HUMAN FOODS 



Let us investigate more fully our contacts with the animals. 

 These fall under three main headings. We use animals and 

 animal products as food; animals use us as food; and we 

 make use of animals to transport us and to provide power, to 

 furnish us with leather, silk, bone, horn, ivory, shell, per- 

 fumes, glue, dyes, medicines, and very many other things, 

 which enter into our everyday existence. 



Fastidiousness is an attribute rapidly aquired by all peoples 

 with increasing prosperity, and one of the first symptoms of an 

 incipient attack is restriction in the number of different kinds 

 of foods consumed. 



In the Mediterranean there are some small and very inferior 

 fishes allied to the perch (Maena) which no one will eat if he 

 can possibly get anything else. In Venice, if you wish to say 

 something especially mean about any one you say "Mangia 

 menole," he eats these worthless fishes. 



In America we do differently; we contemptuously call the 

 Frenchman Froggy, and our sailors call the English Lime- 

 juicers ; and then we take the sting off by serving both f rogs'- 

 legs and lime juice in all our best hotels. And while we are 

 enjoying a dish of "mountain oysters," served at a very high 

 price, at the same time we pity the poor European peasant 

 who eats snails. 



In America we have always had abundant food; we have 

 been able to pick and choose our diet, and many items have 

 been eliminated from our list of edibles which are important 

 economic factors elsewhere. Thus of the mammals, cattle, 

 sheep and hogs are the only ones we use on a large scale, 

 disregarding dogs, cats, rats, and many others which are freely 

 eaten elsewhere, cats and rats when cooked being frequently 



IS 



