No wonder...
–90 million cats are owned in the United States
–36 percent of U.S. households (or 38.4 million) own at least one cat
Cats have been used in some hospitals and nursing homes as therapy for the bedridden and ill!
The warmth of our furry bodies and open, purring friendship has a remarkable influence on a human's state of mind for the better.
Cat ownership helps children to learn responsibility and develop a greater capacity for empathy at an early age.
Cats also offer protection against certain physical conditions. If adopted before or shortly after a child is born, owning a cat reduces the risk of developing animal allergies, asthma, and possibly other illnesses as well.
Ain't this stuff cool, or what? ;-D
I get all warm and fuzzy just thinking about this stuff!
It is also well known that making the right nutritional choices in ones life are also an important part of the existence of your Human.
If they don't eat right, well, soon the Human starts having medical issues that if not taken care of, well let's just not go there.
( Before you proceed, dear fellow Felines... BE WARNED! There is a reason why this story is important for Pussydom Assembled, and our own health, and sanity. Also, please be sure to read the UPDATE, added Tomorrow Morning - An important, thought provoking, response by the British Cat known as Whicky Wuddler - After you read my Epose. ;-D )
Anyway, in one part of the world some humans have taken the notion of Healthy Living Thru Cats to a strange extreme. (There ARE other parts of the world with similar issues, and I'll get to them further along in the story.)
The Gastronomical Festival of the Cat is an annual two-day event near Lima where locals consume fried cat — including legs and tails — to help cure bronchial disease, a British newspaper reported yesterday.
A 63-year-old local woman with 17 children and 70 grandchildren told a Spanish TV station that she also credits cat meat for keeping her fertile. (See below for the link to the Sun's story, and the Video)
The Gastronomical Festival of the WHAT???
Hold on a second! My evening nap is gonna have to wait awhile.
This bears further investigation.
PETA is supposed to be in an uproar over this but, for the life of me, I couldn't find anything on their website to prove it.
Also known as the 'Massacre of the Moggies' – this event sees townsfolk in Canete, Peru, chow down on their feline pets for two days!
These folks believe that Cat Burgers, and eating fried legs, and tails, are also a sort of aphrodisiac.
The Peruvian Cats are bred especially for this festival – which takes place at the end of September on the Day of Santa Ifigenia.
Now, um, just who in the Sam Hill is Santa Efigenia?
The name is also known as Iphigene in Brazil, where there is an historic church by that name.
The Festival Gastronomico del Gato is held every Sept. 21st in honor of this gal who is supposedly the Patron Saint of the Black Arts.
She was apparently an ancient Ethiopian woman made a saint by the Catholic Church, and became the Patron Saint of Slaves, as well, which explains why the small African descendant minority in Peru flock to this place to celebrate their unique forms of art, dancing, music, chow down, and share recipes.
When asked why cats? a spokesperson said, because they aren’t kitties anymore.
The African descendants ate Cat to survive.
Yeah, so?
Just because your Great-Great-Great-Great GrandPappy just adored the wife's special family recipe so much that he made sure it was passed down to you does that mean you have to try it?
Some things are best left in the past, this Kitty thinks. ;-D
This town is a farming community? Then why don't they stick to farming, and let the Cats keep the vermin off the premises in peace?
Justine Hankins, of The Guardian, in England, thinks this story is the perfect way to distract her fellow Brits from the woes of the current Financial Crisis aflicting their country, and many other parts of the world.
She tsk, tsks about The Sun using pictures of cute kittens to illustrate their sensational tale, then writes:
"The minutiae of the economic calamity we're all facing is both terrifying and tedious in equal measure and, frankly, I think we've all had it just about up to here. So it must have been bliss to stumble across a story that brilliantly combines two staples of tabloid journalism: pictures of baby animals being cute and tales of foreigners doing the funniest things.
Here we go again. Another shock horror story about people from other cultures who just don't understand the difference between animals you cuddle and animals you cover in sauce. Cats are pets, cows are dinner – we know the rules, so why doesn't everyone else? The inevitable outcry over consumption of the wrong sort of animal is just as inevitably followed by accusations of western cultural imperialism and hypocrisy from people who take themselves terribly seriously."
