jewish children in the n.a.z.i Majdanek extermination camp.

Scientists now believe these bleeding hosts were caused by the fungus Prodigious microccous Prodigious microccous, which grows on stale bread and secretes a red dye that could have been mistaken for drops of blood. Some were created by greedy priests who dipped wafers in blood to create miracles that gullible pilgrims would pay good money to see. But whatever the causes of these bizarre apparitions, the Pope had succeeded in manipulating the strong emotions tied to cannibalism to help make himself the world's wealthiest human being. His magic cannibalism had bound Christians together both as criminals and as G.o.d's Chosen, a brilliant merging of humanity's two most binding social contracts, while simultaneously driving a stake into the heart of the older religions by appropriating their most powerful rite into a ceremony that was exalted, refined, cruel, and forgiving. Men need no longer hide in darkened groves to eat mystic meats, for G.o.d had sacrificed His only Son and given us the body to feast upon in a ritual glittering with gold and white cloth, incense, music, and wine; the ultimate forbidden food was now divine, fulfilling the prophesy of the apostles who wrote that all shall be eaten and found delicious.

Smoked Green Makaku It's been ten years since I took a rusty barge down the Congo River, but the memories remain vivid. Like the moment I realized my dorm cabin was doubling as the boat's brothel. Or the time our captain lost his temper and deliberately drove the boat aground for three days. Or the sweltering hot rooms below deck where stowaways were hung from their wrists and whipped. But it's the expressions of the smoked monkeys that I remember best. Faces contorted in an agonizing howl, lips blackened from smoke, eye sockets charred and empty. Smoked primate is the nouvelle cuisine of Central Africa and every day dugout canoes pulled up out of the endless jungle to unload stacks of them for delivery to the marketplace in Kisangani. By the end of the trip the decks were covered with what looked like piles of withered children curled up in fetal position. Occasionally someone would tear off an arm to make a bit of soup.

I didn't realize then that I was witnessing the birth of a culinary trend that many believe will finally lead to the extermination of mankind's closest relatives. Primates like chimps and apes have been on endangered species lists for many decades, but their numbers had stabilized until a recent breakdown in traditional food taboos put them back on the fast track for oblivion. "If the taste for bushmeat continues to spread at its current pace," says Anthony Rose of the Inst.i.tute for Conservation Education, "all African apes and most other nonhuman primates may soon be threatened with extinction." Hundreds of wildlife organizations have recently made the issue a top priority, including famed ape specialist Jane Goodall, who has predicted the extinction of wild apes within fifty years if the culinary fad continues.

The problem began with logging companies sending foreign workers into the deepest parts of the African jungle. Keeping their workers fed in these areas is extraordinarily complicated. So to economize and maximize profits, many of these companies simply gave their workers guns to hunt "bushmeat" like gorillas, chimps, gazelles, anteaters, and whatever else they could find. Many of these animals have always been on the local menu, but most tribes considered primates taboo because of their obvious kins.h.i.+p to humans. Seeing foreigners munching on monkey chops for the last few decades, however, has normalized this as food. "You must come to my house," one of my fellow pa.s.sengers used to urge. "My mother, she makes the best monkey!" ("Ma mere, elle fait le mieux singe!") ("Ma mere, elle fait le mieux singe!") This local consumption has recently been exacerbated by a growing export market. The chimp jerky on my boat, for instance, was destined for the second-largest city in the Congo, Kisangani, so it could be s.h.i.+pped to places like Brussels, where African expatriates willingly pay up to $20 for a plate of Ma's smoked green This local consumption has recently been exacerbated by a growing export market. The chimp jerky on my boat, for instance, was destined for the second-largest city in the Congo, Kisangani, so it could be s.h.i.+pped to places like Brussels, where African expatriates willingly pay up to $20 for a plate of Ma's smoked green makaku makaku stew. The lure of this easy cash, combined with the local consumption and better guns, is causing slaughters in numbers unimaginable in the recent past. Some estimate the market is now worth a billion dollars a year and that 10 percent of the meat in some African towns comes from primates and that the international market-worth an estimated one billion dollars- consumes a quarter of a million metric tons of primate meat a year. With an estimated two hundred thousand chimps left in Africa, the math isn't hard to do. The recent extinction of Ghana's red colobus monkey has already been blamed on this phenomenon. stew. The lure of this easy cash, combined with the local consumption and better guns, is causing slaughters in numbers unimaginable in the recent past. Some estimate the market is now worth a billion dollars a year and that 10 percent of the meat in some African towns comes from primates and that the international market-worth an estimated one billion dollars- consumes a quarter of a million metric tons of primate meat a year. With an estimated two hundred thousand chimps left in Africa, the math isn't hard to do. The recent extinction of Ghana's red colobus monkey has already been blamed on this phenomenon.

