Thank you, that is an interesting view. I know many vegetarians but this has not come up or crossed my mind yet.

@musiKk I'm not saying that all vegetarians say that. One famous vegetarian, the singer Morrissey, tends to say "I don't eat flesh" for similar effect. My point is that it isn't 'wrong' to say it, but it isn't common, so when you do it stands out as unusual and your listeners would likely look for some significance as to why you had phrased it that way.

On the topic of Morrissey - "Meat is murder … fish is justifiable homicide". Many vegetarians seem to be just fine with fish.

@DoneWithThis.- my wife, a vegetarian for all of her adult life, and many others, would say that someone who eats fish is not a vegetarian. A 'pescatarian' maybe.

@DoneWithThis. If that debate is ever answered, it won't be here on English Language Learners. But 'fish' is an interesting mention because the one word can describe almost anything that swims, as well as the 'meat' of said creatures. 'Fish' is not a species group. So saying "I don't eat fish" could have so many nuances. Would you eat a crustacean, for example?

Some items of diet made from dead creatures have the same name as the creature - horse, chicken, some game, lamb, goat, most fish.

I do like salmon, cod, and eels. My wife does not.

@MichaelHarvey True, but fish that are eaten are usually given a more appetising name. 'Spider Crab' is now known as 'Cornish King Crab' in the UK. Here in the North, what we call 'Dogfish' and throw back as a junk fish is consumed in the South as 'Rock Salmon'.

@Astralbee - I think those fancy names for certain fish are more to do with marketing than traditional usage. I remember when I was a kid, cod (creature and meal) got expensive and Arctic Wolf Fish was on sale in chip shops as 'Rock Salmon ('Rock and chips please, mister') . I note that types of wolf fish are sold as "Scotch halibut" and "Scarborough woof", or, simply "woof" in the North East.

@MichaelHarvey Sure... but if you wanted to put someone off eating pork, you might call it 'pig flesh'. And if you wanted someone to stop eating grenadier, you might call it 'rat tail'.

Yes. Of course. I once had a squeamish friend at school, when I was aged thirteen, and at dinner time I said 'Did you know that a sausage is a pig's willy?'. He promptly put down his fork and said 'You eat them if you want'. I was glad to.

If a campaigning veggie said to me that 'pork is pig flesh', I would probably roll my eyes and say 'I sincerely hope so', and my convinced vegetarian wife would smile.

@Lambie that's what the answer says

@user253751 I just wanted to say that I had never heard it. :)

@MichaelHarvey regarding the animals where table name matches: Horse meat is rarely eaten in England. kwintessential.co.uk/blog/news/… The other animals that you mentioned: chicken, game, and maybe even lamb, are all small animals, and so were more likely to be eaten by peasants.

@MichaelHarvey As far as verbal jokes go, some 30yrs ago, some university fellows and I went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Just before we had been joking about the fact that some Chinese restaurants were somewhat shady about the ingredients they used for their dishes. We had already changed discourse, and one of those guys had ordered some kind of rabbit-meat dish. ...

@MichaelHarvey ... When the waiter put the dish in front of him I stared silently at the dish for a moment, then I looked at him and I spelled a single word loudly: meow! He looked at me and at his dish, he was all red in the face, sweared at me half-jokingly and said angrily something that can be roughly translated as "Crap! Now I can't really eat this f... thing!". And he really couldn't force himself to! We all erupted into a mad laughter, tears in our eyes (even the sad guy who had to order something else)! :-)

"Pig" also refers to the non-meat parts of the pig, which occasionally matters. For example, rendered pig fat is not itself pork, but is not kosher or halal. So, "I don't eat pig" is the more accurate statement.

@fectin That's a good point, I have incorporated it into the answer.