The reason everyone else doesn't understand "the rules" I suppose is that, among other things the Humans have this saying about Rules Being Made to be Broken...oh, and besides some Humans keep cows as pets, and all of India worships the ground they walk on...or something to that effect. ;-D
Humans can go on guilt trips over their feelings about the cultural practices of other peoples all they want, but I'm not Human, I'm a Cat, and some of my distant cousins could be the ones being tossed into the pot, or slipped between Sesame Seed Buns, and slathered in sauce with pickles, and lettuce on top!
(Click on next 3 pics for enlarged images!)
Mrs. Hankins then has fun discussing the expressions of outrage many Humans are expressing over this expression of Peruvian Culture:
There are, of course, some people who will wield a pen in one hand to write an outraged letter to the Peruvian government about Cat slaughter, while the other hand is holding a sandwich filled with a battery-farmed chicken carcass.
She eventually ends up with this thought: "Perhaps the most unaskable question is whether Cats are worth eating."
If the financial crisis gets bad enough I hope she doesn't have the chance to answer that question! ;-D
PETA, of course, seems to think all the Humans should be vegitarians, I think, and is using the outrage of Cat Lovers to make their fellows feel guilty.
PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich says, "We've been getting a lot of calls from people horrified by the idea of eating Cats. We try to point out that there is no difference between eating a Cat or a chicken, or a pig. They all feel pain the same way."
Daddy doesn't think very much of PETA, though he does agree that the treatment of animals sometimes leaves a lot to be desired, and points out that most of his fellow Humans don't think Cats make a tasty morsel.
I had to remind him that, according to Wikipedia:
In southern China and northern Vietnam some people consider Cat flesh a good warming food during winter months. The Cat's stomach and intestines are eaten, as well as the thighs, which are turned into meatballs. The head and the rest of the animal are thrown away. Cats are sometimes boiled and made into a tonic as a folk remedy for neuralgia and arthritis in Korea, though the meat by itself is not customarily eaten.
Cats are eaten in some rural parts of Switzerland. The traditional recipe on farms in some regions involved cooking the cat with sprigs of thyme. Inhabitants of Northern Italy, particularly those of Vicenza are still nicknamed "mangiagati" ('Cat eaters') as a derogatory term in Venetian.
He then gleefully reminded me that according to the same article "Because Cats are regarded as carnivorous animals, consumption of Cat meat is not permissible under Jewish or Islamic dietary laws."
He seemed most amused by this fact for some reason.
Something about how neither party cares much for the other, and apparently can agree on little else despite being neighbors for 2000 years.
One commentor on the ZooToo website expressed her thoughts this way:
If I were starving to death, and I had a choice to eat my four Cats whom I share my life with, or to continue to starve, I would choose starvation. I would rather die than to ever bring harm to my Cats.
In some of the environments around the world, that I have heard of, read about, or seen on the t.v., I would rather just go ahead and starve to death than to continue on in such a sick, loveless, cruel place eating Cats to sustain that miserable quality of life. I just cannot accept living at ALL COSTS. Death is coming eventually, anyway, and I would rather die with a clear conscience than to live having to eat Cats.
I think most Humans feel this way.
Some folks seem to be of the opinion that "Cats, some of the most irritating animals on the planet, are gaining traction as a tasty treat."
In researching this story, back in 2008, I found one of the most disturbing websites online you will ever come across.
I checked it out so my fellow Cats don't have to, and any Cat-loving Human who might want to check it out had better have a strong stomach, as the pictures found there are quite disturbing.
There is a site called How to Cook a Cat.
No, really, no foolin', there really is!
The guys who runs it is named Matt Patterson, and he "has two dogs and a Cat. One dog poops in the house, the other is missing most of its teeth. The Cat throws up a lot and has partial kidney failure."
Freaked me out, let me tell you!
On a "libertarian" medium like the Internet, there is no end of sites dedicated to the construction of homemade bombs and weapons of mass destruction. However, a quick check on any search engine will uncover a striking lack of quality Cat eating advice available in English.