It's not just the monkeys that are threatened. Primates, whose genome code is 98 percent identical to that of humans, carry a version of the HIV/AIDS virus, and specialists have long suspected that this was the source of the human virus. Only n.o.body could figure out how it had been transmitted. Then in 1999 a team of researchers stumbled across a chimp that the U.S. Army had frozen twenty years earlier and, after an exhaustive genetic investigation, deduced that the first human victim of AIDS had been infected by a dish of chimp cooked about fifty years ago. An historic meal. The disease has already killed some 20 million people worldwide. In the area through which I was traveling, half the population is expected to die from AIDS before they reach the age of twenty.

The Laughing Man The Congo is a hundred thousand square miles of jungle, mud roads, and diamond mines. Aside from the boat where I saw the smoked monkeys-which usually runs about three weeks late-the only way to get around is. .h.i.tching rides. There's really nothing to see, but it requires so much effort to get anywhere, you've no energy left over to wonder what you're doing there once you arrive. One of the more popular tourist attractions is probably the cannibals. My first encounter came near the Uganda border. Our truck was pa.s.sing through a typical Congo village of a dozen tipsy-looking huts scattered along a red mud road. Thatched gra.s.s roofs, bamboo doors. But there were no people. The line of waving children who had greeted us in every village was missing.

I asked the man sitting next to me on the truck's roof what had happened.

"Cannibals," Jacques explained calmly. Jacques was a Congolese man, perhaps eighteen, whom I'd met soon after getting off the Congo barge. "They have attacked this place. So the people, they have just left."

I laughed. Surely, I said, you don't believe cannibals still exist?

Jacques looked offended. "But it is only true! Sometimes you can even see the Laughing Man in my town of Kisangani."

The Laughing Man? I asked. Jacques explained: The Laughing Man is a sickness that comes to a cannibal when the spirits of the people he has eaten possess him. First he starts hearing their voices in his head. Then he begins to see things. He talks to invisible spirits. He can't stop smiling, and eventually he laughs himself to death.

At the time I wrote off Jacques's story as yet another African fairy tale, like the church whose followers scream themselves to sleep every night to scare away evil spirits, or the insect that lives exclusively on human corneas. I was wrong. The technical name for Laughing Man disease is kuru kuru, although it has been doc.u.mented only among the cannibals of Papua New Guinea. Kuru Kuru is closely related to today's infamous Mad Cow disease (the human version of which is Creutzfeldt-Jakob). Both are caused by inst.i.tutionalized cannibalism: is closely related to today's infamous Mad Cow disease (the human version of which is Creutzfeldt-Jakob). Both are caused by inst.i.tutionalized cannibalism: Kuru Kuru comes from humans eating the raw brains of their relatives, while Mad Cow first appeared when ranchers began feeding their steers the flesh/blood/brains/organs of other cattle. As in the case of the Laughing Man disease, the cattle's cannibalistic diet-created to maximize profit-appears to have allowed the spread of bizarre renegade proteins, called prions, that eat holes in the brain tissue and turn it into a spongelike glob. At present, some 3 million animals have died from these diseases, as well as an unknown number of people. comes from humans eating the raw brains of their relatives, while Mad Cow first appeared when ranchers began feeding their steers the flesh/blood/brains/organs of other cattle. As in the case of the Laughing Man disease, the cattle's cannibalistic diet-created to maximize profit-appears to have allowed the spread of bizarre renegade proteins, called prions, that eat holes in the brain tissue and turn it into a spongelike glob. At present, some 3 million animals have died from these diseases, as well as an unknown number of people.

It's a gruesome tale of greed and how ignoring traditional taboos sometimes carries a price. What makes it particularly bizarre is what the symptoms shared by the cannibalistic diseases of Laughing Man and Mad Cow potentially indicate. The first signs of both include spasms of the limbs, and around the mouth. For human sufferers, this evolves into an uncontrollable urge to smile, followed by compulsive laughter. Then comes dementia, paralysis, and death. These symptoms are quite similar to a rare condition called St. Vitus's dance. Named after a saint who was made to dance on a bed of red-hot coals, St. Vitus causes sufferers to s.h.i.+ver in a mock spastic "dance" and is believed to have been the cause of the weird religious-dancing hysterias that swept Europe during the 1300s. The Papua New Guineans believed that spirits possessed victims of Laughing Man, just as Christians believed that demons possessed sufferers of St. Vitus's dance. Whereas eating a human brain transmits Laughing Man, St. Vitus results from eating rye bread infected by the fungus ergot, the active ingredient in the drug LSD. Not surprisingly, the first symptoms of an LSD trip are very similar to symptoms of both diseases: uncontrollable laughter and smiling, followed by hallucinations and temporary dementia.

