The Meaning of Food 79flesh provides perhaps the ultimate authentication of human superiority
over the rest of nature, with the spilling of blood a vibrant motif ” (1990,
p. 65). He argued that blood represents a life force and that by eating both
animal flesh and animal blood, “we drain their lifeblood and so seize their
strength” (p. 68). By killing animals and spilling their blood, human
beings can claim their control over nature: “It is not only the animal which
we so utterly subjugate; consuming its flesh is a statement that we are the
unquestioned masters of the world” (p. 68).
Cannibalism
Fiddes also supported his argument with an analysis of the categories of
what can and cannot be eaten. He explored the notion of cannibalism and
quoted Arens (1979), who stated that “the idea of ‘others’ as cannibals is the
universal phenomenon” and “the significant question is not why people
eat human flesh, but why one group invariably assumes that others do.”
Accordingly, the term cannibalismis used to designate others as uncivilized;
“the cannibalism label [is] used to denote a different level of humanity”
(Fiddes, 1990). Fiddes therefore argued that the taboo of cannibalism
emphasizes how human beings have become civilized, as they can eat the
meat which comes from the natural world (animals) but not the flesh from
the cultural world (humans). He stated that the function of the taboo of
cannibalism “has been to demarcate the sanctity of human society” and
that “our culture is distinguished as civilised, as a higher form of life that
cannot be preyed upon” (p. 128). The preoccupation with not eating
human flesh and the mythologizing of those who do create a boundary
between the natural world of animals and the civilized world of humans.
Eating pets
Fiddes also explored which animals can and cannot be eaten. He argued
that we care for our pets, give them proper names, allow them into our
houses, talk to them, “fret when they are unwell and weep when they die;
we may even bury them alongside us.” He also suggested that the phrase
“I’m so hungry I could eat a horse” illustrates not only a large appetite but
also an appetite so large as to drive the individual to transcend the normal
boundaries of what can be eaten. He concluded that “as honorary humans,
pets cannot be consumed” and that as humans are not fit for food, “any
beast that falls between human and non human, by coming close in some
way, tends to be deemed inedible.” In line with his central thesis, eating
meat symbolizes the civilizing of human beings. We therefore cannot eat