ABSTRACT
Disgust plays a central role in everyday food choices, preventing people from eating rotten or spoiled products and maintaining traditional food taboos. Under the influence of extreme conditions such as famine, however, disgust and the associated so-called lower senses of taste and smell adapt, transforming both food consumption patterns and food ethics. This chapter addresses the problem of disgust from the vantage point of social history and famine and food studies. Focusing on the early Soviet famines of 1918-1919, 1921-1923, and 1932-33, it explores the impact of famine on food choices, taste, and cultural norms. In each of these famines, extreme conditions compelled people to consume substances that were spoiled, inedible, or simply taboo. In desperation, people turned to wild plants, diseased animals, pets such as dogs and cats, and, in the most extreme cases, human flesh. This research seeks not only to chart these changes in consumption, but to probe how famine effected changes in taste, food ethics, and societal norms. To do so, it draws on a rich body of sources including contemporary nutritional and psychological studies, diaries and memoirs, and interviews. By focusing attention on the issue of disgust in times of crisis, this chapter seeks to make a novel contribution to famine studies and to bring a new perspective to bear on the cultural history of disgust.
