Well, in some countries, monkeys are considered a legitimate source of meat...

Awkward!

Careful, those Chooks can be lethal with those feet!

That does not look like it will end well . . .

That is one of the biggest problems with worlds like that. Another is like with Zootopia. There are no domestic animal species in a world like that. No cats or dogs or pigs or goats or sheep or cattle or anything that humans bred into existence. And I'm afraid that those chickens right there would not exist in a world without humans.

Just because WE bred a species into existence to serve our needs doesn't mean another sentient species would do the same. You raise one hell of a frustrating question there. One that takes too much work to get right.

I'm pretty sure chickens were bred from some other species though. Wouldn't they still have existed in some form without human breeding efforts? Yes, they would be a lot more tough and feral in nature, but they still might be there, sorta like turkeys and other game fowl.

Chickens are descended from red and grey jungle fowl. There would be egg laying fowl, yes. But then that raises the question of when in the history of the world intelligence was gained. And how that affected the evolution of everything. It's just way too damn complex to do it right.

Ok, 2am is not a good time to consider the various diet interactions of so many species with raised intelligence. Ow . . . my head.

lol. And its not all that complex. As long as you have the basis for evolution, then you can take aspects of how humans evolved as building blocks for how anthros evolved as well. Being smarter than most others around them, learning to use tools, living in groups for protection, forming societies, and so on. When is less important than how as long as it arrives at the 'now' with a fully evolved species.

There's several ways you can approach anthropomorphic characters. Probably the first and easiest is to ignore it all-together, a la Lackadaisy (google it). If you never have to actually show animals, you ideally never have to address it.

You can approach it from a Blacksad method, where the characters never actually acknowledge they're animals, unless it's to set up a (visual) pun.

Then there's the, 'both forms of the animal exist but acknowledge they're two separate species'. I really don't have a good example, but essentially there's a disassociate between anthro's and feral's, and it's not taboo to eat one another, unless it's there respective animal, ie. anthro-chickens would eat cows, but wouldn't eat chickens.

Anything beyond that and you gotta do some serious world-building, less you end up like Zootopia, where their world has so many logical flaws.

I have a character whose power is dangerously delicious cooking. I have to address the matter of cuisine, no runnning away.

Meaning my best route is for the Zodiacs to stand above.

I remember reading a story some time ago in which there was a kirin, blessed by Buddha who had many powers and advantages in life. As part of the contract it made with the god, it was allowed to 'bring no harm to any living thing; not even a blade of grass'. This was literally how it was required to exist in order to keep its powers ,and in return, no living thing would willingly harm it; mosquitos wouldn't bite, hungry wild dogs wouldn't attack it, even bandits and other 'bad guys' were loathe to harm it.

Sadly this was a long time ago, and I'm not sure what it was the kirin ate or drank to survive; I only vaguely rremember it drinking water and *something* else.

as pertains to your characters, it seems like there would have to be some distinct 'lesser and greater' concept in place. Maybe the Zodiacs are a 'divine' sort of being as opposed to the 'lesser' beings that are the meat they eat? Maybe Haak WOULD get offended at someone eating chicken in his presence, considering he is a chicken, and maybe the others wouldn't DO such a thing in front of him at the least, as a sign of simple respect for how it looks. As for the cook, perhaps being a bit more discreet in how the food is prepared would be something that would happen; chickens and other animals intended for the kitchens or someone's meal would be taken care of in some private, out of the way place, and not like in that image. Also possibly, Haak would be less likely to want to wander into certain places, knowing full well the problems it's creating for himself and the cook.

Maybe there are kitchens your cook would work in that someone like Haak, who doesn't eat meat (I'm guessing?) just wouldn't frequent.

Chickens do eat meat. And will even cannibalize their own.

Allan Dean Foster covered the issue by leaving lizards as the cattle of the world. While not ideal, it kinda works. Tho, I've only read the first book, so there could be more.

If chicken eat meat and will eat other chickens, then what would be the problem here? If an animal is specifically bred to be eaten, and Haak himself eats chicken, then how or why would he feel any kind of offense at seeing someone else do it?

At best, he might feel a moment of awkwardness in realizing he's distantly related to the thing about to be eaten, but then I'd expect that if a feral dragon ran into an evolved chicken, the same problems would exist. xD

It also depends on the character, and how the species as a whole came to address that issue. It mainly comes from being hungry and having access to a wound to peck at, which leads to eating the poor thing. And if they get to taste an egg, they'll eat every egg they can find. I can see some families or even whole villages dying off from egg eating.

I caught chickens for 7 years, so I've seen some pretty fucked up things. They are a herd animal, and tend to go where their head points. And the hens are vicious as hell. They'realso not as dumb as you think they are.

I don't actually think they are dumb.

