Monkey brain
Encyclopedia
Monkey brain is a controversial foodstuff, often attributed to the Chinese, but also found in certain other countries. The practice of eating monkey brains has led to over-hunting
in Indonesia
, especially due to the unfounded belief that eating the monkeys' brain can cure impotence.
In Western popular culture, the consumption of monkey brains is repeatedly portrayed and debated, often in the context of portraying exotic cultures as exceptionally cruel, callous and strange. It is often portrayed as follows:
. Paul Burrell
, the former butler of Princess Diana
, claims he was served monkey brains on banana leaves and coconut palms in one of their visits. However, it is still debated, and difficult to substantiate whether live monkey brains was one of the items in the Qing dynasty
Manchu Han Imperial Feast
.
The Anyang tribe practices a tradition in which a new tribal chief
would consume the brain of a hunted gorilla
while another senior member of the tribe
would eat the heart.
It is not only humans who eat the brains of monkeys. Two species of chimpanzee
are known to eat the brains of monkeys which provide fat
in their diet.
such as Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
and other prion
diseases in humans.
.
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...
in Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, especially due to the unfounded belief that eating the monkeys' brain can cure impotence.
In Western popular culture, the consumption of monkey brains is repeatedly portrayed and debated, often in the context of portraying exotic cultures as exceptionally cruel, callous and strange. It is often portrayed as follows:
- the brain is eaten cooked
- the brain is eaten raw (occasionally directly out of the dead monkey's skull)
- the brain is eaten fresh, spooned out of the skull while the monkey is still alive
Consumption
Monkey brain may have been cooked as an ingredient in the dishes of some Chinese imperial cuisineChinese imperial cuisine
Chinese imperial cuisine is derived from a variety of cooking styles of the regions in China, mainly Shandong cuisine and Jiangsu cuisine. The style originated from the Emperor's Kitchen and the Empress Dowager's Kitchen, and it is similar to Beijing cuisine which it heavily influenced...
. Paul Burrell
Paul Burrell
Paul Burrell, RVM is a former servant of the British Royal Household. He was a footman for Queen Elizabeth II and later butler to Diana, Princess of Wales...
, the former butler of Princess Diana
Diana, Princess of Wales
Diana, Princess of Wales was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, whom she married on 29 July 1981, and an international charity and fundraising figure, as well as a preeminent celebrity of the late 20th century...
, claims he was served monkey brains on banana leaves and coconut palms in one of their visits. However, it is still debated, and difficult to substantiate whether live monkey brains was one of the items in the Qing dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
Manchu Han Imperial Feast
Manchu Han Imperial Feast
Manhan Quanxi, literally Manchu Han Imperial Feast was one of the grandest meals ever documented in Chinese cuisine. It consisted of at least 108 unique dishes from the Manchu and Han Chinese culture during the Qing Dynasty, and it is only reserved and intended for the emperors. The meal was held...
.
The Anyang tribe practices a tradition in which a new tribal chief
Tribal chief
A tribal chief is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies with social stratification under a single leader emerged in the Neolithic period out of earlier tribal structures with little stratification, and they remained prevalent throughout the Iron Age.In the case of ...
would consume the brain of a hunted gorilla
Gorilla
Gorillas are the largest extant species of primates. They are ground-dwelling, predominantly herbivorous apes that inhabit the forests of central Africa. Gorillas are divided into two species and either four or five subspecies...
while another senior member of the tribe
Tribe
A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists...
would eat the heart.
It is not only humans who eat the brains of monkeys. Two species of chimpanzee
Chimpanzee
Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
are known to eat the brains of monkeys which provide fat
Fat
Fats consist of a wide group of compounds that are generally soluble in organic solvents and generally insoluble in water. Chemically, fats are triglycerides, triesters of glycerol and any of several fatty acids. Fats may be either solid or liquid at room temperature, depending on their structure...
in their diet.
Risks
Consuming the brain and other nerve tissue of animals may be hazardous to health. Brain consumption can result in contracting fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathiesTransmissible spongiform encephalopathy
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies , also known as prion diseases, are a group of progressive conditions that affect the brain and nervous system of many animals, including humans. According to the most widespread hypothesis they are transmitted by prions, though some other data suggest an...
such as Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease or CJD is a degenerative neurological disorder that is incurable and invariably fatal. CJD is at times called a human form of mad cow disease, given that bovine spongiform encephalopathy is believed to be the cause of variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in humans.CJD...
and other prion
Prion
A prion is an infectious agent composed of protein in a misfolded form. This is in contrast to all other known infectious agents which must contain nucleic acids . The word prion, coined in 1982 by Stanley B. Prusiner, is a portmanteau derived from the words protein and infection...
diseases in humans.
Popular culture
That the eating of the brains from living monkeys is part of some restaurants' menus is one well-known example of an urban legendUrban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
.
