21 août 2009
Martyre d'un chien errant.
Deux personnes jugées en décembre.
L'affaire n'en finit plus d'émouvoir le village d'Espira-de-l'Agly dans les Pyrénées-Orientales. La semaine dernière, un petit chien perdu, sans doute abandonné, a été aspergé d'essence puis grièvement brûlé. Un jeune homme de 17 ans et une jeune femme de 22 ans ont, depuis, été interpellés.
Le 10 août, vers minuit, ce petit animal errait dans le village quand
il est tombé sur une bande de jeunes. Sans raisons apparentes, l'un
d'eux a décidé de l'asperger d'essence avant qu'un second allume le
feu. Brûlé vif, l'animal a aujourd'hui des brûlures au 2e et 3e degrés
sur la moitié du corps. Il est entre la vie et la mort.
Présentés à un juge des libertés et de la détention ce jeudi, les
deux principaux suspects comparaîtront devant le tribunal correctionnel
de Perpignan en décembre.
A Espira, une réelle mobilisation s’est faite autour de l’animal qui a été baptisé Mambo. De nombreux dons et des médicaments ont été adressés au refuge SPA de Perpignan où se trouve le chien martyrisé d’Espira. Une manifestation a réuni dans les rues d'Espira-de-l'Agly environ 200 personnes choquées par cet acte de cruauté à l'encontre d'un animal.
20 août 2009
Manger de la cervelle de singe vivant...
- "L'actrice Brigitte Bardot, présidente de la Fondation pour la protection des animaux qui porte son nom, a adressé une lettre ouverte à Jean-Pierre Coffe, animateur de l'émission de France Inter "Ca se bouffe pas, ça se mange", pour avoir évoqué la dégustation d'espèces protégées. Outre le fait de retourner l'estomac des auditeurs en expliquant comment s'y prendre pour
"savourer" de la cervelle de singe vivant, "votre chef cuisinier et vous-même n'avez pas hésité à les informer des facilités qu'il y avait à se procurer de l'alligator, de l'ours, de lapeau de serpentou encore de latrompe d'éléphantvia internet, allant même jusqu'à préciser que certaines de ces espèces sont protégées", écrit Brigitte Bardot. Brigitte Bardot, qui se réfère à une émission du 31 décembre 2005, accuse l'animateur de faire "fi de l'atroce souffrance de ces singes dont on ouvre à vif la boîte crânienne" et d'occulter "les troupeaux d'éléphants massacrés pour quelques kilos de trompe que l'on cuisinera bientôt à la sauce chasseur"."En toute connaissance de cause, vous incitez vos auditeurs à contourner, via internet, les lois internationales de protection des espèces", ajoute Brigitte Bardot, qui conclut sa lettre avec cette formule: "Je vous prie de croire, Monsieur, à l'expression de mes sentiments écœurés"."
- "Un singe est maintenu vivant sous une table et seule la tête dépasse. Il est complètement immobilisé. Sans le tuer on lui scie l'os du crane de façon à l'ouvrir comme un couvercle. On verse alors de l'huile bouillante sur la cervelle pour la cuire dans sa "marmite" d'origine. Les convives détachent ensuite des bouts de viande comme s'il s'agissait des croutons d'une fondue..."
- "Vous saviez que la cervelle de singe est un met très apprécié et très recherché en Asie (Japon-Chine comme d'hab...). Dans certains restaurants (peut-on les appeler comme cela) ils apportent un singe vivant (un petit hein !!!), ensuite les serveurs le ligaturent sur la table dans un carcan et les convives tapent sur le crâne avec des cuillères alors que le singe est toujours vivant... au bout de quelques minutes le singe complètement ahuri et abruti par ce manège (mais toujours vivant), les personnes autour de la table scalpent littéralement le pauvre singe (je précise toujours vivant) et déguste le cerveau. Elle est là la conn... de l'humain, et tant que l'on ira dans de tels pays pour soit disant trouver de l'exotisme elle continuera... c'est comme les Saint-Bernard, les biches, les chats, les chiens, les serpents et autre bêtes (il n'y a que le nom!) qu'ils mangent..."
- "l'animal est mis sur la table de repas où les invités lui font boire de grosses quantités d'alcool, quand le singe est complètement ivre, il est mis sous cette table trouée en son centre, seul le haut de sa tête dépasse un peu, il est alors trépané à vif et les invités mangent sa cervelle à la cuillère. Difficile de faire pire, non ?"
Monkey brains as a exotic food or just cruelty to animals ?
Original article provided by K.C. Chan. Original translation by Lucy Yeh and D.E. Franks, 1998. Revised by D.E. Franks and Y.P. Kuo, 2001. Copyright October 21, 1998.
Apple Daily [?], Hong Kong, China .
Eat Live Monkey Brains! In Pingxiang, Guangxi, it Really Exists!
Ø Brutal Nourishment >
After the monkey is inebriated, it is placed on the table to await the hungry diners.
