Friday, May 23, 2003
SARS ORIGIN
Lingering Suspicion May be Confirmed
This story is one out today indicating that a fairly rare southern Chinese game animal -- the civet -- may be the origin of the SARS corona virus. There's been a lingering suspicion for some time among many of my (mainly northern) Chinese friends that the exotic cuisine of south China might have been somehow connected to the origins of the SARS epidemic. There's a caricature among northerners that the stranger the animal, the more highly prized it is by southerners as a meal. I can attest that there's some truth to this -- the fact is that "high cuisine" in the south puts a high value on the rarity of the meal; the wierder the better, as far as my pedestrian palette can tell. This could be true.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 9:02 PM