People from Sigmund Freud to Montaigne have commented on our irrational horror of eating one another. "It baffles all sense of logic," wrote Freud, "that we should kill one another, often to applause, but be horrified beyond words at even the thought of eating one another." The similarity in symptoms between diseases tied to cannibalism and hallucinogens opens an intriguing line of speculation, i.e., that our aversion might have roots in historic illnesses a.s.sociated with eating human flesh, or a knowledge that it once had been some kind of sacred food, a category consistently dominated by mind-altering agents. This second possibility sheds a different kind of light on a number of historic oddities. The ancient Greeks, for instance, called their sacrificial victims pharmakos pharmakos, which means atonement, but is related to the word pharmakon pharmakon , which means drug (hence the word , which means drug (hence the word pharmacy pharmacy). The Vatican's psychedelic description of how eating the flesh of Christ via the communion wafer creates a sensation of "immersion within a universal being" starts making a sort of sense. If eating raw brains causes psychic disturbances of some kind, the tradition of Druid priests chewing a "mystic meat" to see visions might be connected to their custom of preserving their leaders' heads in oil. Was the altered state the Druids achieved similar to the "s.p.a.cy" feeling reported by humans infected by Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease? "It would be hazardous to dismiss this custom (of preserving heads) among the Celts as being merely a desire to collect trophies for the acc.u.mulation of marital prestige," wrote Celtic historian T. G. Powell. "It's more likely derived from an older cult relating to human fertility. . . ."

If eating one's fellow human was merely gross or unhealthy, like eating human feces, would cannibalism have developed so many mystical overtones? Probably not. "Cannibals care intensely how how they ate people and also whom they ate, when and where," wrote Margaret Visser in her delightful book they ate people and also whom they ate, when and where," wrote Margaret Visser in her delightful book The Rituals The Rituals of Dinner of Dinner. She ascribes this fastidiousness to proper table manners. Another possible explanation lies in cannibalism's antecedents as a religious cult. In his book Muelos: A Stone Age Muelos: A Stone Age Superst.i.tion About s.e.xuality Superst.i.tion About s.e.xuality, scholar Weston La Barre marshals an impressive array of evidence that there was once a religion centered on ingesting an intoxicating elixir produced in the human brain, a cult which grew into the world's head-hunting cultures. "There was a very ancient belief in human life power apparently resident in the skull," he writes, "to be obtained by eating brains of other men." While La Barre speculates that this substance, called muelos muelos, was thought to provide a kind of s.e.xual/psychic power related to s.e.m.e.n, he points out that the rites are closely a.s.sociated with the taking of psychotropic substances. The Bikim-Kuskusmin people of New Guinea say the two are one and the same because a spirit called Afek put his blood/s.e.m.e.n/bone marrow into magical plants to give them their hallucinogenic powers.

European Druids and the tribes of Papua New Guinea are among the more famous cannibal sects. Both were unusually isolated societies and were more likely to retain traditions that disappeared elsewhere. The early Tibetan Buddhists (Bonpo) (Bonpo) were equally isolated, and they, too, are thought to have ritually eaten their loved ones as a way of pa.s.sing on their wisdom. I have a Tibetan skull bowl sitting on the desk in front of me. The interior is covered in mystic carvings in a manner identical to those seen in hundreds of Tibetan religious paintings. In the paintings it's usually held by a wild-eyed deity, who carries the skull bowl, called a were equally isolated, and they, too, are thought to have ritually eaten their loved ones as a way of pa.s.sing on their wisdom. I have a Tibetan skull bowl sitting on the desk in front of me. The interior is covered in mystic carvings in a manner identical to those seen in hundreds of Tibetan religious paintings. In the paintings it's usually held by a wild-eyed deity, who carries the skull bowl, called a kapala kapala, in one hand and a knife, called chugri chugri, in one of his other nine. The skulls in these paintings are heaped with a gelatinous gray substance called amrita amrita, supposedly s.e.m.e.n. The shape and whorl-like designs of the substance, however, make it look remarkably like a human brain. Today these images of brain eating are described as being purely metaphoric. The same metaphoric rationale is applied to the shapely demoness typically copulating with the G.o.ds in the same painting, primly ignoring the fact that Tibetan Buddhism is closely related to Tantric Yoga, a discipline well known for its religious s.e.xual practices. If the s.e.xual imagery is clearly more than a mere metaphor, why not the ones involving brains? Anthropologists have reported Tibetan rites that use skull bowls to serve a substance that looks like brains but is actually made of wheat, and Tibet's Mongolian cousins, the Kanjur, identify amrita amrita specifically as a human brain. specifically as a human brain.

