In the Devil's Garden_ A Sinful History of Forbidden Food Part 5

FIRST MAN Only after he's killed it.

Lent Egg Lent is the only notable Christian dietary law, a forty-day regime leading up to Easter, during which one is supposed to forgo strong food like meat and eggs and even milk. Pretty mild stuff, despite which the counterfeiting of food for Lent became a minor art form in the Middle Ages. There was fake bacon in which salmon was made into a kind of pate laced with pureed pike fish and almond milk to replicate the pork fat. The following curiosity comes from A n.o.ble Boke of Cookry: For a Prynch [Prince] Houssolde A n.o.ble Boke of Cookry: For a Prynch [Prince] Houssolde or Another Estately Houssolde or Another Estately Houssolde, a fifteenth-century cookbook largely devoted to this counterfeit cuisine. The translation, done by a Mrs. Alexander Napier in 1882, leaves much of the original medieval spelling intact, as have I (with some clarifications).

To roft egs in Lent take and blowe out the mete [meat, i.e., yolk and white] at the end of the egg and washe the sh.e.l.les with warme water. Then take thick milk of almond and set it to the fyere till it be at the boiling. Then put it in a canvas and let the water run out and keep all that hangeth in the clothe and gadur it to gedure [gather it together] in a dyshe. Then put it to white sugar and colour one half with saffron and [add to flavor] poudered ginger and cinnamon. Then put some of the white [unflavored] in the eggsh.e.l.l and in the middle put in of the yellow to be the yolk and fill it up with white. Then sit it in the fire to roast. To fifteen eggs take a pound of almond milk and a quarter of ginger and cinnamon.

A Well-Risen Messiah Jewish cooks weren't the only ones persecuted for heretic cooking. Christian Europe actually tore itself in two because of a squabble over a cookie recipe. A wafer, actually-or would that be biscuit?-the one representing Jesus and served at the High Ma.s.s. The Orthodox wing of the church, which dominates Eastern Europe, Russia, and Greece, had always served a well-risen, chewy Son of G.o.d at their Ma.s.s. The Romans preferred a flat, crackerlike treat. In A.D. 1054 two leaders finally got together to create a unified recipe. There was plenty of room for compromise, but judging from the two men's preconfab correspondence, the impending disaster was probably unavoidable. "Unleavened bread is dead and lifeless," went one letter from the Orthodox side, represented by Michael Cerularius, "because it lacks leaven, which is the soul, and salt, which is the mind of the Messiah." Nonsense, had been the reply from the Catholics' Cardinal Humbert. "If you do not with stubborn mind stand in opposition to the plain truth," he wrote to Cerularius, "you will have to think as we do and confess that during the meal (the Last Supper) it was unleavened bread Jesus Christ distributed."

The exact reasons for these different recipes are rather complex. The Orthodox Church believes that the leavening that makes bread rise represents the life force of Christ. Greek housewives still claim their breads rise by the will of Christ, in recollection of his ascension from the dead, and they lace special loaves with dried flowers from the altar. The Roman Catholic recipe comes from the matzoh bread Hebrews serve at Pa.s.sover, a flat, crackerish fellow that was left unleavened because the Jews were in such a rush to get out of Egypt that there was no time to let the bread rise. Not that the Vatican was going to cop to "Jewish tendencies"-one of Humbert's main kvetches was that Orthodox leaders were "persecuting [Catholics] by calling them Matzists Matzists" because they used matzoh bread at Ma.s.s.

The two sides could easily have split the difference and opted for pita: delicious, easily stuffed, and only partially partially risen. But the negotiations didn't really get off on the right foot. In fact, it's not clear they ever got off at all. The Catholic Humbert, renowned for his unpleasant disposition, arrived in Istanbul after a long journey and was already furious over a letter he thought Cerularius had written condemning the Catholic wafer. Cerularius, however, had never even seen the letter, much less penned it-a Bulgarian archbishop was the author-and when some foreigner showed up at his house unannounced, shrieking about crackers and a mysterious letter, Cerularius failed to extend his fullest hospitality. It seems the Catholic Humbert had forgotten to write he was dropping by to discuss some theological disputes, and Cerularius came to the conclusion that Humbert was a spy risen. But the negotiations didn't really get off on the right foot. In fact, it's not clear they ever got off at all. The Catholic Humbert, renowned for his unpleasant disposition, arrived in Istanbul after a long journey and was already furious over a letter he thought Cerularius had written condemning the Catholic wafer. Cerularius, however, had never even seen the letter, much less penned it-a Bulgarian archbishop was the author-and when some foreigner showed up at his house unannounced, shrieking about crackers and a mysterious letter, Cerularius failed to extend his fullest hospitality. It seems the Catholic Humbert had forgotten to write he was dropping by to discuss some theological disputes, and Cerularius came to the conclusion that Humbert was a spy posing posing as a papal amba.s.sador. After a few days of cooling his heels in the Patriarch's reception room, Humbert packed his bags and headed back to Rome. On his way out he declared Cerularius, who was the head of the Orthodox Church, a blasphemer and emphasized his displeasure by nailing the order of excommunication to the Orthodox Church's holiest spot, the altar of St. Sophia in Istanbul. "Mad Michael [Cerularius], inappropriately named Patriarch," began the letter, and that was the nicest part. Cerularius returned the favor by declaring the Romans heretics for their as a papal amba.s.sador. After a few days of cooling his heels in the Patriarch's reception room, Humbert packed his bags and headed back to Rome. On his way out he declared Cerularius, who was the head of the Orthodox Church, a blasphemer and emphasized his displeasure by nailing the order of excommunication to the Orthodox Church's holiest spot, the altar of St. Sophia in Istanbul. "Mad Michael [Cerularius], inappropriately named Patriarch," began the letter, and that was the nicest part. Cerularius returned the favor by declaring the Romans heretics for their matzist matzist tendencies. He also banned shared meals between Orthodox and Catholic clergy. tendencies. He also banned shared meals between Orthodox and Catholic clergy.

This dispute split the world's most powerful organization in half and set in motion events that would divide Europe for centuries. It was this dispute that the Crusaders cited when they defiled the Orthodox Church by setting a prost.i.tute on Cerularius's throne in 1204. The division between the two churches also sufficiently weakened the Christian empire to allow the Ottoman Turks to conquer Eastern Europe. This, in turn, laid the groundwork for Russian domination of Eastern Europe and set the boundaries of the Soviet Union's Iron Curtain. Even the recent Serbian conflict was affected-the Russians were reluctant to bomb Serbia because they both belonged to the Orthodox Church and shared a long history of being dressed down by self-righteous hypocrites from the West. The two churches finally made up nine-hundred-plus years later in 1965.

