He found that meat was always, if possible, eaten in the raw state, only the inferior qualities being made fit for consumption by cookery. His description of the mode of eating tallies exactly with that of Bruce. The meat is always brought to the consumer while still warm and quivering with life, as it becomes tough and stringy when suffered to become cold. Each guest is furnished with plenty of teff and the invariable pepper sauce. His fingers take the place of a fork, and his sword, or shotel, does duty for a knife. Holding the broundo in his left hand, he takes into his capacious mouth as much as it can accommodate, and then, with an adroit upward stroke of the sword, severs the piece of meat, and just contrives to avoid cutting off his nose. He alternates the pieces of meat with teff and dillikh, and, when he has finished, refreshes himself copiously with drink.
Such food as this appears to be indescribably disgusting, and very unfit for a nation that prides itself on its Christianity. Many persons, indeed, have said that no one could eat raw meat except when pressed by starvation, and have therefore discredited all accounts of the practice.
Perhaps my readers may remember that after Bruce’s return a gentleman was making very merry with this account in the traveller’s presence, treating the whole story as a fabrication, on the ground that to eat raw meat was impossible. Bruce said nothing, but quietly left the room, and presently returned with a piece of beef rolled and peppered after the Abyssinian fashion, and gave his astonished opponent the choice of eating the meat or fighting him on the spot. As Bruce was of gigantic strength and stature, and an accomplished swordsman to boot, the meat was eaten, and the fact proved to be possible.
Mr. Parkyns, who, when in Abyssinia, very wisely did as the Abyssinians do, found that he soon became accustomed to the taste of raw meat, and learned how to prefer one part of an animal to another. He discovered that a very good imitation of an oyster could be made by chopping up a sheep’s liver very fine, and seasoning it with pepper, vinegar, and a little salt, provided that the consumer shut his eyes while eating it. He even learned to appreciate a dish called chogera, which seems to be about the very acme of abomination. It consists of the liver and stomach chopped up fine, mixed with a little of the half-digested grass found in the stomach, flavored with the contents of the gall bladder, plentifully seasoned with pepper, salt, and onions, and eaten uncooked.
An Abyssinian’s digestion is marvellous, and almost rivals that of a pike, which will digest half of a fish in its stomach while the other half is protruding from its mouth. He will go to any number of feasts in a day, and bring a fine fresh appetite to each of them, consuming at a meal a quantity that would suffice seven or eight hungry Englishmen. Mr. Parkyns once gave a breakfast to fourteen guests, thinking that, as they were engaged for three or four other feasts on the same day, they would perhaps eat but little.
Keeping up, however, the old hospitable customs, he killed a cow and two fat sheep, and provided many gallons of mead and an infinite quantity of “teff.” To his astonishment, the whole of this enormous supply vanished, as he says, “like smoke,” before his guests, who left scarcely a scrap for their servants. And, after this feast, the whole of the party proceeded to another house, where they were treated in a similarly liberal manner, and employed the day in a series of four or five such banquets.
The Abyssinians are very fastidious respecting the part of the animal from which the broundo is cut, and have a vast number of names to express the different qualities of meat. The most valued portion is the hump of the shoulder, the first cut of which is always given to the man of the highest rank. Consequently, when several men of nearly equal rank meet, a polite controversy is carried on for some time, each offering the cut of honor to his neighbor.
On one occasion this piece of etiquette produced fatal results. Several Amhara chiefs were present, together with one Tigréan. The latter, in order to assert the superiority of his own province, drew his sword and helped himself to the first cut, whereupon he was immediately challenged by two Amhara warriors. He accepted the challenge, fought them both, killed them both, and so vindicated the course which he had taken.
The quantity which an Abyssinian will eat when he gets the chance must be seen to be appreciated. See for example Mr. Parkyns’ account of a feast at an Abyssinian wedding:—
“The Abyssinian guests were squatted round the tables in long rows, feeding as if their lives depended on the quantity they could devour, and washing it down with floods of drink. I never could have believed that any people could take so much food, and certainly, if the reader wishes to see a curious exhibition in the feeding line, he has only to run over to Abyssinia, and be present at a wedding-feast.