On Brits, Baboons, and Eating Cartoons

I'll admit that the reason I try to keep up with a few food blogs in the UK is because...well...the cultural divide makes some of the writing and food concerns (like arguing over who invented oatmeal, or worrying about the demise of British curry) HI-larious to me.

(Oh, stop.  I'm sure watching fat Americans endlessly dissecting FN hamburgers and deep-fat-frying all-but-babies is equally diverting to them.)

To wit:

[A.A. Gill has] really gone and done it this time, having started a recent review with, “I shot a baboon in Africa, last Wednesday, just after lunch. Shot it dead.”

Gill goes on to explain that he was in Africa wearing “the sort of hat that just makes you ache to kill stuff” when a fellow hunter asked “Why don’t we shoot a baboon?” With the help of a telescopic lens, Gill took aim at one 250 feet away and “a soft-nosed .357 blew his lungs out.” Gill admits he had no excuse for becoming a “recreational primate killer,” since “baboon isn’t good to eat, unless you’re a leopard” — so why did he do it?

I wanted to get a sense of what it might be like to kill someone, a stranger. You see it in all those films: guns and bodies, barely a close-up of reflection or doubt. What does it really feel like to shoot someone, or someone’s close relative?

Gill got maudlin when he examined his kill (“when you stare into the magnifying glass at a profundity, it’s the prosaic and pitiful that’s reflected back”), but it goes without saying that the review stirred up even more of a fuss in the U.K... (via Grub Street)

I know this makes light of a serious moral and philosophical debate worth having; most people would rather not mull over the strange and arbitrary boundaries that justify what makes which animals acceptable food from culture to culture. 

But...I couldn't stop thinking of this:

Comments

[from b e h i n d]

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[from b e h i n d]

"The following [hulu] clip is brought to you by 'Porky's.' Now on DVD."

Awesome.