These people were endo-cannibals and ate their friends to gain their wisdom. Endo-cannibals tend not to eat the actual meat, preferring to burn it to a powder or eat the brain exclusively. Exo-cannibals, a group who eats their enemy to gain their strength, generally prefer a good man chop. Common sense tells us that endo-cannibals eat their friends' brains because- obviously-that's the center of thought and knowledge.

Obviously. That was a trick sentence. We're all so sure that the brain is the organ of thought that eating it to gain wisdom seems almost rational. Yet, it is reasonable to question whether early Tibetans, or a Stone Age people from New Guinea, considered the brain in this light. The father of modern science, Aristotle, believed the brain's sole function was to cool the blood. Among the Fore tribes of highland Papua New Guinea- where the Laughing Man disease was discovered in the 1960s- the brain was reserved for the corpse's closest female relatives. Some scientists attribute this to the men demanding the tastiest bits and leaving the rest for the ladies. The brain, however, has long been among the most prized of dishes. Until the 1700s Europeans brought the head of whatever animal was being eaten to the guest of honor so he could smash the skull open and spoon out the contents to the table's applause (knives and forks were considered bad taste under the circ.u.mstance). Later, servants sawed an opening in the skull to make a removable "lid" that the guest could just pop open. Until quite recently, the eating of a cow's brain was a rite of manliness at many Texan barbecues. That was a trick sentence. We're all so sure that the brain is the organ of thought that eating it to gain wisdom seems almost rational. Yet, it is reasonable to question whether early Tibetans, or a Stone Age people from New Guinea, considered the brain in this light. The father of modern science, Aristotle, believed the brain's sole function was to cool the blood. Among the Fore tribes of highland Papua New Guinea- where the Laughing Man disease was discovered in the 1960s- the brain was reserved for the corpse's closest female relatives. Some scientists attribute this to the men demanding the tastiest bits and leaving the rest for the ladies. The brain, however, has long been among the most prized of dishes. Until the 1700s Europeans brought the head of whatever animal was being eaten to the guest of honor so he could smash the skull open and spoon out the contents to the table's applause (knives and forks were considered bad taste under the circ.u.mstance). Later, servants sawed an opening in the skull to make a removable "lid" that the guest could just pop open. Until quite recently, the eating of a cow's brain was a rite of manliness at many Texan barbecues.

While I would never imply that Texas is a den of neanderthal affectations, scholars believe ritual brain eating like this was particularly popular among Neanderthals for about two hundred fifty thousand years, and that the practice disappeared only during the Celtic Bronze Age. Others date it back to 400,000 B.C. Neanderthals no more thought the brain was the center of thought than chimpanzees do. Not that chimps don't think highly of the tidbit: According to Jane Goodall, the only food chimps refuse to share with one another is the head of their near relative, the baboon, which is always always given to the group's alpha male. In cases where two baboons are simultaneously killed, the heads of both are still given to alpha chimp, who sucks them out with gusto. No one is suggesting that chimps value the snack because they think it is the repository of the soul. They just like the way it tastes. It excites them. It's delicious, so much so that it raises a number of questions about the amorphous line separating intoxicating from tasty. The most praised drink in the world is wine. Yet most think it's vile when they take their first sip. And with good reason-alcohol is a poison, and our body's immediate instinct is to reject it. It's only when we experience alcohol's ability to intoxicate that we realize how "delicious" it really is. We have rationalized the pleasures of intoxication in terms of taste. given to the group's alpha male. In cases where two baboons are simultaneously killed, the heads of both are still given to alpha chimp, who sucks them out with gusto. No one is suggesting that chimps value the snack because they think it is the repository of the soul. They just like the way it tastes. It excites them. It's delicious, so much so that it raises a number of questions about the amorphous line separating intoxicating from tasty. The most praised drink in the world is wine. Yet most think it's vile when they take their first sip. And with good reason-alcohol is a poison, and our body's immediate instinct is to reject it. It's only when we experience alcohol's ability to intoxicate that we realize how "delicious" it really is. We have rationalized the pleasures of intoxication in terms of taste.

