Classical Mythology/Food Code

In many Greek myths, a series of oppositions and identities is set up around the foods that creatures eat. The foods distinguish mankind from animals, and mankind from gods. The main alimentary code is built around the rite of sacrifice. Almost every slaughter of a domestic mammal or bird was understood as a rite of sacrifice dedicated to a deity. Every time ancient Greeks or Romans ate meat, they validated and confirmed these classes of beings:

This "food code" is explained in Claude Lévi-Strauss The Raw and The Cooked and expanded upon in the work of Jean-Pierre Vernant and Marcel Detienne.