Strange Articles of Food.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 850, 15 June 1888, Page 4

Strange Articles of Food.

In Mexico parrots are eaten, but they are rather tough.

Spiders roasted are a sort of dessert with the New Caledonians.' In the Pacific Islands and West Indies lizard eggs are eaten with gusto.

Buokland declares the taste of the boa coustriotor to be good, and much like veal. After they have wound ike silk from the cocoon the Chinese eat the chrysalis of thg silkworm.

-The French will eat frogs, snails, and the diseased liver of geese, but draw the line at alligators. The octopus, or devil fish, wheu boiled and then roasted, is eaten in Corsica aud esteemed a luxury. x The Guachos of the Argentine Repuhlic are iu the habit of hunting skunks for the sake of their flesh.

The Cingalese eat the bees after robbing them of their honey. Caterpillars and spiders are dainties to the African bushman. The negroes of the Weßt Indies eat baked snakes and the palm worms fried in fat, but they cannot bo induced to eat stewed rabbit.

The edible bird’s nests of the Chinese are worth twice their weight in silver, the finest variety selling for as much as 30dols a pound, The Digger Indians of the Pacific Coast rejoiced in the great locust swarms of 1575 as a dispensation of the gnat spirit, an l laid in a store of dried locust powder suffleient to last them for several years. The North American Aborigines recognise no greater delicacy than boiled dog, the animal being immersed in the pot without the formality of skinning or otherwise cleaning, and regard the intestines in the choicest part of a buffalo or steer. Quass, the fermented cabbage water of the Russians, is their popular tipple. It is described an resembling a mixture of stale fish

and soapsuds in taste, yet next to beer it baa more votaries than any other fermented beverage. , . • Ante are eaten by various nationa. In Brazil they are. served with, a resinous sauce, and in Africa they are stewed with grease or butter.. The East Indians catch them in pits, and carefully wash, them in handfuls like raisins. Iu Siam, a curry of ant eggs is a costly luxury. '