For What We Are About to Receive We all know the routine of thanking Him before we break bread. "Oh, Lord, on this day/We Thank Ye for our daily bread. . . ." It's only good manners: G.o.d created the world that we feed upon and so as good guests we have to thank him. But not everyone views the situation that way. The Sherpa people of Nepal consider the G.o.ds as the guests, and moreover ones who had better behave Themselves. "They make the explicit a.n.a.logy between the offering ritual and social hospitality," writes anthropologist Sherry Ortner. "The people are hosts, the G.o.ds their guests . . . who they make happy so they will want to help humanity." These Sherpa ceremonies start off a bit like a frat party. Incense is burned, loud music is played, and beer is poured out the window so "the guys" (normally local ent.i.ties) will know there's a happening. When the supernatural guests arrive, they are invited to seat themselves in bread-and-b.u.t.ter sculptures that are up to seven feet high called tormas tormas. To make sure there're no gate-crashers, similar bread-and-b.u.t.ter sculptures, gyeks, gyeks, are baked for the demons and then tossed out the temple door as far as they can be thrown. Then an appetizer, usually seared fat from a goat's heart, is served to the guests, followed by a smorgasbord of are baked for the demons and then tossed out the temple door as far as they can be thrown. Then an appetizer, usually seared fat from a goat's heart, is served to the guests, followed by a smorgasbord of tso tso (cooked) dishes. This party, however, is not about b.u.t.tering up the deities and earning goodwill. The Sherpas are putting their guests under an obligation. "I am offering you the things which you eat," their prayer goes, "now You must do whatever I demand." Lest the G.o.ds think this thinly veiled coercion presumptuous, the Sherpas remind them it is the sacred duty of (cooked) dishes. This party, however, is not about b.u.t.tering up the deities and earning goodwill. The Sherpas are putting their guests under an obligation. "I am offering you the things which you eat," their prayer goes, "now You must do whatever I demand." Lest the G.o.ds think this thinly veiled coercion presumptuous, the Sherpas remind them it is the sacred duty of all all guests not to offend their hosts, saying "that is not guests not to offend their hosts, saying "that is not my my order, but you have promised to work for me in the beginning of time. . . ." order, but you have promised to work for me in the beginning of time. . . ."

O, Dog "No one's eating dogs anymore," said Don Climent, head of San Francisco's International Rescue Committee. "My Laotian clients just needed information on what's acceptable to Americans in relations.h.i.+p to dogs. Besides, I think they were more interested in the squirrels."

Climent was explaining to me how it was that a group of dog lovers from Laos caused a national panic in the early 1980s. It started one day in August when some cops found five headless dogs lying in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. As the officers stood puzzling over the situation (now if I were a dog, where would I hide my my head?), they noticed a number of Asians armed with bows and arrows wandering about. The dogs, it seemed, belonged to the Laotians in the gustatory sense. The incident appeared in the papers, and overnight Californians realized that a tribe of quasi-cannibals had invaded their state. Filipino sailors were accused of sneaking into suburbs for nocturnal dog hunts. A lady in Sacramento discovered her children's favorite pooch hanging by its tail at a neighborhood barbecue, skinned, flayed, and waiting for the kiss of the smoking grill. A San Francisco man found his spaniel in a Chinese neighbor's garage under suspicious circ.u.mstances. A law protecting pets was immediately proposed. Politicians fumed, immigrant groups rationalized, and a brown-and-white springer spaniel named Ringo appeared before the California a.s.sembly wearing a T-s.h.i.+rt emblazoned with "I'm for Loving NOT for EATING!" It all went to prove that there are two distinct species of dog in the world. There's the Western dog, hair flying in the wind as he rushes to the rescue, a pampered, petted deity Europeans revered so much they used dog blood in early transfusions. The other kind of dog is also loved, preferably roasted, sometimes sauteed. The Chinese call them "hornless goats" or "fragrant meat," and in some restaurants you can pick out which puppy you want cooked for dinner. Connoisseurs recommend red-haired mutts with sprightly ears and black tongues for their veal-like flesh. Dog is an honorary dish, and the Vietnamese say, "It's going ill for the dogs," if a legal dispute is dragging on, because it was the custom to serve roast pup at all negotiations. head?), they noticed a number of Asians armed with bows and arrows wandering about. The dogs, it seemed, belonged to the Laotians in the gustatory sense. The incident appeared in the papers, and overnight Californians realized that a tribe of quasi-cannibals had invaded their state. Filipino sailors were accused of sneaking into suburbs for nocturnal dog hunts. A lady in Sacramento discovered her children's favorite pooch hanging by its tail at a neighborhood barbecue, skinned, flayed, and waiting for the kiss of the smoking grill. A San Francisco man found his spaniel in a Chinese neighbor's garage under suspicious circ.u.mstances. A law protecting pets was immediately proposed. Politicians fumed, immigrant groups rationalized, and a brown-and-white springer spaniel named Ringo appeared before the California a.s.sembly wearing a T-s.h.i.+rt emblazoned with "I'm for Loving NOT for EATING!" It all went to prove that there are two distinct species of dog in the world. There's the Western dog, hair flying in the wind as he rushes to the rescue, a pampered, petted deity Europeans revered so much they used dog blood in early transfusions. The other kind of dog is also loved, preferably roasted, sometimes sauteed. The Chinese call them "hornless goats" or "fragrant meat," and in some restaurants you can pick out which puppy you want cooked for dinner. Connoisseurs recommend red-haired mutts with sprightly ears and black tongues for their veal-like flesh. Dog is an honorary dish, and the Vietnamese say, "It's going ill for the dogs," if a legal dispute is dragging on, because it was the custom to serve roast pup at all negotiations.

The Asian cultures are the only modern dog eaters, but the most developed canine cuisine belongs to the people of the Pacific Isles and the New World. The Aztecs had huge puppy farms in which they bred a stocky chocolate-brown pooch related to the hairless Chihuahua. "There were four hundred large and small dogs tied up in crates, some already sold, some still for sale," wrote Spanish missionary Fray Diego Duran in the early 1500s. "And there were such piles of ordure that I was overwhelmed! When a Spaniard who was totally familiar with that region saw my amazement he asked 'But why are you astonished, my friend? I have never seen such a meager supply of dogs as today!' There was a tremendous shortage of them!" The Polynesians and Hawaiians had similar ranches where they raised poi dogs so toothsome that they were largely reserved for the king. The now-extinct poi was a curious creature: bug-eyed and unnaturally plump, it was a strict vegetarian that lived on nothing but sweet potatoes and soup. European visitors described them as semi-amphibious and so lacking in energy they eschewed barking in favor of listless little yelps. They were not, however, mere livestock. Dogs were often spiritually tied to a specific child, like a pet, and were breast-fed with the child at the mother's breast (a courtesy still offered to young piglets in some areas). If a child died, his or her puppy was killed and buried alongside to guard the infant during its journey in the afterlife. If it was the dog that pa.s.sed away first, its teeth became a necklace the child wore to ward off sorcery. Dinner, however, was the more common fate. The puppy was usually suffocated by blocking its mouth and nostrils for fifteen minutes. Its delicious blood was made into a pudding by adding hot stones to the liquid, but the body was roasted luau-style in a pit covered with banana leaves and earth. "Few there were of the nicest of us," wrote Sir Joseph Banks of his time with Captain Cook's eighteenth-century expedition "but allowed a South Sea dog was next to an English lamb."