The day may come, for whatever reason - rioting, pestilence, famine, or just plain curiosity - you will need to eat a Cat. Your very survival may depend on this handy guide.
These folks are serious.
They point out that since Cat meat isn't commercially available in the United States (and illegal to boot), "you'll probably have to prepare Cat yourself."
The page is divided into sections, some with links to other sites related to the topic discussed:
1. Preparing your Cat for Consumption.
2. Skinning Your Cat - "Nobody likes cat hair in their food!"
2 Berkley High Schoolers have a site where they give lessons. (When I told Daddy he said, "Berkley? Now THAT'S funny!)
3. Cooking your Cat.
Did you know that there is a USENET site devoted to this topic?
A Slow Cooker Beer Roasted Cat recipe is featured. (Don't have a Slow Cooker? Bake it!)
Other Cat recipes mentioned are "Cat Tamales, Cat in Spicy Ginger Sauce, and Cat Au Gratin."
4. Cat Cookin' Resources.
This is a long list of mostly innactive (But described) websites that boggle the mind, including this active one:
A. A Recipe for Cooking a Cat Tamale, including what weapon to use when hunting down dinner.
Visit HOW TO COOK A CAT at your risk.
Okay, enough with the site Oozeing with the sick, and disturbing, I want to end on a note of hope, and optimism.
Some time ago, just how long ago, I'm not sure, a woman named Kelly Ann Takasch set up an online petition to "A U. S. Senator".
Anyway, she has long been encouraging those who are as concerned as her to sign her petition, and I assume, at some point she intends to send it to someone in DC.
So far she has managed to entice hundreds of people to sign the thing.
The thoughts expressed by the signees are sometimes serious, sometimes amusing, sometimes disturbing, but always interesting, and here's a sampling:
I like being different and all....and I wanted to comment...but um..I don't really enjoy cats as pets...but I don't enjoy them as food either..and sometimes they can be cute..so ...DONT EAT THEM!! that's not kosher dudes!!
I could care less Cats are annoying as hell, if I was more cold hearted I would probabl skin my Cat too and boil the fucker ...just not eat it...think of it this way we have birds as pets and we eat them....hail chinese Cat eaters!!
Kill the bastards that are doing this.
Cats are people too!!
A nation is judged by the way it treats its animals - Ghandi
Chickens are pets in Mexico, I dont see why we can't eat Cats cause SOME of you people like them as friends. Stupid humans. Anything that can be made into a burger should be ok!
I'm from New York, I ate my Cat and I'm not chinese. I killed it humanely though, does that make it okay? Lobsters are too cute to eat. AWW!
Cats, just like all other animals have emotions. If they didn't, they wouldn't be alive. This is just like kidnapping your neighbor's newborn child, and killing them to eat them. However, if you ask me, this is so much worse. This is not just animal cruelty but racism as well. Cats (and other animals as well) may not look like humans, but why should that matter? No humans look alike anyway. But, I digress... SAVE THE CATS!
*meow* [ Signed by Kitti ;-D ]
I hope that this post, and my accompanying array of photos, gives you food for thought...just not CAT food. ;-D
Now, I'm going to go take myself a nap! ;-D
***WEBSITES CONSULTED FOR THIS STORY***
The Sun: Fury over Cat eating festival. (WATCH THE VIDEO IF YOU DARE!)
National Post: Fur flies over Peruvian cat-eating festival.
The Guardian: Pass the Cat Burgers.
Crispy on the Outside: Cats are Yummy.
TrendHunter Magazine: Kitten as Food - Firefox Shares Logo with Cat Cooks, Festival (GALLERY).
Zootoo: Cat-Eating Festival Sparks Debate
***UPDATE - 2/2/10 - 11am***
Whicky Wuddler, The Everycat, of Somerset, UK, has become an intelligent, opinionated, contributor to the comments of this blog, in the month since it began, and, while a Blogger, since 2007, on various blogs, the limited output, truly surprised me.
