forbidden foods τα διατροφικά ταμπού The Canaseraga Times March 1906 ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗ ΣΚΕΨΗ

 

Forbidden foods

Condemned as food

τα διατροφικά ταμπού

The Canaseraga Times March 1906

ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗ ΣΚΕΨΗ

  

 

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  Pork was highly esteemed by the ancient Greeks and Romans.

«Θεσμοφόρια» εορτή για τη θεά Δήμητρα και την κόρη της Περσεφόνη. Συμμετέχουν αποκλειστικά γυναίκες. Γίνεται θυσία χοίρου.

 

   Those who took part in the “Eleusinia” mysteries, abstained from certain food and, above all, from beans (φασόλια).

 

 

 

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   But people have abstained from eating kinds of flesh which could not be called unclean.

   For example, the people of Thebes, as Herodotus tells us, abstained from sheep (αρνί, πρόβατα).

 

 

 

 

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   O Πλούταρχος στα «Ρωμαϊκά Ερωτήματα/Ζητήματα» [“Αίτια Ρωμαϊκά»] ρωτά: «Γιατί οι Ρωμαίοι απέχουν από τη σάρκα του δρυοκολάπτη;»

21. “ Διά τί τὸν δρυοκολάπτην oι Λατῖνοι σέβονται͵ καὶ ἀπέχονται πάντες ἰσχυρῶς τοῦ ὄρνιθος; ”’

 

   Is it because, as they tell the tale, Picus transformed by his wife’s magic drugs, became a woodpecker and in that form gives oracles and prophecies to those who consult him?

[τὸν Πἶκον λέγουσι ὑπὸ φαρμάκων τῆς γυναικὸς μεταβαλεῖν τὴν φύσιν καὶ γενόμενον δρυοκολάπτην ἀποφθέγγεσθαι λόγια καὶ χρησμῳδεῖν τοῖς ἐρωτῶσιν; ]

   Or is this wholly incredible and monstrous, and is that other tale more credible which relates that when Romulus and Remus were exposed, not only did a she-wolf suckle them, but also a certain woodpecker came continually to visit them and bring them scraps of food [ἀλλὰ και δρυοκολάπτης τις ἐπιφοιτῶν ἐψώμιζεν]? For generally, even to this day, in foot-hills and thickly wooded places where the woodpecker is found, there also is found the wolf, as Nigidius records.

   Or is it rather because they regard this bird as sacred to Mars [τοῦτον Άρεος ἱερὸν νομίζουσι τὸν ὄρνιν], even as other birds to other gods ? For it is a courageous and spirited bird and has a beak so strong that it can overturn oaks by pecking them until it has reached the inmost part of the tree.

 

 

 

 

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  The survival of antipathy to certain foods was found among people as highly civilized as the Egyptians, the Greek and the Romans.

   For example, in old Egypt the sheep could not be eaten in Thebes (Θήβαι), nor the goat in Mendes (Μένδης, Μένδητος – στο δέλτα του Νείλου), nor the cat in Bubastis (Βούβαστις).  

  

 

 

 

 

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  Among the vegetables tabooed as food by the Egyptians may be mentioned the onion (κρεμμύδι), the garlic (σκόρδο) and the leek (πράσο).

    Lucian (Λουκιανός) says that the inhabitants of Pelusium (Πηλούσιο) adored the onion. According to Pliny (Πλίνιο), the Egyptians used to swear by the leek and the onion. Juvenal (Γιουβενάλης) pokes fun at those who thought it a sin to eat them.

 

 

 

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   The survivals of totemism among ancient Greeks are very interesting. Families named after animals and plants were not uncommon. One Athenian genus, the Ioxidae, had for its ancestral plant the asperagus (σπαράγγια). We may be sure that this plant was tabooed as food to every man, woman and child of the Ioxidae.

 

 

 

 

The Canaseraga Times (independent family journal), number 44, New York, Friday, March 2, 1906, p. 1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Forbidden foods

Condemned as food

τα διατροφικά ταμπού

The Canaseraga Times March 1906

ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗ ΣΚΕΨΗ ]