"Family history, of course, has its proper dietary laws. One is supposed to swallow and digest only the permitted parts of it, the halal portions of the past, drained of their redness, their blood. Unfortunately, this makes the story less juicy; so I am about to become the first and only member of my family to flout the laws of halal. Letting no blood escape from the body of the tale, I arrive at the unspeakable part; and, undaunted, press on."--Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children, 1981, p. 59.
(Context: My current leisure reading; also, the subtle invoking of red meat makes my tummy long for the days of its ancestors!)
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