STRANGE FOODS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1916, 6 November 1890, Page 36

STRANGE FOODS.

To the new number of the Scottish Review Dr A. J. H. Crespi contributes an amusing article upon strange foods.

SEAWEED AND FUNGI.

Seaweed, says Dr Crespi, is eaten on the coasts of Scotland in vast quantities, and though unpalatable and flavourless, is at times the chief food of some of the poorest. When dry it is richer than oatmeal or Indian corn in nitrogenous constituents, and takes rank among the most nutritious of vegetable foods. Layer is an exception to the low estimation in which seaweed is held, and is a favourite condiment. We have known it eaten in large quantities in North Devon, and with much relish. To prepare seaweed for the table it should be steeped in water to get rid of the salt with which it is impregnated, and a little carbonate of soda removes the bitter taste which to some palates is most disagreeable. It should then be stewed in milk or water till mucilaginous, and is best flavoured with vinegar or pepper. Fungi aie almost everywhere largely eaten, though in England less attention is paid to them than they deserve, and few kinds appear at table. A curious error is to suppose that fungi are eatable and toadstools poisonous ; no such line of demarcation exists, nor, strictly speaking, has the name toadstool any precise mesning. Very many fungi are edible, and the common agaric usually eaten in England is not the most palatable and wholesome. Few foods are more savoury, and none are greater favourites, than wellcooked fungi, and the souls of vegetarians yearn for them.

" LONG PIG."

The most repulsive food which human beings could eat is man. Fortunately, cannibalism, although once very general, is now confined to the most degraded tribes of the South Sea Islands and to some districts of Australia and Central Africa. Lindsay of Pitscottie relates that a man, his wife, and family, were burnt to death on the east coast of Scotland for eating children whom they had stolen ; and during the French Revolution the heart of the unfortunate Princess Lamballe was actually torn out of her body by one of the yelling savages near, taken to a restaurant, and there cooked and eaten. Human flesh is said not to be unpalatable, and this is confirmed by the horrible narrative given by Lindsay ; he mentions that as one of the girls was being taken to execution she exclaimed, "Wherefore chide ye with me, as if I had committed an unworthy act ? Give me oredence and trow me, if ye had experience of eating men and women's flesh ye would think it so delicious that ye would never forbear it again." The Tannese of our own day distribute human flesh in little bits to their friends as delicious morsels, and say that the flesh of a black man is preferable to that of a white one, for the latter tastes salt ; other cannibals hold the same.

LION AND ELEPHANT FLESH.

The lion is eaten by some African races, although its flesh is in small favour with them, while the Zulus find carrion so much to their liking that, according to Dr Colenso, they apply to food teeming with large colonies of grubs the comprehensive word " üborni," which signifies in their uncouth jargon " great happiness." David Livingstone tells us that the aboriginal Australians and the Hottentots prefer the intestines of animals, and he adds that " it is curious that this is the part which wild animals always begin with, and that it is the first choice of our men." The hippopotamus is another favourite meat of the Africans, when they catch it. Its flesh when young is tender and palatable ; but it becomes very coarse and unpleasant with advancing years. The Abyssinians find the rhinoceros much to their liking ; so they do the elephant, which is also eaten in Sumatra. Dr Livingstone speaks of elephant's foot as excellent. "We had the foot cooked for breakfast, and tound it delicious. It is a whitish mass, slightly gelatinous and sweet, like marrow. A long march to prevent biliousness is a wise precaution after a feast on elephant's foot. Elephant's tongue and trunk are also good, and after long simmering much resembles the humps of a buffalo and the tongue of an ox; but all the other meat is tough, and from i s p' culiar flavour only to be eaten by a hungry man." The elephants eaten during the siege of Paris were sai<J to be a great

success, and the liver was pronounced finer than that of any goose or duck.

LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY.

The people of Zanzibar stand high for the comprehensive character of their cuisine. Among other delicacies are a small monkey and a fruit-eating bat. Locusts are relished by the Bedawin of Mesopotamia and some other Eastern tribes ; they are placed on strings and eaten on journeys with bitter and unleavened bread. The Jews, who were prohibited eating many kinds of food which our larger experience teaches us are palatable and wholesome, as well as some that we do not venture to touch, were permitted to have their fill of locusts. The locust is an article of diet to this day, but only to the very poor. It is thrown into boiling water and eaten with salt. To live on locusts and wild honey conveys a more accurate picture of extreme poverty and frugality to a traveller in the East than to anyone else. Locusts, however, are not always ;cooked ; sometimes they are eaten fresh. They are said to have strong vegetable taste ; the flavour largly depending, as might be expected, on the plants on which they have been feeding Dr Livingstone, who showed his common sense by not being fastidious, considered them palatable when roasted.

INSECTS AND STALE EGGS.

Some of the savage tribes of South America are accused of eating everything that by any possibility will support human life. Humboldt saw children drag enormous centipedes from their holes and crunch them between their teeth ; but insects and their larvaa are favourite foods in many parts of the world. In the West Indies a large caterpillar, found on the palm tree, is reckoned a great delicacy — and why not, let us ask ? To our civilised taste, however, carrion and bad eggs seem foods which no human being could relish. Not so; the Chinese prefer stale to fresh eggs, and the Pariahs of Hindostan fight greedily with the dogs and jackals for putrid carrion. They would relish the rousette, a kind of bat plentiful in Java, which the natives value ; but although its flesh is white, delicate, and tender, it generally smalls strongly of musk. The Nagus also eat raw meat.

WHALES AND CROCODILES.

Among the Greenlanders and the Eskimo the seal is an important food ; and in spite of being coarse and oily, was formerly eaten in England. The porpoise was also an English dish, and its liver is, when fried, 8 till, we believe, relished by sailors. Arctic explorers have found the -walrus very palatable, and it is largely consumed by the Eskimo. The Japanese, New Zealanders, and Western Australians consider the whale good eating ;"and the Eskimo highly approve of blubber, and get through enormous quantities. The crocodile is greedily devoured by the natives cf certain districts of Africa. It's eggs in taste resemble hens' eggs, with perhaps a smack of custard.

HEDGEHOGS AND SNAILS.

To come to our own country, where we do not eat sauerkraut and blubber, birds' nests and puppies, we shall nevertheless find some odd foods. The hedgehog, a favourite dish in Barbary, and not disapproved in Spain, is eaten by gipsies ; squirrels, too, are occasionally cooked in this country, and are most delicious and fully as palatable as jugged hare ; at any rate we have ourselves stewed them, and we can testify that they are excellent. It is even said that frogs are often eaten in the North of England. In some parts of England snails are still eaten, not as ordinary articles of diet, but at stated feasts. We have in bygone days, when living on the borders of the nail-making districts of Staffordshire, seen men filling paper bags with snails to make soup, and we remember being told that they were excellent eating. The English prejudice against snails is singular, since, from time immemorial, considerable quantities have been collected round London and on the Kent pastures for export to France. In the latter country there is no squeamishness ; most people there only regret that snails are too expensive to be indulged in frequently. In Covent Garden the common snail often appears for sale ; the purchasers, however, are almost exclusively members of the French, Austrian, and Italian colonies of London.