I’ve already commented in this blog that behind my wife’s blonde exterior there be dragons. Not in the sense that she’s any more dangerous than the Lilith of the Apocrypha. Rather it’s the quirky things that attract her considerable research skills. For example, her latest discovery is that the idea of witches in early modern Europe dining on the blood and flesh of infants – a practice likewise attributed to Jews – had its roots in the Roman misunderstanding of the Christian eucharist. Now whodathunkit, right?!

But that got me thinking. Why is cannibalistic infanticide so hard to understand, let alone countenance? After all, don’t we all prefer lamb to mutton? I’m told – though as a Jew I’m keen to deny I can attest to any of this personally – humans are not particularly tasty at any stage of maturity. But surely blood is another matter. A full English – they serve it in Scotland too, by the way – just isn’t ‘full’ without a healthy portion of blood pudding. Does anyone think to ask after the provenance of its namesake ingredient? Of course not. Why not? Because we don’t want to know. And maybe now we know why we don’t want to know.

I’m not going to tell you what she’s researching now, except to say I don’t look forward to my daily shudder. 

Categories: Humour

Tags: beliefs, blood pudding, breakfast, canibalistic infanticide, cannibal, English, eucharist, food, humor, Humour, ignorance, Scottish, witch beliefs, witch hunt