A Proper Maasai Wedding Starts with a Cup of Fresh Cow’s Blood

Kenya_Vice_05The blood was sweet, and thicker than I expected. A skin had already formed on the liquid seconds after it squirted from the cow’s neck. I downed the full cup in one gulp so I wouldn’t hold up the line of Maasai men waiting for their own mug of morning blood.

It was the morning of my friend’s wedding on the plains outside Nairobi, Kenya. Soon the bride would arrive in her white dress and a Pentecostal minister would perform the ceremony. But first, the men shared the blood from the freshly slaughtered steer. Read more at Munchies, VICE Magazine’s food channel.

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img_6534My stories for Munchies, the VICE Magazine food channel, explore the world of food and drink in Africa, South America, Europe and across the United States.

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How to Raise Bees in the Driest Place on Earth: The Atacama desert is notoriously inhospitable to life, and yet animals and humans alike find a way to survive. Among them are honeybees, fertilizing desert flowers and providing a sweet source of calories for the population.

A Proper Maasai Wedding Starts with a Cup of Fresh Cow’s Blood: On the morning of my friend’s wedding near Nairobi, I watched as Maasai tribesmen wrestled a steer to the ground and slit its throat. It would become the centerpiece of the wedding feast, but not before we drank its blood.

 

Read the rest of my my stories for Munchies at my author page.