The Talk About Pork

Born, raised, and butchered in a moslem-majority community means that the cows, goats, and chickens in the hood never meet pigs in all their lives. Be it during their quacking and mooing live-lives, or during their shelf-life.

happy piggy, pic from here

And because they have never been introduced to one another, while I know beef, chicken, and goats pretty well (Yum!), the first time I meet pork was when I was in Ukraine.

Let me tell you how it was memorable.

For the major part of my life, unlike other normal people out there, my taste buds are pretty much binary, able to recognize only hot-pedas and "other" food. I can never tell what's inside my food.

So back then in Ukraine, during the first time we have our meal that's provided by the org comm, we were all sitting in a table together, ready to eat whatever meager portion is served. All of a sudden, the older gentleman from Dikti announced to the table that the meat were pork.

So forks and spoons and knives halted in mid-air. Well, save for one set of eating utensils that belongs to the only non-moslem in the contingent.

But uh-oh. Next to our table was the table of the Iran contingent, mostly tall young girls with scarves, eating happily. So that gentleman told them that it was pork.

A moment of silence followed. And then you can see their faces turn an instant shade of blue. It was the highlight of our evening. Gossiping about other people always make for a memorable evening, no?

Two days later, we explored the area, and boy! A convenience store! So we bought ourselves chips and chocolates and ice creams. We were kinda rich, I guess, what with the outrageous rate of conversion from Euro to Hryvna.

Back to the lodging, basically just chatting around with the TV airing some weird-language program, just to give a background noise.

Then out of nowhere, the guy without pork restriction pointed out, "Isn't that chips bacon-flavored?"

And in an instant, uneasiness. If memory served, then the chips were unfinished.

I have to admit, it's kinda fun watching the repulsion against pork. *Grins*

And I'm not the only one. During the last session of YLI program, there's this one speaker talking about corruption, and he said that the mindset against corruption should be shaped to achieve the repulsion that moslem has against pork. You know, the part that whenever a good moslem is offered pork then he'll go, "Hiiiii, daging babi!"