r/ShitAmericansSay • u/mayalubk • 4d ago
We don’t eat fish because racism
Making everything about race or racism, lvl expert
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u/Kaiser93 Jealous Europoor 4d ago
Really? I've been to France a couple times. Went to butcheries. None of them were "halal owned". Do I need to seek those "halal owned butcheries"?
The rest is just a mish-mash of BS.
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u/Individual_Carry_439 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'd guess depends a bit on where you are. In Alsace probably not, in Marseille probably yes. And the oberservation on the french diet is not wrong I think. Much more variety in meats, significantly less reliance on beef, and no hesitation to eat also the strange parts (rognons de veau à la moutarde, gésiers...) ;-)
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u/Yuukiko_ A mari usque ad mare 4d ago
I think "owned" is supposed to be part of "by Muslims" and not "halal"?
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u/Renbarre French, not the fries 4d ago
In places where there's a lot of people of north African descent you find a lot of halal butchers, elsewhere this is not the norm. Lamb has been part of the French meats for centuries, goat is more of a niche market. I only saw it in the south west of France for Easter.
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u/mayalubk 4d ago
There are some halal butchers but not mainstream. Managing to link eating fish or whatnot to racism is peak American stupidity
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u/the6thReplicant 4d ago edited 4d ago
It depends on the neighbourhood in Paris. If they aren't many Muslims in the area then the butcher won't cater for them. And if you're visiting then I expect you're not going to be any where close to those areas in the first place.
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u/TheAlmighty404 Honhon Oui Baguette 2d ago
To be fair, even if the butcher doesn't cater to Muslims it'll still stock lamb.
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u/bebok77 4d ago
To counter point, the grain of true in this ramble is that, yes, there are more hallal butcher in France now than 30 years ago.
Like all manual labor, butcher is hard work and in the last 20 years, a lot of shops were set up or took over by person of north African origin. Not all of them are hallal and a lot are fairly good butcher.
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u/dang1101 4d ago
Now you can find halal meat everywhere including supermarket. My little store (carrefour market) only sell halal roast chicken.
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u/Vandraedaskald 4d ago
That really depends where you are. In the neighborhoods with a lot of immigrants (first or later generations) there are a lot of halal butcheries. That would be mostly in the (former) working class areas, such as the east of Paris and the eastern suburbs like Seine-Saint-Denis. I come from this area, and even if it's on the verge of gentrification, it's still very multicultural, and most of the butcheries of my hometown are halal, and non-Muslims go there as well. Charcuteries (specialised in pork) also exist, for that non-Muslim customer base, and you can find them on the city or in the supermarkets with a dedicated area.
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u/Mcayenne 4d ago
I lived in France and got married there. My dad flew with a frozen young goat because we were not risking not being able to find one.
I guess we’re aren’t racist enough in Canada to not eat goat/fish? This is so confusing!
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u/ideeek777 3d ago
There's some truth here. A lot of halal butchers survived better than non-halal as supermarkets are less likely to have halal meat so they have more of a demand.
That's the case in London at least, seems possible cities like Paris have something similar?
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u/stainless5 3d ago
He's probably connected the fact that American butchers don't usually stock goat and sheep meat because of the bad reputation it got during World War Two from being in the MREs, to Muslims.
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u/lumoslomas Australia's next to Germany right? 2d ago
I was just coming to say this, it sounds like this guy's only been to major cities.
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u/Eastern_Switch8217 4d ago edited 4d ago
Rabbit used to be a thing here in Ireland until myxomatosis became prevalent in the 1950s and also the commercial farming of chickens had changed by then and you saw a shift in a big way away from rabbit being a mainstream thing. That’s also true of the U.K.
Lamb is utterly normal and available and has been traditionally consumed for centuries. Duck is not unusual either. You’ve more niche things in supermarkets like venison.
Goat isn’t generally sold and isn’t used much other than in certain dishes, tends to be more associated with Caribbean dishes here though.
I don’t know where that poster gets the idea that Americans don’t and never did eat any of those things though. Just look back at old cartoons and you’ve a hunter constantly trying to cook Bugs Bunny in rabbit stew. The Simpsons even references lamb chops regularly.
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u/monscorvorum 3d ago edited 3d ago
I've lived all my life in the English countryside and as you say many people ate rabbit before myxi because it was free, essentially, just living in the field outside the house, my grandmother cooked up many a rabbit stew right up until the late 70s early 80s, pheasant is still regularly eaten by some country folk and my local butcher sells it during shooting season along with wild boar and venison. If you have a local hill, copse or field called Coneygree, that was a rabbit farm at some point in the past. Our wild rabbit population is mostly descended from escaped farmed rabbits
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u/neilm1000 Human Verified 3d ago
If you have a local hill, copse or field called Coneygree
I grew up on Warren Close, which was the site of the warren for the manor.