The when, where, how, and why of this split in humanity's feelings for the species is still hotly debated. Dogs are thought to have initially accepted humans as near-equals about 12,000 years ago, although some put the date as early as 125,000 years ago. The first alliance was over hunting, with humans relying on the wild dogs' keen sense of smell, while the dogs benefited from our weapons and flexible fingers. Canine historian Mary Thurston reports that as late as 1870 Native American hunters were followed by wolves for weeks, "at a distance of half a mile or so and at night, when he [the Indian] lies down to sleep, they will also crouch at a respectful distance." This business relations.h.i.+p turned personal when people adopted pups left orphaned by the packs that had begun to hang about the human tribes, a phenomenon which still occurs between Australia's Aborigines and the wild dingo dogs that loiter near their settlements.

The first dog wors.h.i.+pers were the followers of the Egyptian G.o.d Anubis who, 3,500 years ago, preached that their dog-headed deity walked humans to the afterlife. At one point they had a religious city populated by canine "priests" that humans petted to improve their karma, and archaeologists have found thousands of mummified puppies that were used in much the same way as Christians use crosses. The Romans later morphed this idea into "dog hospitals," where the ailing were given a healing lick. The thirteenth-century Italian St. Roch became famous for a "miracle dog" that kept him alive by feeding him with stolen bread. It is still the custom during the saint's mid-August festival to let all the village dogs into the church, where they are fed pastries.

The stronghold of the don't-eat-the-d.a.m.n-dog contingent seems to have been in Europe, perhaps because the colder climate killed off many edible plants and made hunting essential. My personal belief is that in this era humans and dogs actually ate and slept as equals, rubbing shoulders around the campfire, just as we do now. This hunting bond was so intense that until a few hundred years ago, European hunters still ritually gave their dogs the "soul" of any stag they'd hunted together by soaking bread in the prey's blood (thought to contain its soul), and then rewrapping it in the stag's skin. The dogs would then again tear the animal apart and devour its "soul" while the humans held the stag's head over the feasting pack. For some reason this relations.h.i.+p faded as humans headed east from Europe and into the Americas, at least as indicated by the practices of people from Asia to Mexico. But who really knows why such radically different att.i.tudes developed? Islamic disgust for the canine species apparently formed when they conquered the Persian Zoroastrians around the eighth century. The Persians, it seems, had wors.h.i.+ped dogs and considered killing or eating them a crime, and as part of their cultural subjugation of the area, the Muslims took the opposite stance. The Californians, however, chose neither to demonize nor deify. Torn between the desire to be two kinds of politically correct-culturally sensitive and kind to animals-the politicians simply returned the legislation outlawing dog meat to committee for further consideration. That was in 1982. It has yet to reemerge.

Holy Cow The weekly market in the coastal village of Anjuna, India, can be quite the scene. Rajasthani women peddle ten-pound silver bracelets; Nepalese merchants offer carved human skulls; English junkies p.a.w.n their tennis shoes; neo-Eastern-synthotechno -house-acid-rave-hip-hop-didgeridoo sound tracks fill the air. And there are celebrities everywhere-Julia Cow, Harrison Cow and, yes, even Keanu Reeves Cow-wandering about and mooing at anyone who fails to show respect. My beloved Nina J. and I had our own booth in Anjuna once upon a time. She peddled a soothing balm made of sandalwood. I sold delicious little gateaus of honey and coconut. Business was rather slow until one day a cowlebrity swooped down on our humble little stall, and in one long, lascivious lick, inhaled every cake I possessed. It also blessed Nina's perfumes with a liberal douse of spittle. Nina and I were ecstatic, and, just to be sure everyone remembered our celebrity clientele, we built a papier-mache cow's head, complete with a pair of glorious golden horns. The cakes looked splendid on its foot-long hot pink cardboard tongue the next market day. But not for long: our two-legged customers were soon lapping them up as quickly (if with less drool) as our Bollywood friend had the week before.

Indian cows live in a realm above and beyond the ordinary travails of mere mortals. Each and every one of them is said to house 330 million deities: s.h.i.+va has the nose and his sons the nostrils, while the tail belongs to Sri Hanar, the G.o.ddess of cleanliness. This extreme overcrowding means cows drip sanct.i.ty. All their products are sacred. Food cooked in b.u.t.ter is called pacca pacca, and it's karmically delicious as a result of its submersion in a cow product. Lesser foods are called kacca kacca. Some Hindus refuse to eat cauliflower because the Hindi word for it, gobi gobi, is heretically close to that of cow, gopa gopa. High-born Hindus returning from life abroad are often obliged to eat a pellet made of b.u.t.ter, yogurt, and urine, all bound up nicely with a bit of dung, to repurify themselves after life among the heathens.

Needless to say, no dutiful Hindu would think of eating the beast. It's a food taboo that has been widely criticized in the West; how can a country where millions of people die every year from malnutrition, wails the Texas Cattle Rearing a.s.sociation, afford "cow retirement" homes so a useless animal can end its days in peace? What's so special about a G.o.dd.a.m.n cow? The religious response is simple enough. In Hindu theosophy, it takes eighty-six reincarnations for a soul to climb up from a devil to a cow, but only one to leap the gap separating cattle from humankind. Hence, that steak on your dinner plate might have contained the soul of your newborn child. Historians prefer the idea that Hindu religious leaders became cow lovers two thousand years ago to prove that they were more compa.s.sionate than those upstart Buddhists. The ecological defense is that the cow's enormously complicated digestive system, comprising four stomachs, can turn the most wretched of weeds into milk, people food that is both delicious and nutritious. Its dung, dried and molded into patties, provides crucial fuel in the deforested continent. Its p.i.s.s, chilled, has the same tart flavors a.s.sociated with Chablis. To wantonly murder such a resource would be ludicrous. Rather, it is the West's steak fetish that is illogical, because the twenty-two pounds of grain needed to produce one pound of beef diverts human food resources to feed livestock.

Not that anyone is seriously suggesting that the Hindu fetish derives from a deeply logical impulse. Their pa.s.sion runs too hot for that. When Indian Muslims want to start a ruckus, they need merely to drive a herd of implied ground round past a Hindu shrine. The Hindus elicit equally enthusiastic responses when they "accidentally" lead flocks of pigs to the nearest mosque. There are riots, murders, then everybody goes home with the glow of sanct.i.ty staining their cheeks.