So when the chimps exhibit such rabid enthusiasm for the raw brain of a sister species, it's reasonable to wonder precisely what has them so worked up. Is it a taste sensation, or something closer to the feline love of the intoxicating herb catnip? Likewise, when the cannibals of Papua New Guinea say they reserve the dead man's brain for the closest female relative because it is "special . . . precious," their meaning, before being interpreted by Western anthropologists, is unclear. A word like precious precious, in its original sense, was a reference to some kind of magical power and is the kind of language that shamans use in explaining how they receive their wisdom from peyote and other hallucinogens.

This is all in the never-never land of speculation, but it's reasonable to suggest that, given the connection so many cultures make between madness and inspiration and holiness, the dementia-like symptoms a.s.sociated with brain-eating diseases could have led to cannibalism being a.s.sociated with priest castes. A number of anthropologists have suggested that eating human brains or heads was the prerogative of the religious elite in a variety of cultures. The Aztecs, for instance, doled out their sacrificial victims according to social rank. The heart went to the Sun G.o.d, while the meat went to the n.o.bles. But the heads went to the priests, according to doc.u.ments from the time. No one knows for sure what the priests did with them, but archaeologists have recovered hundreds of skulls they believe came from sacrificial victims, and every single one of them had their brains removed. There were no organic remains found to indicate they had been discarded.

Thou Shalt Not Eat Thy Mother It was once the premiere dining spot on the planet. Friendly service. Convenient location. Great view. Fresh, hot food. And the price-talk about cheap! Mother's milk, straight from her breast, was the original blue plate special. Now veering toward extinction. Despite international campaigns to preserve humanity's first drinking straw, breast-feeding has been on a fifty-year decline. Americans were once a.s.sured two years a-suckle, but today a mere quarter of them have the pleasure, and then for only a few months. Similar declines are also occurring in many parts of Asia and Africa. This turning of the universal food into a near taboo has been blamed on everything from the spread of colonial Puritanism to the entry of mothers into the workforce, but most scholars agree that the predominant reason is the greed of a small group of businessmen who promote a reconst.i.tuted milklike product as a convenient replacement. "With millions of dollars' worth of baby formula sold each year," writes scholar Marilyn Yalom in her History of the Breast History of the Breast , "the growth of bottle feeding can be attributed sheerly to the profits involved . . . and their promotion by both the industry and the medical profession." , "the growth of bottle feeding can be attributed sheerly to the profits involved . . . and their promotion by both the industry and the medical profession."

The c.u.mulative result is comparable to the Holocaust. World health organizations estimate that 1.5 million babies die unnecessarily each year because they are nursed with baby formula instead of breast milk. These deaths are not the fault of the formula product itself, but stem from the unclean water used to reconst.i.tute the stuff in some areas of the world. But countries with relatively clean water also suffer because bottle-fed children everywhere are more likely to be obese, score lower on IQ tests, and suffer serious allergies. Bottle-feeding is also sometimes a.s.sociated with learning disorders. The United States alone is thought to spend between $2 billion and $4 billion a year fighting diseases connected to bottle feeding.

Baby formulas were originally created to help mothers who could neither breast-feed nor afford a human milk nurse, and they were doubtless an improvement on the practice of nursing babies on donkey's milk. It quickly grew into a small industry with over twenty prefab brands on the market by the late 1800s, all emphasizing convenience and promoting the idea that a woman's breast was unhygienic. This notion, of course, is pure nonsense-a woman's nipple naturally exudes an antiseptic liquid-but it caught on in an era fraught with Puritan ethics and a love of modernity. The formulas' negative health effects were at first too subtle to measure, and so it wasn't until the companies began peddling their product in countries where the water was unsafe that obvious problems started popping up. The manufacturers could hardly have been unaware of the impending disaster they created. No matter-with money to be made, they flooded the areas with advertising. According to the book Milk, Money, and Madness Milk, Money, and Madness, during August 1974 there were over 250 ads for baby formula in the tiny West African country of Sierra Leone alone. International agencies and corporations gave free samples of baby formula to hospitals in countries where they knew it should not be used, and pictures portraying healthy bottle-fed babies lined doctors' waiting rooms.

