Monkey brains (cuisine)

Monkey brains displayed at Tao Heung Museum of Food Culture

Monkey brain is a controversial foodstuff, often attributed to the Chinese, but also found in certain other countries. The practice of eating monkey brains has led to over-hunting in Indonesia, especially due to the unfounded belief that eating the monkeys' brain can cure impotence.^[1]

In Western popular culture, the consumption of monkey brains is repeatedly portrayed and debated, often in the context of portraying exotic cultures as exceptionally cruel, callous and strange.^[2] It is often portrayed as follows:

• the brain is eaten cooked
• the brain is eaten raw (occasionally directly out of the dead monkey's skull)
• the brain is eaten fresh, spooned out of the skull while the monkey is still alive

Consumption

Monkey brain may have been cooked as an ingredient in the dishes of some Chinese imperial cuisine.^[3] Paul Burrell, the former butler of Princess Diana, claims he was served monkey brains on banana leaves and coconut palms in one of their visits.^[4] However, it is still debated, and difficult to substantiate whether live monkey brains was one of the items in the Qing dynasty Manchu Han Imperial Feast.

The Anyang tribe practices a tradition in which a new tribal chief would consume the brain of a hunted gorilla while another senior member of the tribe would eat the heart.^[5]

It is not only humans who eat the brains of monkeys. Two species of chimpanzee are known to eat the brains of monkeys which provide fat in their diet.^[6]

Risks

Consuming the brain and other nerve tissue of animals may be hazardous to health.^[7] Brain consumption can result in contracting fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such as Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and other prion diseases in humans.^[8]

Popular culture

That the eating of the brains from living monkeys is part of some restaurants' menus is one well-known example of an urban legend^[9][10].

• In the book Born Red, A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution author Gao Yuan describes looking inside restaurant windows of Guangzhou that "offered the famous monkey brains, served at a special table that locked the monkey's head in place; the waiter would open the skull and the diners would eat while the body wriggled under the table."
• Maxine Hong Kingston's book The Woman Warrior also contains a description of a monkey feast including the special table.
• The Attic: Memoir of a Chinese Landlord's Son is a 1998 memoir of life in Communist China by Guanlong Cao, in which the author describes the eating of live monkey brains.
• In Tama Janowitz's collection of stories; Slaves of New York, a character describes a dinner experience in which his fellow diners ate fresh monkey brains whilst on a business trip.
• In a Calvin and Hobbes strip, when Calvin complains about the smell of his mother's cooking, saying "Whatever it is, I'm not eating it!", his mother tells him that the stuffed bell peppers she is preparing are actually "monkey heads". While Calvin's mother succeeds in making him eager to eat the peppers, his father is disgusted by her description and reacts with the same words that Calvin had used beforehand.^[11]
• Serving monkey brains was staged in the 1978 mondo film Faces of Death, in which a scene shows a group of people eating the dish in this manner.
• Il Paese del sesso selvaggio directed by Umberto Lenzi (1972, also known as The Man from the Deep River) is an Italian cannibal film set in Burma that has a monkey brain scene.
• In Cannibal Holocaust (1980). A tribesman slices off a monkey's face and proceeds to eat the brains with his^[who?] genitilia.
• In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), chilled monkey brains are served as a dessert in a scene set in India.^[12]
• In the 1985 film Clue dinner guests are served monkey brains, but they are not revealed as such until the end of the film. This provides a clue towards who killed the cook.
• In the 1995 Hong Kong film Jin Yu Man Tang (The Chinese Feast)^[13] featuring Leslie Cheung, monkey brain is the last cuisine that two best Chinese chefs are competing with.
• Elsewhereless (1998) is a contemporary opera set in Africa that features a live monkey brain scene.

References

1. ^ "Monkey brains on the menu (Indonesia)". United Nations Development Programme Viet Nam Country Office. 2003-03-03. Archived from the original on 2005-03-13. http://web.archive.org/web/20050313024343/http://www.undp.org.vn/mlist/wildtrade/032003/post4.htm. Retrieved 2007-07-03. 
2. ^ "Taboo Table Offerings - The Intricacies of Intercultural Menu Planning". http://www.etiquetteinternational.com/Articles/TableOfferings.aspx. 
3. ^ Year of Monkey
4. ^ (Burrell 1999, p. 6)
5. ^ Meder, Angela. "Gorillas in African Culture and Medicine". Gorilla Journal. http://www.berggorilla.de/english/gjournal/texte/18culture.html. Retrieved 14 October 2005. 
6. ^ Clarke, Bella (2005). "Review of The Madness of Adam and Eve: How Schizophrenia Shaped Humanity". Human Given magazine. http://www.positivehealth.com/Reviews/books/horrobin68.htm. Retrieved 2006-11-04. 
7. ^ Dorfman, Kelly. "Nutritional Summary: Notes Taken From a Recent Autism Society Meeting". Diet and Autism. http://www.autisminfo.com/dorfman.htm. Retrieved 14 October 2005. 
8. ^ Collinge, John (2001). "Prion diseases of humans and animals: their causes and molecular basis". Annual Review of Neuroscience 24: 519–50. doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.24.1.519. PMID 11283320. 
9. ^ Debunking strange Asian myths: Part II | The Japan Times Online
10. ^ Live Monkey Brains
11. ^ Watterson, Bill (2011-08-14). "Calvin and Hobbes". GoComics. Universal Uclick. http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2011/08/14/. Retrieved 2011-08-16. 
12. ^ "Trivia for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087469/trivia. Retrieved 2007-02-22. 
13. ^ [1]

• Live Monkey Brains on maxent.org - an extensive, critical, annotated examination of the legend.
• Burrell, Paul (1999). In the Royal Manner: Expert Advice on Etiquette and Entertaining from the Former Butler to Diana, Princess of Wales. Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-52641-X .
• Golden monkeys hope for survival in 'Year of Monkey'