It's the English, however, who proved themselves the masters of boor-dom by offending both Muslims and Hindus in one fell stroke. When the East India Company, then in control of India, armed their native troops with the Enfield rifle in the mid-1800s, the weapon was cutting-edge stuff: three times more accurate and ten times as fast on the reload. The secret was the grease that encased every Enfield bullet. Unfortunately, this supergrease was made from pig and cow fat, the two animals sacred or taboo to every native on the subcontinent. The fact that the soldiers had to bite off the bullet's tip to load the rifle was pure bad luck. The Indian officers explained their dilemma to the British. If we touch this bullet-much less put it in our mouths!-we will become Untouchables. How will we find wives? Our own mothers will disown us! The English officers wrote to London and urged that the bullets be coated in mutton fat. London bureaucrats told them not to be silly. Indian soldiers started to mutiny. Unrest spread throughout the region.

Then out of the jungle trotted a sadhu sadhu with four pieces of chapati bread stuck in his turban. To this day the Indians claim to be clueless as to the meaning of the Chapati Movement of 1857, but it appears to have been a culinary chain letter. The first with four pieces of chapati bread stuck in his turban. To this day the Indians claim to be clueless as to the meaning of the Chapati Movement of 1857, but it appears to have been a culinary chain letter. The first sadhu sadhu gave his four chapati breads to a village elder with the message to share them with everyone in the village and then bake four more, which in turn were to be delivered to the next village with the same message, etc., etc. Historian Christopher Hibbert speculates that the chapati movement referred to rumors that the British were adding ground cow bones to local flour so as to destroy India's religious structure and facilitate converting the continent to Christianity. At the time, however, no one knew what it might mean, and everybody was on edge. The breaking point came when an Untouchable asked an Indian soldier for a drink from his canteen. When the soldier politely cited his caste as grounds for refusal, the Untouchable said, "What does it matter? Soon you will be without any caste just like me. You chew the taboo bullets. Cow killer! Pig lover! You are all just Untouchables!" gave his four chapati breads to a village elder with the message to share them with everyone in the village and then bake four more, which in turn were to be delivered to the next village with the same message, etc., etc. Historian Christopher Hibbert speculates that the chapati movement referred to rumors that the British were adding ground cow bones to local flour so as to destroy India's religious structure and facilitate converting the continent to Christianity. At the time, however, no one knew what it might mean, and everybody was on edge. The breaking point came when an Untouchable asked an Indian soldier for a drink from his canteen. When the soldier politely cited his caste as grounds for refusal, the Untouchable said, "What does it matter? Soon you will be without any caste just like me. You chew the taboo bullets. Cow killer! Pig lover! You are all just Untouchables!"

The Hindu soldiers went wild and started ma.s.sacring not just the English officials, but women and children. The British responded with a lamentable lack of restraint. They killed innocent children and shot rebelling soldiers out of cannons. Taking up the culinary motif, they sewed some Hindu soldiers into cow carca.s.ses and left them to suffocate. Their behavior was so louche that the British government decided to take India away from the East India Company and make it a member of the British Empire. In fact, this early revolution probably failed only because the Indian soldiers, who outnumbered the English twenty-five to one, refused to use the hated Enfield rifles during the fight.

Revolutions over cow fat, riots over roast beef-it strikes Westerners as preposterous until you realize that we, too, have ma.s.sacred and tortured thousands over the exact same issue. The first known portrait of G.o.d is a horned figure dancing on the walls of a Paleolithic cave in France. Horns, it seems, have always been a sign of supers.e.xual or supernatural power. The ancient Babylonians used them like military stripes and gave their more powerful spirits an impossible number, like the seven-horned lamb in the Bible's Book of Revelation. At some point this horn fetish became focused on cattle. From the Greeks' bull-headed Minotaur to the mysterious horn temples of ancient Ur to the modern bullfights of Spain, the entire cradle of Western civilization was once a den of cattle wors.h.i.+p. The most eccentric was the early Egyptian cult of Apis, in which a cow or bull was selected based on certain markings and wors.h.i.+ped as a G.o.d. The animal was particularly revered by baby-seeking ladies who flashed their genitals at the bemused beast to ensure conception. A pagan horned deity surrounded by naked women indulging in obscene rituals-any medieval Christian would have recognized HIM in a second. Witches kissing the Horned One's a.s.s were little more than overwrought cow lovers. The Judeo-Christian Church had simply demonized earlier religions and turned the horned deity into Uncle Nick, first in the Golden Calf so disliked by Moses, and then in the horned Lucifer. People who persisted in this original faith were tortured, tenderized, and roasted at the stake. When Linda Blair was possessed by the Devil in Hollywood's The Exorcist The Exorcist, she shouldn't have spewed vomit and obscenities. She should have mooed.

You and Your Beautiful Hide He was the most elongated man I'd ever met, seven feet tall, with ears that hung down to his shoulders. Would have made a terrier pup jealous. The Masai of northern Kenya are famous for elongating their earlobes to enhance their natural good looks, and his must have made him look pretty sweet. His outfit, however, left a little to be desired. He'd given up those traditional bloodred Masai robes and spears for a grimy guard's uniform and a shotgun, which he pointed at everyone who dared to enter the courtyard of our little hotel in the town of Isiolo. But he was definitely a Masai and loved nothing better than to talk about his family's cattle.

"We only have a few," he told me sadly while we shared a cigarette. "Ah, but they are just so beautiful. If you saw them . . ."

Everybody loves a good steak, but the beefy pa.s.sions of the Masai people of northeast Africa are so intense, so soul-consuming, that anthropologists have suggested they suffer from a collective neurosis called "the cattle complex." They pray to the beasts. They polish their horns. They drink their blood. They even name their children after cows. And every night, dressed in traditional crimson robes, spears in hand, the giant warrior-herders sing their beloved moo-moos to sleep.

G.o.d gave you to us long ago You are in our hearts Your smell is sweet to us.

But is this true love? Anthropologists Keith Hart and Louise Sperling found crucial differences between the Masai and Hindu cattle fetishes. For one thing, the Masai eat their loved ones. Reluctantly, true, and they get the animals drunk before their throats are slit, but eat them they do, and apparently with gusto. The wills of high-ranking tribesman usually contain instructions on which members of his herd should be eaten at his wake and which skins he wishes to be buried in. In fact, it's actually a point of pride to live upon nothing but cow products, mainly milk and blood mixed together, or a kind of cheese made by curdling milk with cow urine. The only combination not allowed is milk and meat together, and the Masai will always take a special herb to make them vomit out any milk they have drunk before they eat beef. To eat anything "not cow," or even mix vegetables with cow products, is allowed, but it's terribly decla.s.se. The ultimate disgrace is to be banned to one of the tribes that actually grow and eat vegetables.

