Chapter 57 Why do people eat game?

When winter comes, migratory birds begin to migrate to the warm south, and the animals in the mountains, forests and water pools have already accumulated enough nutrients in their bodies to prepare for the winter. When winter comes, the civilized people who live in the concrete forest begin to feel weak, and a voice in their hearts shouts uneasily: It's time to nourish. Winter, for wild animals living in or passing through Guangdong, is a season of changing from wild animals to game.According to a survey released by the Guangdong Provincial Forestry Department, more than half of the people in Guangzhou have eaten wild animals.Why eat? 45.4% of the people answered: "It can increase nutrition." 37% said "out of curiosity", and 12% said "to appear rich".On the surface, most people eat wild animals for "nutrition". In fact, the so-called "nutrition" here is not the chemical components necessary for the human body, but a unique nourishing effect of wild animals.

Most Guangzhou people believe that autumn and winter are the seasons suitable for tonic.As for tonic, it must be to eat some game, medicinal materials and the like. Regardless of whether the theory of "autumn and winter tonic" is scientifically valid, it is an indisputable fact that winter in Guangzhou does make people feel a little weak.However, there is a lot of knowledge about why wild animals become the first choice for autumn and winter tonic. As mentioned earlier, wild animals that are preparing for the winter usually grow plump and have fatter meat.However, eating wild animals is not eating pork after all. At least in the eyes of wild animal "lovers", the "fat theory" is simply an insult to their wisdom.So far, although there is no laboratory data to prove that the meat of wild animals contains special nutrients that are not available in whole grains, or that the same animal is more nutritious and easier to absorb in the wild state but in the domesticated state, however, The "love" of Guangzhou people for the food and drink of wild animals has become more and more wild, and they are even willing to risk lawsuits.

In my opinion, the motivation for eating wild game is much more complicated than imagined, and it cannot be summed up by "nutrition", "curiosity" or "appearing rich", nor can it be persuaded by a sentence "We only have one earth" . Why do people eat game?Why do wild animals make people feel more nourishing?I read some books, observed some scenes, asked some people and myself, and finally came to the following four conclusions: 1. Wild animals, as the name suggests, are wild wild animals that harvest the essence of the sun and the moon and absorb the aura of heaven and earth. In terms of physique and flesh quality, the difference between them and domesticated animals is like the health status of mountain people and city residents. This truth is so simple and intuitive, so self-evident.The "free-range chickens" that are popular in the Guangzhou market are not actually pheasants, but chickens raised in a semi-industrialized and semi-wild (or imitation-wild) environment. Even so, "free-range chickens" are still very popular among customers. Welcome, and can sell high prices. The joy that "free-range chicken" makes customers feel is not essentially different from the comfort of a parent embracing a child who has returned from summer camp military training.

2. It is wild and rare, so it is even more precious.As far as consumption behavior is concerned, it means consciously keeping a distance: everyone can eat pork, but I am partial to those who can eat pigs.The pleasure brought by eating wild animals is based on this difference, which is what Zhou Zuoren said: "I want to eat individual meat." If your thinking is not clear, you may wish to ask yourself from another angle: why you can accept Are the tickets for the safari park more expensive than ordinary zoos? 3. The more intolerable love and law are, the more pleasure it is to violate taboos. House flowers are not as fragrant as wild flowers, wives are not as good as concubines, and concubines are not as good as stealing. It is all "wild intentions" at work.

4. Cantonese like to eat the vigor of wild animals.Vigorousness is the unique view of Cantonese people on food. "Sheng" means "liveness" or "vigor".For example, a chicken is also alive, but it feels that it lacks a little heat and the "violence" of a pheasant. "Feng" is a key indicator to distinguish between wild and domesticated. Compared with humans, it is probably what Li Yu called "state": "Those who make people think tirelessly, and even risk their lives to follow, are all "state". Also." It is a wild state that makes a wild animal a wild stunner.

Assuming that wild animals are indeed nourishing, then, as a big dish on the dinner table or even a feast, the taste must also be considered as a factor.Otherwise, no matter how wild it is, it cannot be called "taste" after all. Although the motives for eating wild animals vary, anyone who has eaten wild game will even admit that most wild game is actually not tasty.Generally speaking, except for wild rabbits (which belong to two species separately from domestic rabbits), wild ducks, wild boars, and the unique sparrows in Sanjiazhou of the Pearl River, the rest, such as tortoises, civet cats, and pangolins that are common in Guangzhou, have a basic taste. It can't surpass domesticated meat such as pigs, cattle and sheep.Even the acclaimed civet can't beat a sheep's breast.