The most revolting marketing device was the hiring of women dressed as nurses who visited hospitals to urge new mothers to use a particular formula. According to one study, 87 percent of Nigerian mothers stopped breast-feeding because of visits from these so-called "milk nurses." Pranks like this led to the famous worldwide boycott of Nestle products during the 1970s. When Nestle sued a group for publis.h.i.+ng a book t.i.tled Nestle Kills Babies Nestle Kills Babies, it took the mega-corporation three trials to win, only to then be chastised by the judge for "dangerous and life-destroying [activities]."

The major baby formula manufacturers have since voluntarily signed an agreement to abide by restrictions akin to the ones imposed on cigarette and liquor manufacturers. This has moderated the most egregious abuses suffered, but many companies have just become more subtle in their marketing. Some now mail American mothers redeemable checks for up to $50 to purchase their products. Others send cases of formula free of charge. These "gifts" are timed to arrive as soon as possible after the mother has given birth. "It's a common practice," said Deborah Myers of the mother-baby program at Kaiser Hospital of Portland, Oregon, "and sends out an unfortunate message to new mothers when they are sleep deprived and most vulnerable to suggestion." Company officials say they send samples only to mothers who specifically ask for them; their customer service operators, however, told me "they use marketing lists all the time." The practice of encouraging mothers to take a break from breast nursing in the early stages is particularly deceptive because when she does her b.r.e.a.s.t.s stop producing milk, making it more difficult to resume, and her child loses the ability to latch on to the nipple. This essentially addicts her and her baby to formula.

Strangely enough, members of the $8-billion-a-year baby-formula business seem reluctant to concede that they have, at times, effectively tried to replace the maternal breast. Repeated requests for comments from various companies have been ignored, save a sole Nestle representative who said that they vigorously abide by all voluntary labeling and marketing rules. Not that anyone's suggesting the industry wants to harm children or denies that formula sometimes saves lives. It's a question of marketing gone amok. Companies now put a label on their products stating that breast milk is superior to baby formula; some also suggest that the customer not prepare the formula with water out of the communal toilet. In 1999 breast-feeding in America increased ever so slightly for the first time in fifty years, and the country's president, Bill Clinton, finally made it legal to nurse children publicly on federal property. Mothers in the British government, however, have not fared as well. Members of Parliament were recently refused the right to nurse their babies in government chambers because Parliamentary rules forbid both refreshments and visitors. It appears breast-feeding "visiting" infants violated both regulations.

Got Milk?

Mother's milk may be the universal food, but that other stuff, the coagulated excretions of mammals, is most definitely not. An estimated 50 percent of the world have serious problems digesting cow's milk because of a complex sugar-called lactose- contained in all milk. Practically the only real true-blue milk drinkers appear to be the white boys from northern Europe who are thought to have learned the habit, in conjunction with their freaky skin color, some ten thousand years ago. Their ability to digest milk was developed to compensate for a lack of calcium when weather conditions eliminated many dark green plants in the north. According to scholar Marvin Harris, their fairer skin developed at the same time because it created a chemical reaction with sunlight, which facilitated the digestion of the dreck they sucked out of the pets' teats. All quite barbarous, according to Greek historian Herodotus, who condemned the northerners for "sow(ing) no crops . . . and moreover, they are drinkers of milk!" Even the cow-loving Hindus have trouble digesting milk, which is why, with the exception of lactose-tolerant Northern Indians, you will find so much more yogurt or b.u.t.ter than milk in their diet-the fermentation that produces yogurt and cheese breaks down lactose into simpler sugars that are easily digested. None of this is relevant to human breast milk, which is entirely different from cow's milk.

American Pigs Haiti's last pig died on June 21, 1983. An American scientist killed it. There's no way of knowing what the Ph.D. thought as he put the bullet into the animal's brain. He or she probably thought of it as a favor to the Haitians. The island's pigs were supposed to be infected by a deadly disease. Besides, the good ol' U.S. of A. had promised that once all those dirty little black pigs were dead, they'd soon be replaced with nice white American ones. So what was all the fuss about?