For the residents of Pingxiang, it is not extraordinary to eat monkeys. A gourmet can buy monkeys in the markets and send them to the inns for cooking. The cooks first force the monkeys in the cage to drink rice wine to make them drunk, then pull them out from the cage and bind their limbs ( to prevent them from awakening), then they chop open their skulls with a sharp knife, and then scoop out the white brains, the blood vessels still pulsing, easily visible. They serve the brain as soon as possible, and dig the brains out when they are still warm, eating them with some seasonings, such as pickled ginger, chili pepper, fried peanuts, cilantro and so on. The gourmet chews and swallows the brains and feels great, while the monkey kicks the bucket still drunk!
"The taste is like water tofu"
One gourmet said that the taste of monkey brain is not terribly special, perhaps like water tofu, and that pickled ginger and chili are used to add more flavor. Moreover, he added that the monkey brains become pungent if they are not fresh (for example if the skull was opened too long ago), thus it is best to open the skull and eat at once, while the brain cells are not dead and the blood vessels are still pulsing.
Another gourmet was eating monkeys while drinking wine. He said that eating them this way can kill any germs and bacteria. The local residents also love to eat live fish, which they also consume this way. The cook at the inn said that the traditional way to eat monkey brains was to seal its mouth and tie it tightly under a special table, with a hole in the center, so that only the monkey's head peaked above. Then the monkey's hair was shaved, the skull was cut open, and the brains were eaten while it was still alive. Sometimes the monkey's mouth was not sealed tightly enough, resulting in miserable screams or moans from under the table.
This method is too cruel by current standards however, and has thus been changed: the monkeys are inebriated and the brains are eaten after they lose consciousness. The cook said that a long-tailed monkey which weighs 1.5kg has a brain that weighs 150 grams at most, so it is very special to eat raw monkey brain, but it is also wasteful. Monkey paw and meat stew
After eating the brains, the cook then makes other dishes with the rest of the monkey. The paws and meat can be used as stock, or stewed in a soup with nutritional herbs and chicken. The customers had only compliments on how delicious it was. One of the women was quite disgusted when a paw was ladled from the soup with the nails clearly visible!
Imported wild animals not banned
The Pingxiang Fresh Wild Game Market [?] located in the center of the city, is said to operate with special permission. There are many varieties of wild animals, not only monkeys, but also owls, chameleons, and Wuzhua [?] pythons, not to mention pangolins [scaly anteaters] and Shanjue pangolins; and they are all inexpensive. For example, a long-tailed monkey, which weighs about 1.5kg costs only $380CNY [yuan renminbi where $1USD = $8CNY]. Chameleons are $15CNY for 0.5kg, and pangolins are less than $50CNY for 0.5kg.
Only domestic animals are protected
The Wild Life Market is very famous. Tourists go there on their way to Pingxiang or to the frontier. Animal-lovers may buy a thumb-monkey or a canary as a pet for the home. Gourmet buys whatever they want and ask the inns for processing, and then enjoys a wonderful meal. According to one official, the government is determined to protect domestic wild animals, but since this small town is near Vietnam , many of the animals that are available in markets have been smuggled in from beyond the border. They have no reasons to regulate this trade, and even welcome those animals, the more the better. Some people argue that it is illegal to eat these animals [no matter where they are from], and the official said that this is reasonable and understandable: but if it is illegal to eat the animals, then it would be a waste to send them back to their country of origin. Since there is no way to send them back, why not find a use for them!
The Pingxiang Game market has various kinds of rare and valuable live game animals for sale, and the price is cheap.
Before the monkey brains can be eaten, the monkey is first inebriated with rice wine while still in the cage.
Connoisseurs note that monkey brains are best eaten when they are still warm and fresh, well before they get pungent.
Live monkey brains with pickled ginger, chili pepper and cilantro seasonings.
Stewed monkey brains with Chinese herbs are superior In China
There is a traditional saying "Yi Xing Bu Xing" [? - Literally "Like nourishes like" an idiom that roughly means "If you eat an organ of a animal, then it's good for your corresponding organ."]. That is the reason why the Qing Dynasty included monkey brains in the "Man Han Quan Xi." According to an experienced doctor of Chinese medicine in Shenzhen [?] however, there are no special health benefits from eating live animal brains, and the best results are achieved using Chinese herbs for better health. For example, when stewed with tianma [?], chuanqiong [?], baizhi [?], or yuanhu [?] and baishao [?], brains may be effective remedies for headaches or other head ailments [?]. It is said that Qianlong [?], an Emperor in the Qing Dynasty, was a master of domestic affairs and was smarter than ordinary people, even at the age of eighty, which may be the result of eating "Monkey Brain Stew Tienma." However, according to western medicine, the nutrients in monkey brains don't differ from those in other animal brains. It mainly contains protein, cholesterol, gluey neuron fibers and so on. After eating the brains, these nutrients can neither be absorbed into the human brain, nor make people smarter. "Yi Xing Bu Xing" is only an old Chinese idiom without any scientific evidence.