Equally odd is that although the Masai language has more than ten adjectives exclusively devoted to describing a cow's charms, they appear to be indifferent to the quality of any given animal. It's only the size size of a man's herd that matters, and the chief's advisers are chosen not based on blood relation or geography, as is typical, but by the number of animals they own. I should say the number of animals they of a man's herd that matters, and the chief's advisers are chosen not based on blood relation or geography, as is typical, but by the number of animals they own. I should say the number of animals they stole stole ; the Masai are notorious cattle raiders (they don't view it as theft), and at one point owned 1 million head among forty thousand people. The anthropologists' conclusion was that a cow is no more sacred to the Masai than a lucrative NASDAQ share is to a Wall Street stockbroker. "Pastoral nomads (like the Masai) are some of the thickest-skinned capitalists on earth," they wrote in their paper ; the Masai are notorious cattle raiders (they don't view it as theft), and at one point owned 1 million head among forty thousand people. The anthropologists' conclusion was that a cow is no more sacred to the Masai than a lucrative NASDAQ share is to a Wall Street stockbroker. "Pastoral nomads (like the Masai) are some of the thickest-skinned capitalists on earth," they wrote in their paper Cattle as Capital Cattle as Capital, "and view the cattle as self-reproducing commodities . . . representing future consumption." Their reluctance to sell or eat their animals is simply the capitalist's eternal hope for higher returns on the morrow.

The security guard I met that night would probably not have agreed. It was just one of those chance encounters that happens when one travels about mindlessly for months at a time. I was trying to meet a friend up toward the Ethiopian border and had gotten stuck in Isiolo because bandits had made trucks shy about heading north. I certainly had no interest in cows. But it's hard to avoid the topic when talking to Masai. My friend that starry desert night told me how the G.o.d Engapi used to send all the world's cattle to the Masai on a string between Heaven and Earth. When the Masai carelessly allowed the string to break, Engapi sentenced them to a life of "gathering" up all the cattle that were (of course) rightfully theirs. He told me that in his father's day his tribe had owned hundreds of cattle. He even reminisced about the great cattle wars when the men would form raiding bands with names like "Red Bull," because naming the group after a bull made them more attractive to the cattle. One of their favorite tricks was to shoot arrows up in the air; when the dirt-loving farmers covered their heads with their s.h.i.+elds, he said, they were shot in the stomach. Ha! Ha! Ha! He laughed, throwing his shotgun over his shoulder. Such foolish people!

[image]ANGER"Meat eaters are generally crueler and more ferocious than other men; the observation is from all places and all times. English barbarism is the observation is from all places and all times. English barbarism is well known in this regard . . ." well known in this regard . . ."Rousseau Emile [image]ANGER MENU[image]APeRITIFKir Royale Champagne stained bloodred with creme de ca.s.sis AMUSE-BOUCHEInsanity Popcorn Traditional popped kernels flecked with vicious chile.

FIRST COURSEWagyu Beef Kabobs Free-range beer-fed beef which was ma.s.saged to death.

Served saignant. saignant.

PLAT PRINc.i.p.aLThe Sadean Goose Served in two styles: seared liver with wild chanterelle mushrooms, and breast au jus, roasted alive VEGETARIAN OPTIONBuddha's Delight (Lo Han Jai) Winter-vegetable stew, cooked according to the precepts of the Doctrine of Five Angry Vegetables DESSERTTwelve-Foot Trifles Candied Jellies Liquor-Soaked Muscadines Mincemeat Pies Plum Tarts Raspberry Fools Fruits Sauvage Served in a traditional Tudor food fight.

Casual attire advised.

In the case that the host sets the house ablaze, guests are advised to exit in an orderly manner.

The Civilized Sauce Neurologists tell us that hunger and aggression are controlled by the same small part of the brain. Stick your finger in the hypothalamus region, they say, and people (or at least animals) will be overcome with an urge to attack or eat. Putting aside the question of some scientists' kinky habits, this finding highlights how deeply the two impulses are linked. It's cla.s.sic Pavlov. Millenniums of sating our hunger by attacking other organisms has left us neuro-wired to feel the same impulse upon sighting a saignant saignant steak as our Neanderthal ancestors did when they laid eyes on a juicy-looking mastodon: Kill it, grill it, sauce it, and eat it. steak as our Neanderthal ancestors did when they laid eyes on a juicy-looking mastodon: Kill it, grill it, sauce it, and eat it.

This instinctual connection between anger and eating is expressed in a number of curious ways. Some cultures wage war by throwing feasts in which victory is achieved when the enemy is unable to eat another bite. Others have banned foods with characteristics thought to induce violent behavior, a school of thought epitomized by the cult of vegetarianism. Fourteenth century Turkey actually created an army of cooks called the Janissary. Originally members of the Sultan's kitchen staff, these merciless killers were called the ocak ocak, or hearth, and used a qaza sarf qaza sarf, or cooking pot, as their symbol. Officers were called sorbadji sorbadji, soup men, and wore a special spoon in their headgear. Other ranks included corekci corekci, baker, and gozlemici gozlemici, pancake maker. The highest officer was, of course, called Head Cook and when he decided to overthrow the Sultan-something he did with regularity-he called his followers into the kitchen and overturned a cauldron of soup, thus symbolically rejecting the Sultan's provender and all his policies.

The most refined reaction to the violence of eating came in Europe, which developed a style of cooking intent on removing all angry emotions from the dinner table. The secret was a good sauce, and the revolution reached its peak in the 1800s, according to writer Chatillon-Plessis, who divided the continent at the time into two groups: the "bleeding dish nations," like Germany and England, which served their meat in a savage and barbaric sauceless state, and the "sauce nations" like the French. "Compare these two," he wrote in his La Vie a la table a la fin du 19th siecle La Vie a la table a la fin du 19th siecle, "and see whether the character of the latter is not more civilized." Along with a growing propensity for concealing our meat under a blanket of bernaise bernaise, the tradition of carving whole carca.s.ses before dinner guests disappeared, save for holidays, where custom demands we continue to attack defenseless animals like a pack of wolves. "Cruelty, violence and barbarism were the characteristics of men who fed upon the fiber of half-dressed meat," opined English social critic Lady Morgan, "[whereas] humanity, knowledge and refinement belong to the living generation, whose tastes and temperance are regulated by the science of such philosophers as Careme [a famous Parisian chef]." The hope was that by concealing the natural savagery of the rite known as dinner, one could wean man from his other, more barbaric, habits and world peace would ensue. Instead we ended up with the modern American supermarket, where nary a clue remains to remind consumers that they are walking in a mausoleum of death and suffering. All is sparkling white, celestial light, angelic muzak. Or, at least, so it seems on the surface.

The s.a.d.i.s.tic Chef Infants are ripped from the womb and thrown into boiling oil. There're dead bodies, flames, and the stench of burning flesh. Men in bloodstained smocks-their eyes bloodshot from wine and heat-scream abuse at the underlings. Grate, pound, whip, beat, sear, burn, blacken, chop, crack, mince; Throw it on the grill, Throw it on the grill, the head chef growls, the head chef growls, and don't dare take it off until it's COM and don't dare take it off until it's COMPLETELY done, do you understand?

