Unmentionable Cuisine

{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2023}}

{{Use American English|date=June 2023}}

{{Infobox Book

| image = Unmentionable Cuisine cover.jpg

| caption = First edition cover

| author = Calvin Schwabe

| media_type = Print

| subject = {{hlist|Food habits|ethnic food}}

| published = 1979

| publisher = University Press of Virginia

| language = English

| pages = 476

| isbn = 978-0813911625

| dewey = 641.6

| congress = TX371 .S38

| country = United States

}}

Unmentionable Cuisine is a 1979 nonfiction book written by {{ill|Calvin Schwabe|wikidata|Q113527319}}, a professor of epidemiology in the veterinary medicine school at the University of California, Davis, and a consultant for the World Health Organization's several projects.{{cite news |title=LEGENDS: The accidental epidemiologist—Dr. Calvin W. Schwabe fathered a generation of veterinary epidemiologists |url=https://www.avma.org/javma-news/2013-07-01/legends-accidental-epidemiologist |first=R. Scott |last=Nolen |access-date=2023-06-03 |date=June 19, 2013 |publisher=American Veterinary Medical Association |archive-date=February 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230202074122/https://www.avma.org/javma-news/2013-07-01/legends-accidental-epidemiologist |url-status=live }} Essentially a discourse urging American readers to overcome their alleged prejudice and eat the meats consumed in other cultures,{{cite journal|last=Ezell |first=Johanna |journal=Library Journal |title=Unmentionable Cuisine (Book Review) |date=February 1, 1980 |volume=105 |issue=3 |page=404 |url=https://eds.s.ebscohost.com/eds/viewarticle/render?data=dGJyMPPp44rp2%2fdV0%2bnjisfk5Ie45PFKs6mxTbek63nn5Kx94um%2bTq2prUquqLE4trCxTbinsji%2fw6SM8Nfsi9%2fZ8oHt5Od8u6O1SLWsr0qzrLE%2b8d%2fiVbSptEy13LF%2bq6y1ULOjskng16t5r9uxRbDat0vjrONOs6aufL7o43zn6aSE3%2bTlVenlpHzgs%2bOA5pzyeeWzv2ak1%2bxVs623T7Wmsz7k5fCF3%2bq7iOLcxI3q4tJ99uoA&vid=0&sid=63647f3f-6785-41ba-a1e3-2d93e6e6500d@redis |url-access=subscription |access-date=2023-06-03 |via=Education Research Complete}} the book contains hundreds of recipes he had collected over the years for ingredients not normally considered as human food in the United States, such as earthworm, dog meat, and cat meat.{{cite news|last=Virbila |first=S. Irene |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |title=Revisiting weird foods of 'Unmentionable Cuisine': Earthworm broth, anyone? |date=Apr 11, 2014 |url=https://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-virbila-20140412-story.html |access-date=2023-06-03 |archive-date=May 25, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230525162539/https://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-virbila-20140412-story.html |url-status=live }}

Schwabe argues in this work that Americans will need to be less discriminating about food in order to mitigate food shortage, citing an estimated number of dogs and cats born in the United States every hour and calling the surplus among them "potentially edible meat being wasted".{{cite magazine|title=Open Wide |last=Bilger |first=Burkhard |magazine=The New Yorker |location=New York |volume=XCV |issue=37 |date=Nov 25, 2019 |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/2322662489 |url-access=subscription |via=ProQuest |access-date=2023-06-03 |issn=0028-792X |id={{ProQuest|2322662489}} }}