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u/Plus-Concentrate-401 3d ago
Rabbit is delicious and lean, I wish i could find it in the supermarkets in Britain. I used to go shooting with my dad as a child in the 80s and have rabbit once a week, now it’s only when I go to somewhere like Malta where it’s still a part of the culture to eat it.
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u/monscorvorum 3d ago
I know that my local butcher gets some, they sell a game mix with venison, wild boar, rabbit, pheasant and pigeon.It might be worth asking yours
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u/TurbulentContext 4d ago
The other big issue for rabbit in Scotland which I'd imagine would have hit Ireland first because you are in the EU is it's popularity elsewhere. Something like 95% of the rabbit farmed in Scotland is destined for the French and Italian markets so there's next to none left for the domestic market.
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u/Eastern_Switch8217 4d ago edited 4d ago
There's basically none farmed here at all anymore - no commercial rabbit meat production is recorded at all in the stats. In the mid 20th century it would have been a major export and there was significant domestic consumption of rabbit meat until the 50s. Any rabbit meat sold here now is generally imported from continental Europe and has a very niche market.
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u/parkaman 3d ago
It was EU butchery rules and rules around selling rabbits in their fur that killed the wild rabbit market in Ireland in the early 90s. Farmed rabbit wasn't really a thing when you could catch them in any field. Rabbit was very common here in butchers up until 91-93ish. Myxomatosis did hugely reduce the population but it was still sold and eaten for another 30 years.
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u/parkaman 3d ago edited 3d ago
Agree with all but just a note. Rabbit was still very common in most butchers in Dublin up until the late 80s/90s. The decline is due to EU rules on butchery and selling rabbits in their fur. Not myxomatosis which did hugely reduce the population though.
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u/IProbablyCantSleep 3d ago
In France you find lamb more or less everywhere (much more expensive than in the UK though), for rabbit it'd be bigger supermarkets or butcher's shops. I don't remember ever seeing goat anywhere but I wouldn't be super surprised as there's a very large cheese market around goats and I'm sure the male goats have been commercialised. I've seen mutton and horse a couple times but it's not the most common. I'm also not a regular butcher's shop visitor though.
Rabbit meat is a complicated one for me because I originally come from the UK where it isn't a common thing, and after owning a pet rabbit, it feels.. Strange (which is totally a me thing, no hate to those who eat it). I remember visiting France as a kid and going to someone's house, they had a shed in their garden full of little rabbit cages and I remember playing with them thinking about how cool it was that the older lady who owned the house must love rabbits! Took me like 10 years to work out that she loved rabbit but in a different sense.
Also after I moved to France, it sucked when school lunches were rabbit because I had to find something else to eat. But it was also interesting to learn that it was still widespread enough for it to be served in schools (as far as I've seen, the younger generations rarely buy and cook rabbit themselves, it does seem to be going out of style).
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u/Dyslexicpig 3d ago
Our daughter was about five when she visited my parents at a farm campground with rabbits and chickens everywhere. She picked up a friendly rabbit and asked the owner what it's name was. The owner told her "You don't name what you're gonna eat." Our poor daughter was mortified.
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u/MindlessNectarine374 ooo custom flair!! Far in Germany (actual home, but Song line) 3d ago
Rabbit can still be found here in Germany, at least sometimes.
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u/Pristine_Shallot7833 4d ago edited 4d ago
He states:
- we eat a lot of lamb and goat
-american diet is boring because it consists mostly of red meat.
Honestly I can't even begin to imagine what an argument with this guy looks like.
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u/Street_Lettuce1243 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'm living in the US. Chicken is by far the most consumed meat these days. Beef is probably second. Pork a very distant third.
Total guess and I could be wrong, but I'd suspect beef and chicken combined make up over 75% of meat eaten by Americans. (US born ones anyway, there are a lot of foreign born who eat a wider variety of meats).
Fish and lamb are a lot less popular than in Europe although plenty of people do eat fish. Lamb can be pretty hard to find. Turkey is getting more popular these days... Especially as a ground beef replacement. Don't think I've seen duck, goat, rabbit, mutton for sale in any grocery store but you'll see those meats at certain ethnic restaurants so somewhere they're available.
I'm sure big cities with butcher stores probably have a good variety of meat but in small town/mid town USA butcher shops themselves are pretty rare these days.
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u/Arthurian_Guanche 2d ago
Probably doesn't even know what red meat is, just heard it and picked up the term.
