We all love animals in different ways. I prefer them fried. According to French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this means I’m part of the economic striving class, as opposed to the cultural striving class. The cultural strivers prefer them boiled, roasted or sautéed, because this is far more cultured.

Not everyone agrees with him. Many of my friends are vegetarian. Whenever they come to dinner, we make sure we have some vegetarian food. On the other hand, whenever we go to their houses, they never arrange for non-veg. In all other respects, they are perfectly nice people, yet they never see how wrong this is. Because we eat meat, are we not human? Must common decencies not be observed? How did we end up divided like this? What historical or socio-political forces caused this schism? How has the pernicious practice of non-vegetarianism developed over the years, and how does it manifest itself in different cultures? These are some of the critical issues we shall examine today. Gruesome details will be fearlessly revealed. If you’re not vegetarian, I’m hoping you will be by the time you finish reading this.

Three million years ago, all of us were vegetarians. We subsisted on tree bark, nuts and berries. We were just another animal, amongst a host of other animals, grunting pleasantries at each other when we met at the watering hole, rather like the Madras Race Club. Around 2.7 million years ago, we started eating meat. The evidence is the cut-marks that have been discovered on fossilised bones, indicating butchery using sharp tools. It was only after we started consuming animals that human civilisation began to develop, beginning with animal husbandry and agriculture, and culminating in the iPhone. Thus non-vegetarianism, like the wheel, is one of the most important inventions in human history. However, cooking was invented around 8,00,000 years ago and perfected only recently by Sanjeev Kapoor. This means, for the better part of two million years, we’ve been eating meat raw.

Why did civilisation develop after we started eating meat? It was because it helped our brains grow. Meat contains high-quality proteins, as well as essential amino acids and micro-nutrients. Today, there are vegetarian foods that can provide these, like beans and tofu, but agriculture was only invented 12,000 years ago, and without bigger brains, we might never have invented it. No one knows when tofu was invented. The inventor chose to remain anonymous. The combination of meat and cooking was the key to our development. Cooked food takes less time to digest. An adult gorilla spends nine hours a day digesting his food, leaving him little time for painting or composing sonnets. The quick energy provided by cooked meat left us free to focus on other things, such as Candy Crush, and trying to understand why Arnab is angry.

Who we eat and how we eat them varies widely from culture to culture. Caution is called for while travelling. For example, if an Eskimo offers you ice cream, you should probably refuse, because they make it from reindeer fat. In Mexico, you should avoid the escamole, which is made from ant larvae. While accepting an invitation to dine in Japan, tell them you have a ‘no nakji’ policy. Nakji is a small, whole octopus, eaten live. The suckers often stick to the mouth and the throat, causing several deaths every year. In some cases, the non-veg creeps up on you. In Indonesia, the Kopi Luwak looks like coffee, but it’s made from beans excreted by civets. The English call it weasel coffee.

You might think these habits are restricted to the peculiar inhabitants of strange countries, and that you can relax with white people. This is not true. Fried brain sandwich is a delicacy in large parts of central United States, and tongue is a favourite in classy establishments from coast-to-coast. Haggis is freely available in Scottish supermarkets. It consists of the liver, heart and lungs of a sheep cooked in a sheep’s stomach. They add onions, herbs and oatmeal for flavour.

Which brings us to sex. As many devout Hindus have surmised, sex and non-veg are closely connected. The consumption of sex organs is common across cultures. Rocky Mountain oysters, for example, are not oysters. They are deep-fried bull calf testicles, also known as criadillas in Mexico. Apparently, they make men more virile. As do tiger penises, a sought after delicacy in China. It would seem obvious that consuming its penis is counter-productive, as this hampers further reproduction. But the Chinese are yet to realise this, and they are willing to pay high prices. Those who can’t afford tiger settle for donkey penis, sliced like salami, served on lettuce. It’s a specialty at the Guolizhuang restaurant on Dongsishitiao Street.

By now your non-veg friends must be looking far more inoffensive than you had originally thought, with their shami kababs and their chicken nuggets. Be kind to them, and be thankful you don’t live in China. And let’s just hope your brain isn’t shrinking.

( Shovon Chowdhury is the author of The Competent Authority)

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