The official reason for the extermination of Haiti's beloved cochon-planche cochon-planche was to stop African Swine Fever from spreading to the continental United States. The disease had first appeared in Haiti's neighbor, the Dominican Republic, in 1978, and soon a very small number of Haitian animals had tested positive. But although Swine Fever is normally 99 percent fatal to pigs (it doesn't affect humans), the Haitian subspecies appeared to have developed an immunity to the bug. Very few animals actually died, and by the time the American-sponsored eradication program began three years later, the disease had disappeared. Notwithstanding this-or the voracious objections of the Haitian peasantry-Was.h.i.+ngton went ahead and spent $23 million for an army of pig-hunting helicopters to ensure that the Haitian pig joined the pterodactyls among the annals of the extinct. was to stop African Swine Fever from spreading to the continental United States. The disease had first appeared in Haiti's neighbor, the Dominican Republic, in 1978, and soon a very small number of Haitian animals had tested positive. But although Swine Fever is normally 99 percent fatal to pigs (it doesn't affect humans), the Haitian subspecies appeared to have developed an immunity to the bug. Very few animals actually died, and by the time the American-sponsored eradication program began three years later, the disease had disappeared. Notwithstanding this-or the voracious objections of the Haitian peasantry-Was.h.i.+ngton went ahead and spent $23 million for an army of pig-hunting helicopters to ensure that the Haitian pig joined the pterodactyls among the annals of the extinct.

This is not the first time the Americans have tried to eliminate a species from the face of the Earth. During the 1800s they tried to drive the American buffalo to extinction as part of a campaign to destroy the Native American cultures that were hindering white America's economic plans. The stated intent of the Haitian policy was, as we read, different. But the results were remarkably similar.

The vast majority of Haitians in the early 1980s were subsistence farmers with an annual income of about $130. The pigs were the "master component of the Haitian peasant production system," according to Haitian sociologist Jean-Jacques Honorat, and helped make the farmers' poor but independent lifestyle possible. The animals' scavenger diet cost the farmer nothing, and the money earned by sale of their meat provided cash for necessities like school uniforms and medicine. U.S. officials understood the pig's importance. That's why they promised to replace every scroungy little Haitian pig with a brand-new superdeluxe American model. And what a pig it was! The American uber-schweins uber-schweins were three times the size of their Haitian relatives and bred to produce the best-tasting, leanest bacon on the planet. But once all the Haitian pigs were dead, the Yanks decided that only farmers with enough money to pay for a special water system and concrete floors would be given replacement animals. Luxuries like these, however, were too expensive for most Haitian people to put in their homes, much less in their pigsties. The Haitian pigs had survived off garbage and insects and excrement, thus doubling as an outhouse on legs and an insecticide that kept the farmer's lands free of pests. The American beasts turned up their nose at anything less than a special vitamin-enriched feed that cost about $90 a year, more than half of the average peasant's annual income. were three times the size of their Haitian relatives and bred to produce the best-tasting, leanest bacon on the planet. But once all the Haitian pigs were dead, the Yanks decided that only farmers with enough money to pay for a special water system and concrete floors would be given replacement animals. Luxuries like these, however, were too expensive for most Haitian people to put in their homes, much less in their pigsties. The Haitian pigs had survived off garbage and insects and excrement, thus doubling as an outhouse on legs and an insecticide that kept the farmer's lands free of pests. The American beasts turned up their nose at anything less than a special vitamin-enriched feed that cost about $90 a year, more than half of the average peasant's annual income.

The result was predictable (in fact, the peasant farmers had had predicted it). Relatively few pigs were actually handed out by the Americans. Those that were failed to survive because no one could afford the water-mist system the animals needed to survive in the heat. When school attendance dropped 25 percent because of the absent pig money, people tried to bring back the old black pigs. But the rabidly anti-Communist Haitian right-wing government had both pigs and their owners executed as Communists. The same officials, who were supposed to control prices for the American pig feed, then created shortages so they could enhance their profits. The peasants were soon locked out of the swine-breeding business, and ten years after the death of the last Haitian pig, almost all of them had been forced to sell their ancestral lands to make ends meet. Even one of the American officials involved with the program reportedly admitted it had been a tragic mistake. predicted it). Relatively few pigs were actually handed out by the Americans. Those that were failed to survive because no one could afford the water-mist system the animals needed to survive in the heat. When school attendance dropped 25 percent because of the absent pig money, people tried to bring back the old black pigs. But the rabidly anti-Communist Haitian right-wing government had both pigs and their owners executed as Communists. The same officials, who were supposed to control prices for the American pig feed, then created shortages so they could enhance their profits. The peasants were soon locked out of the swine-breeding business, and ten years after the death of the last Haitian pig, almost all of them had been forced to sell their ancestral lands to make ends meet. Even one of the American officials involved with the program reportedly admitted it had been a tragic mistake.

