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themselves dealt with thoughtfully and critically. Individual eating practices were
often offered in list-like fashion, with discussants presenting experiences they
considered most extraordinary, surprising (to the other group members and to
themselves) or daring. The following is an example:
BERNADETTE:
Frog legs…I've eaten snake…shark.
VIVIAN:
Shark. I don't care too much for octopus.
IRENE:
Shark. Shark is good.
SUSAN:
I've had octopus before.
In this exchange, snake, shark, octopus and frog legs appear to be constructed in
ways emphasising their qualities as fashionable consumption items similar to
swordfish, duckling and, increasingly, deer meat (venison). Perhaps significantly, the
four women engaged in this discussion were either Los Angeles natives or had spent
the greater part of their adult lives in the Los Angeles area.
Interestingly, this list of exotic animals was immediately preceded by another very
different list, older and more 'rural' in character. The women raised in rural settings
initiated this discussion. Frankie, who spent most of her life in Alabama, introduced
the subject of subsistence hunting, and Alice, raised in rural Texas, joined in a
discussion of the hunting, preparation and consumption of jackrabbits, squirrels and
opossum. These animals are commonly eaten by many African-American families in
the rural South. In a fascinating study of hunting culture in rural North Carolina,
Marks (1991) finds that such so-called 'trash' animals have long been a default form
of protein for many local African-Americans due to the sequestration of 'legitimate'
game animals (for example, deer, partridge or quail) by local, often wealthy, white
hunting clubs. Animals like opossum, 'coon' and squirrel are generally considered
vermin by the dominant Euro-American ideology, more often recognised as roadkill
than as something prepared for dinner.
The younger participants, raised in cities, clearly did not identify with those women
whose families hunted and/or consumed such animals. They consistently used
distancing mechanisms in their speech (for example, '
they
eat opossum': emphasis
added). What appears, then, is a rural—urban split defined on the basis of animal
consumption: opossum, 'coon' and squirrel are conceptually linked to an
impoverished, rural, African-American community whose dietary needs are supplied
by hunting certain game animals and whose access to a normative urban diet is
limited. The African-American 'move' to the city and subsequent development of an
urban consciousness have broken the rural shackles, however, such that these
women are no longer obliged to participate in eating habits that may be considered
culturally backward. This emancipates them from the diet of a violent,
impoverished and oppressed rural past when 'we' were poor, 'we' were rural, and
'we' were slaves, forced by necessity to eat 'trash' animals.