"A true gourmand," wrote nineteenth-century gastronome Brillat-Savarin, "is as insensible to suffering as is a conqueror." My preceding description of a restaurant kitchen may be considered an exaggeration, but Savarin's comment was all too typical of his age. His contemporaries recommended that cooks tenderize their meat by whipping the animals to death. Pigs had red-hot irons thrust into their living bodies to make the meat "sweet and tender," and eels were thrown alive into the fire for extra flavor. True gourmets had pregnant sows kicked to death in order to mingle their milk with the embryos, which were then removed and served forth. One recipe recommended that geese be plucked, basted with b.u.t.ter, and then roasted alive. "But make not haste," instructs the seventeenth-century cookbook, which suggests placing dishes of water at the bird's side to ensure it does not die of thirst before properly cooked. The bird is done, the author writes, when "you see him run mad up and down, and to stumble . . . wherefore take him and set him on the table to our guests who will cry out as you pull off his parts; and you shall almost eat him up before he is dead!"

These practices, common up until the eighteenth century, were ostensibly done to produce a more succulent dish. The ancient Romans, however, were unapologetic about serving violence as an aperitif to revive the jaded palate. Some hosts executed criminals or staged gladiator duels on the dining table. But most merely let their guests watch the first course slowly die a table a table , according to Seneca. , according to Seneca.

Mullets enclosed in gla.s.s jars are brought and their colour observed as they die. As they struggle for air death changes their colour into many hues. Others are killed by being pickled alive in garum (vinegar). . . . "There is nothing," you say, "more beautiful than a dying mullet. Let me hold in my hands the gla.s.s jar where the fish may leap and quiver in the struggle for life. See how the red becomes inflamed, more brilliant than any vermilion! Look at the veins which pulse along its sides! Look! You would think its belly were actual blood! What a bright kind of blue gleamed right under its brow! Now, between life and death, it is stretching out and going pale into a gradation of colour of infinitely subtle shades."

The old Romans found this appetizing, the theory goes, because they were more in touch with the essentially violent nature of the human species. Be that as it may, governments today have made these kinds of culinary highjinks illegal, and restauranteurs now go to enormous lengths to prove that their steaks died with a smile. j.a.pan's famously effeminate Wagyu cattle, whose flesh sells for $150 a pound, enjoy free beer and ma.s.sages before having their throats slit. Livestock raisers like California's Niman Ranch have made a fortune by claiming that their animals are not only killed in a painless manner, but spend their lives in a kind of free-range Club Med. And just as our ancestors' science believed that their s.a.d.i.s.tic cuisine was both healthy and delicious-some butchers who failed to torture their wares faced criminal prosecution-today's professors have conclusively proven that nice tastes nicer. Their secret elixir is glycogen, a carbohydrate found in animal tissue that provides energy for immediate action. If an animal dies after a horrific struggle, or even in extreme shock, its glycogen is depleted. This leads to tougher, more pungent meat, because when the animal dies its glycogen breaks down the flesh to make it more tender and flavorful. A cow that has died while stressed out, it seems, tastes like death. One that dies well rested is merely delicious.

Deep-Fried Murder The notion that anger should be completely disa.s.sociated from eating has gone far beyond a question of sauce or butchering technique. The smallest clue that our food came from a living thing has become virtually taboo, as amply ill.u.s.trated by a visit to any modern supermarket. Cattle are carefully ground up into a polite puree. Chickens come cubed and breaded. One rarely sees a head or hoof, and many children would no doubt be horrified to realize that their morning bacon once belonged to a cuddly little piggy-poo. Not everyone is pleased with this evisceration. Where, whine our intelligentsia, is the sweat of the farmer's brow, the anguish of the hunted beast? They should look in the snack-food aisle, where delights like potato chips have been specifically engineered to heighten the vicarious violence beloved by America's football warriors. Approximately half of the $19 billion worth of snack foods sold in the United States every year falls into the category of "crunch" snacks. This sector increases about 50 percent every decade, but the fastest-growing subsector within the crunch family are the so-called "extreme foods," which put a premium on extreme auditory effects a.s.sociated with anger: the splintering of skulls, the screams, the shattering bones, the sound track of mankind on the rampage.

Take a bag of Krunchers, which advertises it sells "no wimpy chips." First comes packaging designed to create a battle between bag and man, in which the latter drags his prey to ground and then, straining and swearing, disembowels it with his bare hands. The chips inside are almost useless as food. Just fat and salt. It's their shrieks of terror that we crave. In his book The Secret House The Secret House, science writer David Bodanis does a marvelous job of explaining how every aspect of the product is designed by food engineers to manipulate our instinctual aggression. The chips themselves are made too large to close your mouth around, so their high-frequency roar will curve around your face and reach your ears without any loss of volume. They're also packed with miniscule, air-filled "cells" that cause "shrapnels of flying starch and fat" to ricochet within the mouth and produce more of that lovely roar. Bodanis notes the essential violence of the experience when he writes that further chaos is ensured by the "broken fragments boomeranging at high speed inside the now vacated cells, like the lethal metal slivers broken loose inside an enemy tank by the latest shoulder-fired optically tracked missiles. . . ."

Corporations refer to this as "exciting" and grow cagey when asked about the relations.h.i.+p. No doubt Frito-Lay's use of heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman as their spokesman was mere coincidence. It all really amounts to using a simulacrum of violence to whet our appet.i.te, hence high-tech snacks like 3-D Doritos, which supposedly double the potential volume by creating an air pocket between two walls of high-tensile corn "gla.s.s." A tingling chili flavor is added to give us the teeniest adrenaline rush by simulating a mild burning sensation. Food futurists have speculated that chips like these will eventually contain chemical stimulants much like the increasingly controversial hypercaffeinated sodas and "herb" drinks flooding the markets.

It's a trend that causes people like Salon Salon's David Futrelle to question the long-term effect on our already jaded sensory threshold. "Taste in many cases is secondary; we're talking food as entertainment," he wrote, comparing some of the crunch snacks to violent video games. Both create not only similar thrills, but also similar action/response conditioning; just replace the tinny explosions and shrieks the video characters make as they are zapped with the chips' high-frequency roar as they are chewed. While most people accept that violent visual entertainment can inspire real anger, the impact of their culinary cousins is considerably murkier. A person eating a mouthful of potato chips is experiencing an approximately one-hundred-decibel sound level. According to a NASA study, 65 decibels of sporadic noise can cause a 40 percent rise in hypertension and mental illness, especially among children; other studies have found increased anxiety at levels as low as 51 decibels. Laboratory experiments involving college students found that the louder the noise the more aggressive people become. At 95 decibels of sporadic bursts of sound-roughly the volume of most crunchy snack foods-the students showed significant increased aggression. More important, their aggressive behavior continued after the noise ceased.

"One aspect of this [appeal of crunchy foods] is definitely a primitive sense of the act of destruction," said Alan Hirsch, Neurological Director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago. "When you destroy you get a certain sense of power, and that's why many people find the sensation of 'breaking' these foods so satisfying-they were expressing their subliminal anger."

