Camel Meat?

Posted by Debbie Kwiatoski May 19, 2008

I just finished posting an article about camels - as a food source in the Middle East and North Africa. When I first read that camel meat was especially popular during Ramadan for the evening meals that are allowed during this great Islamic month of fasting, prayer and contemplation, my first feeling was that kind of sick feeling you get when you read about animals that (in the West) are more suited for pets or circuses, than for dinner menus. But that really is a pretty ethnocentric reaction.

What we eat (or don't eat) and why we eat it (or don't eat it) as a culture is a incredibly interesting topic -and one that would have to be dealt with in a format far larger than this blog or even an article posting. But, basically, when I was in university studying anthropology (which is why I'm a writer today, with no "repectable trade"...) one big point about this topic that stuck was that the narrow band of animals commonly eaten in any culture traditionally falls outside of the group of cuddly creatures we keep around the house and also outside of that group we deem to be truly wild- in other words, we eat domesticated livestock. And in the Middle East, that means camels. By the way, I've yet to find a camel recipe I actually think I could get past my lips....wonder what they says about my own ethnocentricities...