Did they have real recipes for something or were they just a bunch of
cannibals who ate each other ?

Arnie N. Techball wrote:
> Did they have real recipes for something or were they just a bunch of
> cannibals who ate each other ?

This may be a troll, but I'm just foolish enough to respond:

Early in Margaret Visser's book, _The Rituals of Dinner_, she discussed
cannibals, She began by examining the assumption that civilized people
are horrified by cannibalism and that they, in turn, imagine that
cannibals must be devoid of anything remotely resembling etiquette. She
points out that these primitive cultures -- where one would not expect
to find well-developed table manners -- have extremely clear sets of
guidelines for correct behavior, especially as applies to something as
important as the eating of other humans.

All humans are very concerned about the foods they do and do not eat,
the "correct" way to prepare them, etc. Neanderthals did not, as far as
anyone knows, write -- so if you mean recipes in our modern sense, of
course they did not have recipes. However, if we examine pre-literate
societies that do, or have, practised cannibalism as a regular part of
their culture (leaving aside, for our current purpose, individual
psychotic cannibals), we find that they definitely do have
standardised, culturally approved methods of preparation. These include
such details as how the flesh is cut, stored, cooked, and which
ingredients should accompany the flesh during cooking.

I have collected a number of these "recipes" (which, I hasten to add, I
have not tried).

Survival cannibals, like the famous Uruguayan rugby team of _Alive!_,
tend to impose socially-approved rules upon something as supposedly
antisocial as the eating of one's companions -- and they make
distinctions between preparation methods, different cuts, etc. Even in
extremis, the urge to think, and organize one's thoughts, about food in
social ways suggests that "recipes" (in the broadest sense) are a
natural part of human existence.

Neanderthals were human and, while we don't know if they had speech or
not, they must have had ways of transmitting their accumulated cooking
knowledge to younger generations of Neanderthals. Such hearth-side
cooking classes must have included some rudimentary recipes.

__________________________________________________ _____
Gary Allen
On the Table
http://www.hvinet.com/gallen