Some thoughts about the eating of offal from Speorri

The aim here is not to make a study of the magico-religous significance of the interest man everywhere and at all times has shown in viscera. But to talk about cooking is automatically to talk about the digestive system, and in this sense Diphilus of Siphnos is right in describing the digestive properties of each vegetable; but the question goes much deeper, back to the soothsayers and hierophants of antiquity . . . And If were asked why Christian traditions in France involve eating of blood pudding at Christmas, and of mayeritsa at Easter in Greece, I would say because these are the feasts of birth and rebirth.