Picture from Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions of Animal and Man (1872).
“Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of
beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast
heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencodds roes. Most of all he
liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly
scented urine.” (52)
In this extract from James Joyce’s Ulysses (serialised 1918-1920)
the main character Leopold Bloom’s meal seems to embody the essential elements
to evoke the ultimate feeling of disgust. His highly abnormal diet could be
seen as an extreme example of how tourists might consider the alternative food
sources that are utilized in foreign countries, which I certainly experienced
in my travels. Looking back through my previous blog-posts I see that they all
explore the notion of estrangement and disgust through encountering foreign
culinary cultures. Whether it is from my own personal experience or a through
Mary Rowlandson’s narrative there seems to be a preconception that what is
unknown is immediately marked as disgusting (on different levels of course).
Yet, why is it that we succumb to our curiosity and defy our initial sensory
impression of disgust? In Charles Darwin’s text The Expression of Emotions
in Man and Animals (1872) he describes humans’ notion and response to
disgust:
“As the sensation of disgust primarily arises in
connection with the act of eating or tasting it, it is natural that its
expression should consist chiefly round the mouth. But as disgust also causes
annoyance, it is generally accompanied by a frown, and often by gestures as if
to push away or to guard oneself against the offensive object.” (256).
Interestingly though, despite all these warnings, we still feel inclined
to try the item that repels us. Arguably, the eccentricity of a foreign
culture’s culinary traditions brings our curiosity to a point where we study it
with our eyes, we smell it with our noses, and taste it with our mouths, all in
the hope that we might be able to understand it.
Although todays’ supermarkets are filled with foreign
culinary products that we have adopted throughout the years, it has not always
been this way. Perhaps the pizza did not evoke a feeling of disgust when it was
first introduced to the market, it could be seen as a representation of our
culinary curiosity that constantly challenge us to explore new foods. In a
modern society where travel allows us to experience foreign cuisine first hand,
the Tikka Masala Curry is not as exotic and thrilling anymore. Consequently,
what we seem to be left with, is food that forces us out of our comfort zone and
evokes a feeling of disgust.
Work Cited:
Darwin ,C. The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1998
Joyce, J. Ulysses. London: Urban Romantics, 2013.
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