As far as the concept of the species, once intelligent enough to care, addressing the issue, think on what you just said: you could see entire villages dying out from egg eating. A village of humans might be willing to eat other humans, but they don't tend to eat people from their own communities; that doesn't lead to a society, it leads to lone crazy people who attack anyone they come across for food. Even if the people evolved to eat *some* of their own, they wouldn't allow it all willy nilly; it would involve ceremony and some kind of structure at the least, or maybe be used as a punishment for criminals. Consider the Aztec society where people considered being sacrificed to their god to be an honor and priviledge, and the temples dedicated to such were the centerpieces of their societies and power bases.

And if doing so would lead to the ones doing the eating suddenly becoming mindless eating machines of their own kind, I don't think it would even evolve *that* far simply because once again that would lead to the destruction of society, not the building up of it, which would reverse the entire concept of them being sentient and sane in the first place. Cannibals eat people from OUTSIDE their villages, not each other, and they exist in many places even unto this day. The fact those few that exist are extremely primitive speaks to how even doing it that much limits things.

To look at it from another angle, if Haak were from a society where people going mad for eating each other were the norm, he would himself be crazed by the sight of those chickens and try to kill and eat them as soon as he had a chance, or be the most constant customer requesting chicken from the menu. It's unlikely he would be pausing because of any conflict with other people eating one... other than that he himself wouldn't be able to eat what they were eating. And that gives that image above all sorts of other undertones.

That really depends on you in the end as there's no true defining line on whether your anthro characters are considered animals or not. Not all anthros are created equally and everything what they are depends greatly on whoever created them.

Bojack horseman addressed this problem the worst possible way i'v ever seen. In the show they lobotomize anthropomorphic chicken and then kill them for their meat. I guessing they do it to other antros too but, the Chicken one it the only one ever shown.

IMHO- would a human be offended if someone ate a monkey? *cue Indiana monkey brain scene*

In my world building I leave cows, chickens, and pigs off the roster of intelligent species because these are the most common food species we all know of.
That being said, it would be a bit difficult to do so if you are using the Chinese zodiac.

Al alternative option is to create a new species to be food.

I pretty much go by this method as well. Some species are sapient, some aren't. Food species aren't, and are just like real world counterparts. So no anthro cows, pigs, chickens, deer, sheep, or horses in my mainline world.

Since most of the anthros I depict are based on real world pet species, I substitute mythological creatures for the roles they've vacated. Miniature griffons and the like take the place of house pets. (Mostly because they have alternate heads from the cat & dog headed people that inhabit my main world. A cat headed person with a pet cat would be like a human keeping a pet with a tiny human head. Kinda weird.)

There is a very simple solution to this.

Eat fish. When is the last time you saw a fish anthro besides a shark?

Or a squid. ...or a catfish. ... or an eel. .....

come to think of it, I've seen a lot of fish anthros.

As someone mentioned earlier, there ARE humans that eat monkeys, -- as well as "pets" like dogs or cats cats, "beautiful" animals such as horses, or alternately, "unappetizing" things like insects, eels, snakes, and eggs buried in ashes for, like, years -- so in a diverse world I would expect all KINDS of variety in attitudes about food that have to be hammered out. Heck, in many cases, that might be ALL someone knows about a different culture or region, "they eat weird things."

Additionally, it would depend hugely on how a culture, or even a particular sentient individual sees their relationship with "lesser" creatures. One who sees himself as created by some divine order with dominion over all lesser creatures may see anything as fair game, or have VERY rigid taboos about what is or isn't eaten -- "sacred cows" as it were -- depending on the real or imagined will of their divine. (I am going to have to do more research on the kirin now.) One may also look at magical beliefs surrounding cannibalism and see power specifically derived from consuming other conquered "selves."

Even on purely ethical grounds, among those with no particular faith (though i realize that's more difficult in a world where divinity of various sorts actively walks among them) there are huge variations based on things like "pain" and "awareness" or the possibility of "humane slaughter" that lead people to draw the line at vegan, vegetarian, or unrepentant carnivore ;)

For me, one of the most fascinating things about studying the cultures of the world has always been food and eating, as law may be only deeply argued by nobles or politicians, and the particulars of religion really only confronted by the ordained and extraordinarily studious, but everyone, high born and low, sits down and eats, and there are HUGE amounts of culture and tradition tied up in that.

I just made up new creatures for my anthros to munch on.

I do like the "You motherfucker." expression on his face.

It's not the big things that make a world feel grounded, it's the smaller things like eating.

Heck yes! It's amazing how much of a difference this makes in making a world feel 'lived-in.' I'm not one for being pedantic and forcing a world to answer every possible hypothetical, but stories seem to me to be more relatable when the world feels less like a stage play erected for just this one tale and more like a real world that could possibly exist.

Beastars addresses that its taboo to eat meat. However its done anyways on the carnivore black market. A place where some prey go to sell off some parts of their body to make a quick buck.

Though it is also seen that sometimes the reverse happens for medical purposes. Like powdered croc cock for erectile disfunction

I can’t help thinking goes like this:

Chicken in the middle: “That overgrown lizard is trying to cook our friend!”