CHAPTER 65. The Whale as a Dish
“That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds his lamp, and, like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say; this seems so outlandish a thing that one must needs go a little into the history and philosophy of it. [. . .] Go to the meat-market of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal’s jaw? Cannibals? who is not a cannibal?”
Musings:
That Ishmael – funning with us again. At least I think he is.
We start with a history of who has eaten whale meat. Which sounds super gross. The fat content of whale meat is so high only a very few people with odd palates can even tackle it. But a history lesson we get and then – Ish turns on us.
He says, oh sure, make fun of people who eat whales while you, you two-legged people go to a meat market and select other mammals to eat: “Go to the meat-market of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds.”
And it makes one think, right? Especially when he adds, “Cannibals? who is not a cannibal?” And I remember the passage about how we regard creatures of the sea differently than creatures of the land and I am understanding that this is more than a chapter about whale meat. This is a chapter about what so many other chapters have been about – otherness. What is normal to me may not be normal to you, but are we so different?