We're going to talk in this next segment
about what counts as being food and what counts as not being food.
This brings us into all kinds of complex conversations that you and I have with the
other organic matter that populates our universe including like our friend here
this little puppy dog. He's not supposed to be getting into that
restaurant, why should the dog be mixing up in of course the dog should be kept out
of the restaurant that's where we eat food.
We want to be very cautious about where the boundary between food, and thing that
aren't food gets drawn, we want be cautious about that as human beings.
Now, for our episode as we saw in a final culminating on one of our adventures, we
have this question about food crimes. The Odysseus's men are punished severely.
They're supposed to just go ahead and accept the idea that they are gonna starve
to death, when all of this food that is fully authorized by their cultural norms
is sitting right in front of them glistening waiting for them to eat him.
And we're supposed to just say, let's just say Homer goes ahead and just says oh my
gosh, I can't believe they did that, it's awful, and they get blotted out from the
face of the earth. Their own reckless ways.
Remember, it's cued up for us at the very beginning of the epic causes Odysseus' men
cross the line and eat the Cattle of the Sun.
Now, on the one hand, we might think this seems like an absolutely ruthless kind of
divinity that would punish them so awfully for just doing what normal people would
do. Normal Greeks would do eating some flesh
of this animal cow which the Greeks said is completely authorized to eat.
Well it's not quite like that. We mentioned at the end of our last
lecture. The point here is that our god, Helios has
declared that these cows be not food. In taking them away from the category of
authorized protein to eat, what the god has done is remove them from the normal
kinds of things that you and I can go ahead and sink our teeth into and enjoy.
Now, when we get to this rule about what counts as being food and what is not food,
we enter into a very interesting kind of conversation with our fellow human beings.
Some of us will look at something like this little creature in front of us.
And say to ourselves, oh my goodness there's no way that, that could properly
count as food or meat. Certainly not, there's no way I could eat
this insect, this cricket with wings and it's probably crunchy and what do you do
with it anyway? It just seems for some of us to provoke a
kind of nasty response that would even be a disgust response where we would be
absolutely repulsed by the idea of eating this thing.
Then we might get into another cultural dimension where we would say, oh, look at
this little creature and there will be some people that say, well actually, this
is perfectly fine, this is food. And, and it's, it's perfectly happy and
healthy and it's the kind of thing you would serve to guests to make them feel
good. Other people will look at this exact same
creature and say to themselves, no. There's no way.
The disgust response will be provoked. Even at a creature that other people think
is just fine to eat. Then we'll run into this figure here.
Who dressed up as he is in the garb that the Greeks like to give to the sacrificial
animal that they're giving to the, to the gods.
And gods like to eat it. So we Greeks know that this is normal
authorized food. There will be some other cultures out
there contemporary ones and other past ones.
That would look at this source of food and say to themselves, ugh, it provokes a
disgust response. It can't count as food.
It's on the other side of that normal everyday dividing line between what's food
and what's not food. Others will see something like this and
look at it and say well maybe it's not the most tempting food but I, I could surely
eat it and it would sustain me for a meal. Others would be ravenous for this kind of
a thing. Still others would look at it and say, no
look at that it's a violation, this particular cheeseburger.
You're bringing together kinds of foods that ought never to be brought together,
and so a disgust response is provoked. Now, the line between what counts as
normal authorized food, things that are okay to eat, and food that is, or
potential food things you could chew up and swallow but that don't count as food.
That line is exceedingly, exceedingly clear for most of us.
In its clarity, most of think that it's absolutely natural, but when we look at
the cultural differences in historical context as well as even in a contemporary
context, it's obvious that this line, despite how clear it is, is not natural.
It's culturally informed. Culturally determined.
Our culture tells us what the line is between what's food and what's not food.
Now, this line then, this culturally constructed line, drawing it right down
the middle, I hope I'm on the not food side [laugh] over here is food and over
here is, let's say, for sure, not food. So this line down the middle, culturally
constructed as it is, just because it's culturally constructed doesn't mean
therefore it's irrelevant. Well gosh, it's extremely relevant.
It's exceedingly relevant for all of us. It's one of the basic building blocks of
how we decide we're gonna associate with people.
Do they eat the same kind of a food that I do?
And if they don't eat a food that I do and we see them on the other side of this of
this food line, we say to ourselves oh my goodness that's so strange.
And in fact, we may have a kind of disgust response watching the other people eat
this food that's not authorized in our cultural categories.
That disgust response is non negotiable. So, the line between what's food and
what's not food is culturally determined. Number one and number two, it's also
non-negotiable. When someone is entering into that kind of
disgust response, oh my god, you're eating something that doesn't count as food, it's
not as though you can just kind of talk them out of it.
And say, oh wait a minute it's a perfectly clean protein source.
You deep fry anything for long enough and it becomes clean.
You're going to be okay, it's been prepared very carefully, etc, etc, etc.
You can't just get talked out of whatever disgust response you have.
The point is, that there is a strong, firm line between what's food and what's not
food. Now, at the far end of the category of
things that count as being not food, I've already alluded to it in drawing my line
where I did. Food on this side, not food over here.
At the far end of the not food is, that's right.
You and me. We count as not food for you and I.
And mostly, I'm not going to say it's absolutely universally true, but mostly
it's true. And by mostly very widely, is it true that
eating other human beings is considered to be an awful from the crime.
And it's absolutely case for the Greeks the idea of humans eating other human ugh,
that's just the worst the idea of monsters eating other humans, the idea of any human
beings entering into the food chain. We are talking about food crimes, when we
are talking about entering into the food chain.
And if other human are the people responsible for doing the metabolizing,
then it gets even worse. So crossing that line between what counts
as food and not food provokes a disgust response.
That's not negotiable, it just happens. It also flirts with, flirts with, but
doesn't always cross the line of, but flirts with that most extreme of food
crimes which we would put in the category of cannibalism.
Eating something that's not authorized as food gets us already thinking down that
path. So now, for Odysseus and his men to
transgress this line and go ahead and eat something that they already know or god
has declared is, count, counts as being not food is a much more serious thing than
just satisfying their hunger because they happen to have got into a bad spot in
their journey. No, it's, they have crossed a food crime.
Now when they've done that and entered into taking upon themselves to metabolize
something they ought not to be metabolizing they have committed an awful
crime indeed, and therefore the god is going to have it out and punish them with
utter severity.