In fact, most wild animals not only have thick meat, but also have a strong fishy smell, which is not acceptable to everyone.As for the "top-grade game" such as monitor lizards and owls, the taste is even heavier. The owl's cooking method is to add medicinal materials to make a soup. The black soup with a suspicious color can bring a vague sense of strangeness to the mouth, and the rest is all medicinal. Of course, wild animals are basically a "don't ask the taste to see the effect" food.Taking the owl as an example, it is said that the curative effect is mainly to improve eyesight.It is said that removing the hair and intestines, frying it, and eating it can cure malaria, and its liver is used by magicians.Although it is generally believed that quinine is still the most effective drug for treating malaria so far, because owls have amazing night vision, the symbolic implication of "bright eyesight" is the same as donkey whips to strengthen yang and tiger bones to strengthen joints. , is a lovely way of thinking.Yes, "good medicine tastes bitter". If owl soup tastes as good as chicken soup, we would have to doubt its efficacy.

Protecting wild animals and fasting wild game are foreign doctrines, but hunting and eating wild game is not just a problem for Chinese people. Politically correct animal protectionism is humiliating Cantonese and even all Chinese people, but foreigners also eat wild game.The difference is: on the English menu, wild game, like games or sports, is called game, which means what is obtained from hunting and is the result of a game.At the very least, semantically, this nourishing event that we regard as "nutrition" is downplayed, just like they call the Olympic Games, which is about the rise and fall of the country and the peril of the nation in our mind, a game.

As descendants of nomadic peoples, Westerners have a long-standing custom of eating wild game.As for the reason why they can treat it with a "game" attitude, it is probably because they don't believe that it has anything to do with nourishment or an extra nutrition. The meat obtained from hunting is usually wild duck and deer. In addition to the hunting process, the "wild interest" of these things is more reflected in the form of cooking, that is, firing and grilling in the wild or in a country farmhouse.Although there are more wild ducks in Bibang than flies in our country, deer hunting is still restricted by law in Europe, but in North America, where musk ox, bison, wild deer and pheasant are everywhere, the law can't control so much up.In addition, the Canadian government has long been notorious for encouraging and subsidizing the hunting of seals by Canadians.The Canadian authorities allow 260,000 seals to be hunted each year, and ignore the illegal hunting far beyond this amount. As a result, about 10,000 young seals are killed every year.The meat of the seal, which is eaten by humans or pets, and the skin used for fur.As for the fact that almost all the seal carcasses found by environmental organizations on local beaches have lost their reproductive organs, the answer can be found in some pharmacies in Beijing: aphrodisiac seal whip, 3,000 yuan a piece.

Australia and New Zealand eat kangaroos and tail pouches.Although kangaroo meat has been introduced to China for many years, the response has not been enthusiastic, which may be due to the lack of cultural recognition. After all, this is not the game of the Chinese.Of course, this does not prevent us from regarding foreigners as a kind of cultural "game". Today's so-called "wild animals" are relative to "domesticated animals".Before the successful domestication of some food animals, the meat that humans ate was all from wild animals. At that time, even humans themselves were all wild.

While humans continue to domesticate wild animals, they also gradually domesticate themselves from savages to "civilized people".Therefore, "wild animals" do not exist in a sense, but an alienated concept. Civilized people's tireless pursuit and yearning for the "wild state" has always had a positive symbolic meaning since Rousseau.Rousseau, who was tired of eating court meals, found that his favorites were wild fruits, cattle and sheep, and mountain springs in the countryside.Montaigne wrote: "We call wild fruit the fruits of nature itself through ordinary evolution... To tell the truth, I should call those things that we think are damaged and made special "wild." .In the former, the really most useful and natural qualities and characteristics are obvious. In the latter, these qualities and characteristics are overshadowed by us, and become only suitable to our corrupt tastes. However, these uncultivated Various local fruits are contrary to our fruits, and the deliciousness of the taste itself is very suitable for our appetite." Although I cannot make the inference that "Cantonese who love wild game are the most nature-loving people in the world" completely according to formal logic, nor can I assert that there is no conflict of principle between game supremacists and environmentalists. There are different ways to love nature.However, whether it is a wild fruit or a beast, legal or illegal, the difference is nothing more than the relative terms of a certain resource in a certain area and its extinction speed at this time and that time.In other words, as long as the "wild/nature" and "domesticated/unnatural" opposition patterns are not completely resolved, the law will always be exhausted behind the running of "embracing nature".With the rate of 40 to 140 species saying goodbye to human beings every day, monkeys and pandas today, pigs and sheep tomorrow, and apples and bananas the day after tomorrow.