Raw Beef Culture

One of my old friends watched me eating a raw beef, which is perfectly fine in my culture. Raw beef in Ethiopia is considered ”kings meal” and people have eaten raw beef for centuries. My friend however, did not understand that watching me eating uncooked meal and he displayed disgusted face reaction as if I was practicing cannibalism. He asked me why I am eating raw beef and said that is disgusting. I was shocked and I asked if he eats Pig, then he replied no! That is “dirty”. How about pork I followed up, and then he expressed his love for pork with passion. I told him on my turn, which is disgusting. Why pork not pig? Sarcastically I asked! Because pork is cooked meat, pig is not! He replied. I understood that his reaction was from the lack …show more content…
In Mary Douglass theory, I was an “out of order” which he sees as a broke the rules that he and his society agreed upon. In my friend’s practical believe and assuming his understanding of his “holiness” by subscribing to the rules of “dirty”, and my violation of the rules by eating “raw meat”, I do not fit in his “social orders”. It is also true to my eye, his love for pork is “out of order”. His practice of eating pig meat in any form is equally explains his “out of order” status in my culture and community. Ultimately we both are “out of order” from each other’s society. I believe we both expressed these automatic responses in our first encounter. Moreover, our decision to end our friendship is practical as I understood in Bourdieu’s theory when he asserts “ practical sense, social necessity turned into nature, converted into motor schemes and body automatisms” (Bourdieu [1980]: 69) nailed it for me. My friend felted that I was an outsider, equally I also felted when we both asserted “disgusted” to each others test, believe, and cultural habitus. In both cases, I presume our relationship ended to show Douglas’s “out of order” and Bourdieu's