the most amazing thing i have never seen in my life?

Question

My work is associated with east African countries, mostly Kenya and Ethiopia. I just got back from Ethiopia with the weirdest encounter of my life, which changed my previous sympathy for the country. It all started with me and my co-worker as we visited the Lake Tana that’s the origin of Nile River in Ethiopia. There on the lake were these poor Ethiopians trying to fish while we sow one man dropping bunch of fishes, crabs, shrimps and lobsters, etc..back to the lake, I asked him why he was doing that, he looked at me with surprise and asked with broken English what else he could do with them. I told him why couldn’t he eat them or give them to other people, he shouted out, how people could eat such things and left immediately. We were both so surprise, imagine how shrimps and crabs can’t be eaten and the weird part is, they are Ethiopians always suffering with hunger and famine. After we encounter this we tried to show to the local people how to eat, shrimps, crabs and different kinds of fish as they only eat one type of fish , we cooked and tried to give them to taste, some of them were actually vomiting for just watching us eat and none of them dare to try, my friend was laughing at their stupidity but I was actually offended and the worst part is not just sea foods that they don’t know how to eat, we found out there are many types vegetables that they don’t know how to eat specially mushroom they call it “ umbrella of hyena” and children play with is everywhere on the street , but no one use them as food, my general encounter is that poverty is both mental and physical in Ethiopia and they are the poorest and the most proudest people I have ever seen. Can you imagine, they think eating pork is disobeying God? Anyway Kenya is relatively better, actually they are growing economically better than Ethiopians, and they know mushrooms, sea foods and pork are for food. My friend and I now working on project to teach Ethiopians what to eat hopefully we can get somewhere, anyone who read this can give me idea to include in the project I am posting this again & again because I haven’t really got good idea for my project

Answer 1

As an American i would hope to think that I would never eat a rat. But I know in my heart of hearts that if was starving I would eat just about anything. Especially if I saw someone eating it first. Religious convictions have caused many problems in the world and it even says in the bible not to eat shellfish. Could that have something to do with it? I don't know enough about the culture to make an educated guess as to their reluctance to try these delacasies but I would suggest communication with someone that the folks in the village look up to. To get an elder to try the foods may be all you need to get more on board. If you discover that there are no moral or religious reasons for not eating the sea treasures, prepare it, remove the shells, disguise the food and let them eat it. After that show them what it was. But go slowly.

Answer 2

I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree here. You aren't getting any good input because you can't undo thousands of years of cultural indoctrination among uneducated people overnight. The old Jewish rule is: nothing from the water unless it has scales and fins, and no meat unless it comes from an animal that has cloven hooves and chews its cud. One law is overlaid on another, so it's also forbidden to cook an animal in its mother's milk. This was extended so that separate dishes need to be kept for cooking and eating either dairy products or meat, which can never be eaten together. These laws were adopted by the Muslims and passed on to cultures such as you encountered. It caused them to look on these protein sources with the disgust you observed.

Have you ever relished the idea of eating a dog? How do you view chowing down on a tender roast of horse? Ever hear the joke about the lack of stray cats around Chinese restaurants? We have our own food prejudices, you know. There aren't many people in the U.S. that eat groundhog or possum, and a slew of ignorant people opposed to turning Bambi into stew. We have laws that forbid foreign slaughterhouses that process horses from exporting any meat processed in the same facility to the U.S. There are either laws, or laws being pushed, to prohibit surplus horses from the U.S. from being exported to Canada, where they are sent to Europe as meat. How much sense does that make? They can't understand our squeamishness because eating horse is quite acceptable in many European countries. I'm assuming you're from the U.S., which could be wrong, but try going down to the humane society for a couple of dogs to barbecue. Be honest about why you want them. Get big ones; they all cost the same. See what happens.

Answer 3

well i guess that makes the crabs happy haha. look different people in the world eat different things some people eat dogs,cats, bugs, the japanese eat fugu a poisonus puffer fish. in the beinging in the usa nobody ate lobster.. they thought of it as a trash fish just like your afican buddys. the chinse have a saying "the two things you can't eat is a dogs heart and a wolfs lungs" everything else is game.

Answer 4

Would it help if you told them Americans used to think tomatoes were poisonous in colonial times? Horses are eaten in some nations, but Americans would never eat horse meat. Perhaps if you found more of these cultural differences if would make them think more openly about foods they were taught were inedible.

Answer 5

Your story was very enlightening. Are the people there Muslim.is that why no pork or sea food?

Answer 6

Wow. I would love to hang out with those guys. I love all that food.