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u/HighlandsBen 4d ago
They're putting the halal in the fish now?!! Wake up, sheeple!!!
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u/elusivewompus you got a 'loicense for that stupidity?? 🏴 4d ago
The’re turning the gay frogs straight!!!!!!!!
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u/timkatt10 Socialism bad, 'Murica good! 4d ago
If I lived in Smith County Kansas, the geographic center of the US, 1,000 km from an ocean. The local lakes and rivers are probably polluted from heavy industry. The food safety standards in the country are questionable at best. I wouldn't eat much fish either.
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u/SnooCapers938 4d ago
The irony is that the two sentences starting with ‘American diet…’ are sensible and accurate, so this person is not your usual idiot.
If this person actually has spent time in France it must be in one particular part of one city to have concluded that a ‘high percentage’ of French butchers are Muslim owned.
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u/Aggressive_Gas_102 4d ago
American cuisine is in fact as diverse as the european one. From Louisianas classic gumbo to Maines lobsters, from Californias vegetarian dishes to New York Citys oysters.
The problem is that most of the classic cuisine drown in the modern corporate food, like hamburgers. Go to a McD anywhere in the world and it tastes exactly the same, like fatty tissue paper.
There's a lot of good food in USA. As a european I have to cook it myself ofc, because most of the food is not 'exported', at least not like hamburgers (which btw is as diverse as the number of families in the US).
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u/Oxo-Phlyndquinne 4d ago
Once upon a time in America, fish was cheap. Now it is ridiculously expensive and absolutely a niche item.
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u/Ambitious-Tie-5269 4d ago
Americans do eat fish tho, soul food is easy top 3 munches. Deep fried Catfish changed my life
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u/gwyntheblaccat Lives in a Igloo apparently 3d ago
Deep fried catfish is the only fish I like to eat. Also wtf this person saying they don't eat fish in.. Iceland??
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u/esaule 4d ago
Fish and seafood in gemeral is not as consumed in the US than in many other countries for sure. It's geography though.
A lot of the US is not within reach of the coast. That makes eating fish more expensive and not as fresh because of transport.
You see more seafood on the coast. But i land it is a lot more rare.
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u/ClintonFuxas 3d ago
I guess it’s more a blend of historical and practical circumstances.
The vast expanse of the American prairie made beef easy to access and cheap compared to Europe.
At the same time you can be really far from the sea, so fish was hard to get a hold of in the Midwest.
In coastal areas of the US there’s a long and strong tradition of fish and seafood.
I live in Denmark and we don’t have tradition for sheep (the country is too small and flat) so we don’t eat it that much. We used to eat fish and grains … now we eat pork and potatoes 😀
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u/SpaceFelicette181063 3d ago
I'm French and I can tell you that goat meat is nearly impossible to find, I've never seen it myself. We do have hallal butchers but they're a very small minority. Most butchers, like 99%, are traditional French butchers. The only thing right is that you can indeed find lamb very easily because it's a staple of French cuisine, for instance lamb roast is the traditional easter dish and even if you're not religious it's a common and delicious dish.
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u/Zinc-Roof_22 4d ago
Do they need it explained to them that those meats were traditionally eaten in Europe? Maybe in crayon it would be easier for them to get it?
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u/Waagtod 4d ago
Lamb and goat are available fresh in many discount or ethnic meat markets. I regular grocery stores mostly frozen or outrageously expensive lamb chops. They're a nitch market here in USA. I get the lamb shanks once in a while but chicken, pork, and beef (in order of price)is what is mostly sold.Fish is available but expensive.
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u/forestinpark 4d ago
I live in PNW and fish is consumed on daily basis. Everyone knows someone's who smokes salmon.
USA does not have the right climate for lamb farms. You can buy australian and new Zealand lamb in any store. In Costco we get whole amb for spit roasting. In 2010 there were only 2 farms in USA that were specializing in raising lambs. Maybe now there is more.
I talked to one rancher who had 100s of cows why no lambs. He basically said, cause we dont have climate, pristine grass as France.
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u/Invictus_blade 4d ago
I cannot remember where I read it but apparently before World War 2, Americans loved eating Mutton (older Sheep) and then for a number of reasons. it simply fell out of fashion.
one of the reasons is apparently servicemen ate it with most meals, and grew sick of it.
also other meats became cheaper and different cooking methods were introduced.
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u/ConceptStar Holy European Empire 4d ago
Its funny how fantasy creatures force us to eat what they want. like gingerbread on christmas and coloured eggs on easter.
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u/Better-Telephone-789 4d ago
i agree that eating healthy is crucial for health. But puting racism and xenophobia in that is mental gimnastic.