Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Ren Ren
Gibbons are sacrificed for hundreds of years when it is required to escape from adversity (for example, during a lunar and solar eclipse).
|
Interesting point as regarding the talismanic or spiritual dimension to animals species. Gibbons are talented escape artists so a hunter uses a bit of gibbon fur so he might enjoy the same protection. This transcends cultures.
The ancient Romans, like many ancient Mediterranean cultures going back to the Old Testament and perhaps before, sacrificed many kinds of animals during religious rituals. The innards were considered spiritually potent because the
anima (life-breath, or "soul") of all animals was said to reside in the gut. Not so different from the Chinese concept of the location of
qi, or in modern language we talk about a person being "gutsy" or conversely, "having no guts". This influenced the nature of Roman cuisine; in addition to being a thrifty people with agricultural roots, the spiritual association of internal organs made them highly desirable on the consumer marketplace; butchers would often charge more for these than for the muscle meat which most "modern" urban people greatly prefer. We still see the old preferences still existing in Italian country cooking -- on my last trip to Rome I dined at a wonderful little
locanta run by people from Puglia, where the specialty is meats roasted in a wood-fired oven. Their
fegato con polmoni (pork liver wrapped in lungs) was out-of-this-world, coupled with a fava bean purée (another staple from ancient Rome) and the regional red wine.