If, as brain specialists say, eating and aggression emanate from the same part of the brain, which appet.i.te does the crunch of the potato chip stimulate? We know junk-food junkies usually reach for their treats in moments of anxiety, but n.o.body knows if they're experiencing something that enhances their anger or something that soothes it. Hirsch believes high-crunch snacks probably act as a catharsis because the consumer has control over the sound, a belief that appears to be borne out by other sound/anger experiments. Violent visual entertainment, however, also has a cathartic element. Certainly, the connection between junk food and uncontrolled anger has been validated by the numerous juvenile detention facilities that have halved inmate violence by simply eliminating junk snacks from their inmates' diets. While experiments like these were focused on the effect of excessive sugar and salt typically contained in snack foods, the blood tests performed for hypoglycemia and lower blood sugar did not adequately explain the drop in violence, according to a paper by Stephen Schoenthaler in the International Journal of Biosocial Research International Journal of Biosocial Research. At any rate, there seems to be little doubt that crunch has a psychological impact. According to Hirsch, one study involving 3,193 people indicated that habitues develop a distinct "crunch craving" third in intensity only to cravings for chocolate and salt.

No one is implying that snack food manufacturers want to stimulate violent behavior. They just want to make their snacks fun to eat. The problem, if there is one, may lie in the average American's growing inability to distinguish between the two concepts. Even our favorite beverages are a form of pleasant torture. n.o.body drinks flat soda, because the drink's key, if not sole pleasure lies in the subclinical trigeminal pain caused by those bubbles of carbon dioxide exploding on the tongue. Without them they are as exciting as, well, a flat c.o.ke. But then, every culture has its own way of invoking subliminal violence to stimulate appet.i.te. The next time you go to a traditional French restaurant, take a moment to meditate on your kir royale kir royale; how the tongue shudders with t.i.tillating pinp.r.i.c.ks as the bubbles explode; the way the champagne, stained bloodred with ca.s.sis ca.s.sis liqueur, writhes sanguine in the candlelight. Time to eat. liqueur, writhes sanguine in the candlelight. Time to eat.

Only if It Has a Face A peach drifts down like an errant autumn leaf. You pick it up with a sleepy smile and take a bite. No need to peel, for you know it will be honey-sweet, soft, luscious, and divine. Perhaps you share it with a friend, and, sitting in the tree's fragrant shadow, the two of you make love before slipping into the perfect sleep. You wake up in the dead of night. Something wet is crawling across your feet. You look down and see a huge sabertooth tiger licking your toes. But no worries, mate. You are in the Muslims' al-jannah al-jannah, the Greeks' Arcadia, the Druids' Avalon, the Judaic Eden, or one of a dozen primordial paradises that many religions remember as the place where we once lived free of death or fear or hunger or-most important of all-red meat.

The connection between the vegetarian diet and paradise is thought by some to date back to the Miocene period 8 million years ago, when it is conjectured that large parts of the Earth may have been free of significant predators, and hominoids, like everyone else, were strict vegetarians. The collective memory of this time, according to writers like Colin Spencer, supplied the imagery for this 2,500-year-old poem of paradise credited to Pythagoras.

There are the crops, Apples that bend the branches with their weight Grapes swelling on the vines: there are fresh herbs And those the tempered flame makes mellow Milk is ungrudged and honey from the thyme Earth lavishes her wealth, gives sustenance Benign, spreads, feasts unstained by blood and death

This prehistoric love fest is thought to have evaporated when the weather went ratty and we were forced to become hunters. According to some dieticians, the increased protein provided by the switch to a carnivorous diet caused an unprecedented growth spurt of the part of the brain called the cerebrum responsible for higher reasoning. This quasi-scientific "fall from vegetarianism," however, reeks of the Bible. In both story-lines, humanity breaks a food covenant-one with G.o.d (don't eat the apple), and the other with the animals (don't eat us)- precipitating a profound change in consciousness. Actually, the Bible repeatedly connects our fall from grace with a growing appet.i.te for red meat. G.o.d kept us on a strict vegan diet until we got tossed out of Eden. In the second-cla.s.s paradise where we found ourselves, meat was allowed but under the constraints outlined in the Book of Leviticus: no blood sausage, no fatty steaks, no pork chops, no cheeseburgers. Only after our behavior had grown so revolting that He drowned most of the human race in the flood were the survivors allowed full expression of their bloodthirsty ways. "Just as I gave you green plants, I now give you everything," G.o.d tells Noah in despair. "Everything that lives and moves will be food to you." Some rabbis claim Jewish dietary laws are really just a ruse to limit Hebrew meat consumption and keep them closer to a vegetarianism suitable for the Chosen People.

All these theological trappings make perfect sense when you realize that vegetarianism is actually a religion. People "become" vegetarians, they have epiphanies. Vegetarians think they're better than the rest of us, and, surprisingly enough, we tend to agree. Surveys of students reveal that even devoted carnivores view vegetarians as more moral and spiritual. It is arguably the fastest-growing belief system on the face of the planet. The West's current interest, however, is, predictably, clothed in pseudo-science of diet and biochemistry. "It's meat, ma'am," says Mr. b.u.mble in the novel Oliver Twist Oliver Twist. "If you had kept the boy on gruel, ma'am, this would never have happened." Mr. b.u.mble's explanation of Oliver's violent temper tantrum summarizes the belief of d.i.c.kens's time-when the term vegetarianism vegetarianism was first coined-that a meat diet led to unnatural bursts of violence, particularly in children. Other writers even credited English world dominance to the aggression created by their penchant for roast beef. At one point, Gandhi realized that his largely vegetarian Indian people could violently overthrow British rule only if they amplified their aggressive tendencies by becoming carnivores. "It began to grow on me that meat eating was good," he wrote, "and that if my whole country took to meat eating the English could finally be overcome!" He goes to a quiet spot and cooks up some goat, only to find it too tough to chew. was first coined-that a meat diet led to unnatural bursts of violence, particularly in children. Other writers even credited English world dominance to the aggression created by their penchant for roast beef. At one point, Gandhi realized that his largely vegetarian Indian people could violently overthrow British rule only if they amplified their aggressive tendencies by becoming carnivores. "It began to grow on me that meat eating was good," he wrote, "and that if my whole country took to meat eating the English could finally be overcome!" He goes to a quiet spot and cooks up some goat, only to find it too tough to chew.

Goat, of course, is notorious for its propensity to toughen when overcooked. The meat-violence proposition underlying Gandhi's foray into barbecue, however, is interesting. One could no doubt make a statistical argument that cultures where vegetarianism is the norm, like India, have lower rates of violent crime than meat-gorging cultures like the United States, despite much higher levels of poverty and other crime. It's also fair to say that the act of eating meat plays on our species' memories of hunting and killing, which could potentially lead to a different kind of violence in certain individuals. Some vegetarians argue that butchering animals for meat engenders general violence by subliminally sanctioning killing, an argument quite similar to the one made by opponents of the death penalty, who claim that our government's endors.e.m.e.nt of murder teaches our children that it is an acceptable way to solve problems. In 1847, lawyers for two London boys who'd killed their younger brother claimed that they had seen their own father slaughter a pig and were just repeating his behavior in play, the same defense offered in 2001 for an underage boy who'd pummeled a young girl to death, supposedly while imitating a wrestling match he had seen on TV.

