Would You Eat These?

Thank goodness for cultural differences. If it weren’t for an animal-rights crusade against Peru’s cat-eating festival, British Sun readers would have been subjected to yet another headline about the economic crisis yesterday, the Guardian’s Justine Hankins writes. Instead, they got “a story that brilliantly combines two staples of tabloid journalism: pictures of baby animals being cute and tales of foreigners doing the funniest things.”

The “outrage” over the festival sounds familiar: Westerners furious about consuming kittens don’t think twice about chowing down on veal, while the alleged barbarians write their accusers off as cultural imperialists. But ultimately, feasting on felines just isn’t appealing, the vegetarian Hankins says. “Unless, of course, the credit crunch turns really bad and there's nothing left in the larder but the cat.”
(More cat stories.)