Let me make this clear, I am not a Biblical scholar, and my belief in God is unconventional, but I have read the Bible. Several times as a matter of fact.
I recently reread Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Why would anyone read these peculiar books? I can answer that. I have been interested in food since I retired. I do most of the cooking. People I know that are Bible or Torah readers usually read Genesis, Exodus or Kings. They like stories about how Adam and Eve made out in various ways and how Moses became a physicist involved in water transmogrification and exothermic bushes. We all know how the little guy beat up the big guy and became king, and of course there is Samson, the dumbest guy in all of scripture. But as important and interesting as these things are, if you are a cook, wouldn't you want to know God's gastronomical preferences? Naturally, I went to the source: the Bible.
For example, how about eating an ostrich? My translation says you can't eat them. I make ostrich-burgers fairly often. They taste good and have very little fat. But I wondered: as far as I know, only Australia has ostriches. How in the world did ostriches get to Israel in the time of Deuteronomy? The only way I can rationalize it is Noah. I guess the ostriches in Israel were great tasting, because I visited Israel a few years ago and there wasn't an ostrich anywhere. They must have been eaten into extinction.
Bunnies. You can't eat them, either. I don't know about road kill, I'm still researching the translations. My friend Jim says the way to make barbeque in Arkansas is to get some run over ‘possum on the highway, then strap it to the manifold of a Ford truck and drive for exactly 46 minutes until the juices run clear.
In any case, God definitely doesn't want bunnies consumed, with or without Fords.
Boiling a baby goat in its mother's milk isn't allowed either. I've never consumed a goat boiled in anything, but I can see the logic of this. First of all, I can imagine boiled goat would be tough as rhino hide, but more importantly it would indeed traumatic for mama goat to see baby goat rendered into lunch in this manner. Much better that baby goat gets roasted with some good Idaho potatoes or marinated in a rosemary garlic sauce before barbequing
I must say I was surprised about the admonition against camels. I was in Cairo once and I can tell you that camel flambé is terrific. Swine ribs are a no-no, too, which would place the Cattleman Sauce Company into receivership in a heartbeat if this prohibition were followed by all mankind. Bats are out. Owls are out. Cherogrils are out. "Cherogrils?" you might ask. Sonny Bono's singing partner on a rotisserie? I've never even heard of a cherogril. What does God have against the poor cherogril?
Four footed flying things are forbidden. What kind of animal do you know that flies and has four feet? A goatasaurus? Animals with longer hind legs than forelegs are okay, though. Again, probably a Noah phenomenon. Kangaroos must have roamed the Golan Heights at one time.
Here's one that really got my goat, if you will pardon the expression: you can't eat things that kill themselves. The Leviticus admonition actually prohibits eating anything....and I quote..."dead of itself." Try to picture a camel with nothing to live for. Maybe it can end it all if it purposefully rams itself into a pyramid. Okay, so you can't eat a cow that hangs itself, but then the scripture tells you it is perfectly permissible to give it to strangers. Amazingly, there can be usury involved. Apparently it is acceptable to sell these psychopathic animal cadavers for profit. Picture the ardent, though enterprising Leviticus follower, now a vendor at the ballgame, shouting "Hoya, hoya....step right up! Get your suicidal giraffe livers here."
My friend Melvin, the world acclaimed archeologist, says that lima beans and Brussels sprouts were forbidden in his newly found ancient scroll. The ancient document he found has all the interesting stuff the prophet censors later took out. Melvin thinks that one of the Bible editors was a mom who took out lima beans from the original text so that she could use these abominable vegetables as extra arrows in her child punishment quiver.
Flamingos, according to the scroll, can't be eaten either because their legs bend backwards, a minor flaw the Creator acknowledges in the missing parts of Deuteronomy.
Finally, don't tell me that "mythical beasts" are mythical. Leviticus specifically outlaws consumption of griffins, presumably because winged, and giant eagles with lion butts that have four legs. Melvin acknowledges that in addition to that ugly beast, the chimera was culinarily prohibited because it had two out of three strikes against it: the lion part was okay, but the goat and snake parts were disqualified. There is a wonderful recipe in Melvin's scripture scroll that has a griffin thigh slow roasted with a tangy mandarin basting sauce.
Our customs certainly have changed over the millennia. Even so, as a curious cook, I often wonder about some things the ancients ate; but I sure wish God had somehow managed to thwart the mom censors by keeping lima beans in the forbidden food list. God really got that one right.