The problem with all this is that there is no real evidence linking T-bone steaks to psycho killers. I believe vegetarianism's appeal lies not in this supposed ability to decrease aggression, but in its undeniable ability to amplify our capacity to love. Take the almost extinct Jivaro people of eastern Peru. The Jivaro eat meat but have a profound taboo against eating jungle deer. They point to the deer's nocturnal habits, its shyness, its quietness, the way it melts in and out of the jungle to appear, ghost-like, at the village edge. Then they point to the animal's fondness for grazing in gardens left abandoned when the people who tilled them died. The deer, the Jivaro conclude, are the ghosts of their dead neighbors returning to tend their gardens. We could never eat them, they say; they are our friends. This was the original reasoning of people like Pythagoras and Buddha, who introduced vegetarianism twenty-five hundred years ago. Like the Jivaro, they believed in a kind of reincarnation and that animals had "human" souls. It's this underlying concept that gives this religious diet its moral imperative, because by including all animals in "our tribe," it allows us psychologically to embrace and love more of G.o.d's world. Like throwing a stone into a pond and watching the ripples grow larger and larger and larger until the entire pond-from self to family to tribe to country to race, on to other species and all birds and beasts- falls within its magic circle.

Hitler's Last Meal Adolf Hitler was the nicest man a pig could meet. Or a cow or a lamb, for that matter. The ma.s.s murderer was such a devout vegetarian that he would weep during movies that showed animals being harmed, covering his eyes and begging the others "to tell him when it was all over." Meat-eaters, he often said, were hypocritical "corpse eaters" and ultimately unsuitable as candidates for the master race. One early n.a.z.i propaganda device was to sell boxes of cigarettes that contained a picture of the nature-loving Fuhrer pensively peeling an apple. In fact, the German vegetarian community was so instrumental in his rise to power that he once considered making a meat-free diet part of the party platform, only stopping when he realized it would damage the food-supply system and hurt his war effort. When he finally came to power in 1933, leaders of the movement hailed him as their savior.

This bizarre character quirk has been explained in a number of ways. Hitler said it was the writings of opera composer Richard Wagner that made him a believer. "Did you know that Wagner has attributed much of the decay of our civilization to meat-eating?" he told n.a.z.i chronicler Hermann Rauschning. "I don't touch meat, largely because of what Wagner says on the subject and says, I think, absolutely rightly." Traditional historians, however, suggest the diet was to alleviate Hitler's jumpy stomach. Psycho-historians point to his well-known oral fixations, like sucking his thumb during cabinet meetings, as well as to the guilt complex he developed after murdering his niece. It all certainly casts a shadow on the idea that vegetarians are innately peaceful, and to this day his fellow believers (dietary ones) still insist he was not a real real vegetarian at all-didn't his vitamin capsules contain animal gelatin? they ask. His pastries lard? vegetarian at all-didn't his vitamin capsules contain animal gelatin? they ask. His pastries lard?

Equally odd is the way Hitler treated his fellow carrot eaters once he got into power. According to historian Jane Barkas, Hitler first tried to turn the vegetarian/nature group Wander-vogel into the super-Aryan Union of Teutonic Knights. Next he pressured the vegetarian colony Eden to teach n.a.z.i race theories. When this failed, he banned the entire vegetarian movement. Their main magazine, Vegetarian Warte, Vegetarian Warte, was suppressed, and major meeting sites were turned into concentration camps. Known vegetarians were arrested, cookbooks were confiscated, and the owner of Cologne's popular Vega Restaurant, Walter Fleiss, appeared on the Gestapo's most-wanted list, apparently just for being a Jewish vegetarian. While the repression was part and parcel of n.a.z.i paranoia about any "group," the traditional a.s.sociation between vegetarians and the peace movement, and the implication that the Fuhrer was a closeted peacenik, were particularly galling to the war-hungry regime. And despite his backsliding during the war, Hitler remained as committed to vegetarian principles of morality as he was to cleaning the world of "subhuman" species. "He believes more than ever that meat-eating is harmful to humanity," wrote the author of was suppressed, and major meeting sites were turned into concentration camps. Known vegetarians were arrested, cookbooks were confiscated, and the owner of Cologne's popular Vega Restaurant, Walter Fleiss, appeared on the Gestapo's most-wanted list, apparently just for being a Jewish vegetarian. While the repression was part and parcel of n.a.z.i paranoia about any "group," the traditional a.s.sociation between vegetarians and the peace movement, and the implication that the Fuhrer was a closeted peacenik, were particularly galling to the war-hungry regime. And despite his backsliding during the war, Hitler remained as committed to vegetarian principles of morality as he was to cleaning the world of "subhuman" species. "He believes more than ever that meat-eating is harmful to humanity," wrote the author of Hitler's Secret Conversations 194144 Hitler's Secret Conversations 194144 (supposedly propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels). "Of course, he knows that during the war we cannot completely upset our food system. After the war, however, he intends to tackle this problem also." The vegetarian Final Solution was never realized. The world's most-hated murderer and animal lover took his own life to the tune of Russian bombs tinkling down overhead. His beloved veggie cook, Fraulein Manzialy, was one of the few followers to commit suicide with him. (supposedly propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels). "Of course, he knows that during the war we cannot completely upset our food system. After the war, however, he intends to tackle this problem also." The vegetarian Final Solution was never realized. The world's most-hated murderer and animal lover took his own life to the tune of Russian bombs tinkling down overhead. His beloved veggie cook, Fraulein Manzialy, was one of the few followers to commit suicide with him.

Little NiG.o.da If Lewis Carroll were the head of a religious cult, I thought, he would have built a temple like this. The main building to my left was covered inside and out with thousands of bits of broken mirror, while a few lungi lungi-clad priests sat meditating under a gaudy chandelier. The steeples looked as if they'd been squeezed out of a pastry tube. The building next to it was pure French baroque, albeit painted hot pink. Statues of the unlikeliest characters were scattered everywhere. Simpering English girls swirled parasols, boys in breeches cavorted with ba.s.set hounds. The largest was a six-foot-tall statue of an English soldier twirling his mustache with one hand and pointing furiously at the meditating priests with his other-get up you b.l.o.o.d.y wogs wogs, his expression clearly said, and get back to work! and get back to work!

I looked at the man at my side, a priest actually, head of the entire complex, the Jain temple in Calcutta. He was a big-bellied fellow in a white lungi lungi and skin-tight T-s.h.i.+rt. Jainism is the quintessential vegetarian religion, closely related to Buddhism, and I'd come to find out if it was true that followers wore gags to ensure they did not accidentally swallow a fly. and skin-tight T-s.h.i.+rt. Jainism is the quintessential vegetarian religion, closely related to Buddhism, and I'd come to find out if i