Perhaps mistake mistake is misleading. It turns out that a year before the Americans had started pus.h.i.+ng to exterminate the black pigs, their friends at the World Bank had been pressuring the Haitian government to s.h.i.+ft their island's economic focus from subsistence farming to growing crops for export. The idea was for corporations to take over the peasants' farms and grow coffee and flowers, while the farmers moved to the cities to become splendidly desperate factory workers creating cheap goods for North American consumers. The peasants, however, had held their noses at the idea-Haiti is home to the first successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere and the area's first free black nation. So the idea of ending up on some white boy's corporate plantation went against their grain. The World Bank's plan, in fact, was going nowhere until the Yanks wiped out the pigs and "accidentally" destroyed the peasant economy. This forced farmers to sell off their family plots, which multinationals grabbed up at bargain prices. Within a decade Haiti had switched from subsistence to an export economy. Staple food production decreased by 30 percent, and the urban population doubled. Some Haitians are still saying the pigs were killed to force them to work in American factories for $1 a day. Then again, maybe it was the ghosts of the slave owners taking a long-delayed revenge: Haiti's 1804 slave revolution began with a voodoo ceremony that climaxed in the drinking of a pig's blood. is misleading. It turns out that a year before the Americans had started pus.h.i.+ng to exterminate the black pigs, their friends at the World Bank had been pressuring the Haitian government to s.h.i.+ft their island's economic focus from subsistence farming to growing crops for export. The idea was for corporations to take over the peasants' farms and grow coffee and flowers, while the farmers moved to the cities to become splendidly desperate factory workers creating cheap goods for North American consumers. The peasants, however, had held their noses at the idea-Haiti is home to the first successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere and the area's first free black nation. So the idea of ending up on some white boy's corporate plantation went against their grain. The World Bank's plan, in fact, was going nowhere until the Yanks wiped out the pigs and "accidentally" destroyed the peasant economy. This forced farmers to sell off their family plots, which multinationals grabbed up at bargain prices. Within a decade Haiti had switched from subsistence to an export economy. Staple food production decreased by 30 percent, and the urban population doubled. Some Haitians are still saying the pigs were killed to force them to work in American factories for $1 a day. Then again, maybe it was the ghosts of the slave owners taking a long-delayed revenge: Haiti's 1804 slave revolution began with a voodoo ceremony that climaxed in the drinking of a pig's blood.

[image]BLASPHEMY"Know and understand; it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but that which comes out. . . ."Book of Matthew, 15:10[image]BLASPHEMY MENU MENU[image]APeRITIFBrandy "Masai" Alexander Fresh cow blood mixed with ice, milk, and brandy.

FIRST COURSEFritatta with Marrano Sausage With Lenten eggs and kosher pork sausage.

SECOND COURSEIguana Carpaccio Hibiscus-fed iguana served with a Catholic sauce.

MAINAdafina with Matzoh b.a.l.l.s A heretic stew of meats and chickpeas.

DESSERTBiscuit de Jesus Unleavened wafers with naturally sweet manna jam.

The Sacred Act of Eating If you deconstruct most religious ceremonies, you wind up with a man dressed suspiciously like a chef serving some kind of snack. Eating is imbued with religious meaning, and some anthropologists believe the rituals and symbols of organized religion grew directly from dining etiquette. Most religions forbid a vast array of dishes as a way to both give their followers a coherent ident.i.ty and discourage them from mingling with disbelievers who might plant the seed for blasphemous thinking. The Old Testament devotes most of the Book of Leviticus to listing blasphemous dishes; one rule, prohibiting the mixing of meat with milk, was considered so important that it was apparently among the original Ten Commandments. Christianity, however, is largely free of these taboos, an apparent attempt by Christ and his followers to depart from the mainstream of religious tradition (or maybe they figured it would just make conversion easier). Which isn't to say they weren't fussy eaters-devout Christians routinely swallowed five times when they drank, once each for the five wounds of Christ, and every morsel was sliced into four parts, three for the Holy Trinity and one for Mary. During the 1600s, the Spanish Inquisition even had "food police" roaming the streets, sniffing for heretic cooking. But Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism still retain their forbidden foods and the echoes of these beliefs have led to some of the more bizarre chapters in how we wors.h.i.+p our Head Chef.

The Jewish Pig Once upon a time, Jesus b.u.mped into a rabbi sitting by the side of the road. The rabbi had just been arguing with his friends about the rumors that this guy Christ was the Messiah. So he decided to test His powers. "If you are truly the Messiah," the skeptical rabbi said to Jesus, "then you can surely see what lies beneath this barrel next to me." The rabbi believed some pigs were napping there. Unbeknownst to him, however, the pigs had been replaced by his own son. When Jesus told him that his son was sleeping under the barrel, the rabb