- In the book Born Red, A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution author Gao Yuan describes looking inside restaurant windows of GuangzhouGuangzhouGuangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
that "offered the famous monkey brains, served at a special table that locked the monkey's head in place; the waiter would open the skull and the diners would eat while the body wriggled under the table." - Maxine Hong KingstonMaxine Hong KingstonMaxine Hong Kingston is a Chinese American author and Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated with a BA in English in 1962. Kingston has written three novels and several works of non-fiction about the experiences of Chinese immigrants living in the United...
's book The Woman WarriorThe Woman WarriorThe Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts is a memoir by Maxine Hong Kingston, published by Vintage Books in 1975. Although there are many scholarly debates surrounding the official genre classification of the book, it can best be described as a work of creative non-fiction.Throughout...
also contains a description of a monkey feast including the special table. - The Attic: Memoir of a Chinese Landlord's Son is a 1998 memoir of life in Communist China by Guanlong Cao, in which the author describes the eating of live monkey brains.
- In Tama JanowitzTama JanowitzTama Janowitz is an American novelist and a short story writer. The 2005 September/October issue of Pages magazine listed her as one of the four "brat pack" authors, along with Bret Easton Ellis, Mark Lindquist and Jay McInerney.-Life:Her parents, a psychiatrist father, Julian Janowitz, and...
's collection of stories; Slaves of New YorkSlaves of New YorkSlaves of New York is a 1989 comedy-drama Merchant Ivory Productions film. It was directed byJames Ivory, produced by Ismail Merchant, and starred Bernadette Peters, Adam Coleman Howard, Chris Sarandon, Mary Beth Hurt, Mercedes Ruehl, Madeleine Potter, and Steve Buscemi.Based on the stories Slaves...
, a character describes a dinner experience in which his fellow diners ate fresh monkey brains whilst on a business trip. - In a Calvin and HobbesCalvin and HobbesCalvin and Hobbes is a syndicated daily comic strip that was written and illustrated by American cartoonist Bill Watterson, and syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. It follows the humorous antics of Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his...
strip, when CalvinCalvin (Calvin and Hobbes)Calvin ' is a fictional character, and one of the two principal characters in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. Calvin demonstrates a level of wisdom, vocabulary and humor unusual for a six year-old boy...
complains about the smell of his mother's cooking, saying "Whatever it is, I'm not eating it!", his mother tells him that the stuffed bell pepperBell pepperBell pepper, also known as sweet pepper or a pepper and capsicum , is a cultivar group of the species Capsicum annuum . Cultivars of the plant produce fruits in different colors, including red, yellow, orange and green. Bell peppers are sometimes grouped with less pungent pepper varieties as...
s she is preparing are actually "monkey heads". While Calvin's mother succeeds in making him eager to eat the peppers, his father is disgusted by her description and reacts with the same words that Calvin had used beforehand. - Serving monkey brains was staged in the 1978 mondo filmMondo filmA mondo film is an exploitation documentary film, sometimes resembling a pseudo-documentary, usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, and situations...
Faces of DeathFaces of DeathFaces of Death is a 1978 mondo film which guides viewers through explicit scenes depicting a variety of ways to die and violent acts....
, in which a scene shows a group of people eating the dish in this manner. - Il Paese del sesso selvaggio directed by Umberto LenziUmberto LenziUmberto Lenzi , is an Italian film director who was very active in low budget crime films, peplums, spaghetti westerns, war movies, cannibal films and giallo murder mysteries ....
(1972, also known as The Man from the Deep River) is an Italian cannibal filmCannibal filmCannibal films are a sub genre of exploitation film made mostly by Italian filmmakers through the 1970s and 1980s. This sub genre is a collection of graphically gory movies that usually depict cannibalism by primitive, Stone-age natives deep inside the Asian or South American rain forests...
set in Burma that has a monkey brain scene. - In Cannibal HolocaustCannibal HolocaustCannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution...
(1980). A tribesman slices off a monkey's face and proceeds to eat the brains with his genitilia. - In Indiana Jones and the Temple of DoomIndiana Jones and the Temple of DoomIndiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a 1984 American adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. It is the second film in the Indiana Jones franchise and prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark . After arriving in India, Indiana Jones is asked by a desperate village to find a mystical stone...
(1984), chilled monkey brains are served as a dessert in a scene set in IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. - In the 1985 film ClueClue (film)Clue is a 1985 comedy mystery film based on the board game of the same name . The film is a murder mystery set in a Gothic Revival mansion, and is styled after Murder by Death and other various murder/dinner parties of mystery...
dinner guests are served monkey brains, but they are not revealed as such until the end of the film. This provides a clue towards who killed the cook. - In the 1995 Hong Kong film Jin Yu Man Tang (The Chinese Feast) featuring Leslie CheungLeslie CheungLeslie Cheung Kwok-Wing , nicknamed elder brother , was a film actor and musician from Hong Kong. Cheung was considered as "one of the founding fathers of Cantopop", and "combining a hugely successful film and music career".In 2000, Cheung was named Asian Biggest Superstar by China Central...
, monkey brain is the last cuisine that two best Chinese chefs are competing with. - Elsewhereless (1998) is a contemporary opera set in Africa that features a live monkey brain scene.