Taboo food and drink are food and beverages which people abstain from consuming because of a religious or cultural prohibition. Many food taboos forbid the meat of a particular animal, including mammals, rodents, reptiles, amphibians, bony fish, mollusks and crustaceans. Some taboos are specific to a particular part or excretion of an animal, while other taboos forgo the consumption of plants, fungi, or insects.
Food taboos can be defined as rules, codified or otherwise, about which foods, or combinations of foods, may not be eaten and how animals are to be slaughtered. The origins of these prohibitions and commandments are varied. In some cases, these taboos are a result of health considerations or other practical reasons, in others, they are a result of human symbolic systems. Some foods may be prohibited during certain festivals (e.g., Lent), at certain times of life (e.g., pregnancy), or to certain classes of people (e.g., priests), although the food is in general permissible.
Famous quotes containing the words taboo, food and/or drink:
“Lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life. It is also a direct or indirect attack on the male right of access to women.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The food of thy soul is light and space; feed it then on light and space. But the food of thy body is champagne and oysters; feed it then on champagne and oysters; and so shall it merit a joyful resurrection, if there is any to be.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things ... nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes: it provokes the desire but it takes away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him and it mars him; it sets him on and it takes him off.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)