PJ Vogt

If you were like, do you want to eat a baby duck?

I'd be like, I don't really have a strong opinion about that.

What are the reproductive policies?

It's really weird.

Like there's just a complicated amount of culture in that response that I don't know how to explain.

In America, there's a newer taboo which says that people shouldn't be disgusted when they encounter foods from other cultures, which is absolutely polite.

but also does not take into account that pretty much every culture has ideas about what's gross.

And for some of those cultures, what's gross is actually what we eat.

In India, where my editor Shruti grew up, a lot of people are born and raised vegetarian.

They've never eaten a bite of meat.

Can you imagine how gross meat would be if you'd never eaten it?

Or what inhospitable ideas you might harbor about the ropey, wet texture of animal muscles towards the people who compliment crispy skin?

Shruti told me in the school lunchrooms there, she'd often see a kid react to their neighbor eating chicken the way a kid here might react to their neighbor eating balut.

Disgust, the real disgust you feel in your stomach, doesn't feel like it comes from culture.

Our disgust feels hardwired.

But that's just not true.

If it were, Otto would have just been born knowing he can't eat people.

Instead, it's a rule he's being taught.

And a rule he'll soon understand is so important, he'll forget that he ever had to learn it at all.

Otto, thank you for coming in to ask your question.