Sandra Mellinger [Fleisch] 2000, 199 pages, paperback with 21 illustrations EUR 24,90/SFR 44,50/EUA25,60 ISBN 3-593-36641-X If you believe the headlines of the rainbow press, the reason Gerhard Schröder left his wife was because she only cooked vegetarian meals. Sandra Mellinger uses this anecdote to start her brilliant study on the relationship between man and eating meat. The author takes us back to the Stone Age, where humans were not hunters, but rather being hunted themselves. Humans used to be a few notches down the food chain, with several powerful animals above them, but now they have made it to the top as the most powerful hunters of all. The central theme of meat as a symbol of power has made its way through history since then. Offerings of meat could pacify the gods; giving up meat was a way of religiously cleansing oneself. Sandra Mellinger illustrates how what once was a gift of the gods has become a finished product in the age of industrial food production, from new methods of conservation up to how we could store a supply in case of a modern war. The ever-present hamburger on the one hand and mad cow disease on the other are the extremes in this new era of over-production. It becomes clear that the desire to eat meat is more than just a question of taste - it expresses a symbolic relationship to power, which becomes clear in view of gender and the connection between nutrition and sexuality. Sandra Mellinger studied cultural studies and philosophy and lives and works as a freelance writer in Berlin.