The resources in the sdebar of Everycat, are many, related to Feral Cats, and Cat Welfare.
Whicky follows many Cats, and contributes to the ongoing conversations in our Community.
Whicky has left a comment, that, while lengthy, is MUST reading, so I've added it here (Thank U, Whicky! I hope you find the time to blog more, as you are quite good!).
Food for thought indeedy Nikita.
A most interesting subject, and one close to the heart of my Apes.
There's nothing a developed country likes to do more than point the wiggly, mocking finger of disapproval at a less developed country, and express extreme shock, and horror, whilst claiming the moral high ground.
The Sun is probably on a par with your National Enquirer regarding its standards of journalism.
The Guardian is well known in the UK as the home of middle class sanctimony, yet ever keen to suck up any integrity it can get from wholesome ethnic goodness - and ever promoting a fake guilt about the lucky lives they live whilst promoting a return to ethnic tribal values.
We Cats know Apes make life complicated for themselves, and many don't give a Rat's ass about the welfare of animals anywhere.
Apropos of Cat eating, it's interesting that China is mentioned.
In the Guang Dong region of China, in the 1980s - several restaurents opened up that put Cat on the menu.
The Cats were bred, or collected, and kept in the most appalling conditions.
They met their end - beaten, scalded, skinned, and filleted alive, before being cooked as per the drooling customers request.
Were the customers the uneducated, impoverished rural poor? No! The customers of these hellish places are the educated, wealthy middle class young Chinese. The lawyers, surgeons, dentists et al.
The practice of eating Cat had long declined in China, prior to the 1980s but in the 1980s, with the country opening up, and income to be spared, eating Cat became fashionable. But it's still the uneducated, impoverished poor who are blamed for such inhumane treatment of Felines. There's a similar situation in Korea, and Vietnam.
The RSPCA have been working for several years in China, developing education programmes teaching about animal welfare that have now been adopted into the national curriculum.
In years to come, the lot of Cats and Dogs (and all farmed animals plus Cats, Bears, Dogs are all skinned alive for the fur trade - oh, and who buys the fur? The UK, The USA, Canada, the whole of Europe of course) ..may improve.
In September 2009 the RSPCA announced that a draft Animal Welfare bill was taken up by the Chinese government, and even though this bill will take a while to come into effect, it will be adopted, and implemented country wide.
The press release about it can be found here.
The search page is here and, if you enter "China", you get 3 pages of stories.
We hope the RSPCA will extend their work to Korea, Spain (which has an appalling record on animal welfare despite the European Animal Welfare Directive of 2006) Peru, and ALL the other countries where the welfare of companion animals is held in such little regard. Too many countries to mention here really.
In 1995 the UK documentary maker Antony Thomas made an excellent film that looked at these issues in detail - you may be able to find it online, it's grim viewing (particularly the section on Cat eating) but it is worth a view. As it was co-funded by HBO it may be available stateside.
Details are:
1995 MAN & ANIMAL (US: To Love or Kill: Man vs Animal); documentary single for ITV & HBO
Ooops! I wrote a book! Better rest my paws now. They'll be needed soon to whap the food bowls off the counter to remind the Ape it's dinner time. I like apes, but I couldn't eat a whole one ;)
Whicky Wuudler
***END UPDATE***
Wow, Nikita. You were extremely brave and courageous in writing about this despicable topic in such great length.
I am shocked because the nature of this blog, as I have seen it, is generally carefree and happy. This one is provocative and edgy.
I believe you may have written this to shed light on a disturbing trend across cultures and to sway people to go against it.
If so, I applaud you.
The practice of doing this type of consumption, too repulsive for me to even type, is abominable, to say the least.
Posted by: Amanda Socci | August 28, 2012 at 08:35 PM
This is revolting. Which is par for many humans. I feel sorry for those who are young. The world is not heading anywhere I want to be in some years. A sad state for all
Posted by: Timmy Tomcat | April 07, 2013 at 01:58 PM
A great and informative post!
I found it very interesting.
Posted by: Jack | October 10, 2016 at 01:29 AM