I've read enough descriptions of how people used to hang meat and believe
me, it is not hanging it in a refrigerator.  By the descriptions I've read
the stuff smells to high heaven and the outside becomes gooey and covered
in mold and everything else associated with rot.  You cut away the outside
and eat the inside.

The English had a term for meat like this.  They called it "high."  The
"higher" the meat (the longer it had sat out to rot) the more of a delicacy
it was considered, although only the rich could afford to eat it.  The poor
didn't have enough meat to have the luxury of leaving what little meat they
had lying around for a few weeks, and it was generally acknowledged that
most poor people would consider the meat rotton and probably wouldn't eat
it anyway.  It was an acquired taste of the rich, obviously, as things like
escargot and caviar are today.

Also as I say the eskimos like rotton fish.  They'll leave fish lying under
a log for months through the summer and then snack on it through the
winter.  Of course it's frozen by then.  But also the Romans liked to leave
fish lying out for a good long while before eating, and they of course had
no refrigeration.

So the question would be, is our fear of raw and even "rotton" meat merely
cultural?  I'm not about to experiment to find out, frankly, but I'm
pointing out that if people throughout history have eaten rotton meat and
not dropped like flies, how much risk are we really facing from raw meat?
Obviously there must be some risk; EVERYTHING carries risk.  The question
would be how much?  I wish I knew.

 -=-=-

Once in a while you get shown the light/
 In the strangest of places if you look at it right   ---Robert Hunter

http://www.syndicomm.com/esmay