CHAPTER VIII.
WHOLESOME FOODS.
Men are governed, or prejudiced very much for, or against, things by appearances or names. And this I find holds even with practical men as are hunters, traders and trappers, men who as a rule reason much, and are endowed with considerable common sense.
There are many food meats that the woods furnish that are tabooed from the hunter's bill of fare simply by the name of the animal that furnishes it. The skin is taken but the flesh is cast away, and this for no other reason but the name the beast is generally known under.
Take, for instance, the water rat, musquash, or the more generally used name of musk rat. Here we have certainly nothing against it but the name. Because did we of the fraternity of hunters pause to consider, and reason, we must see that a musquash ought not, and cannot be different from a beaver. They are identically the same in every detail except the formation of the tail. They live on the same food, roots, grasses, and twigs, as the beaver does and to the eye they are (barring the tail) a small beaver in miniature.
Musquash, like all animals in cold countries, are at their best condition in the autumn. Let my hunter friend take one of the above despised animals, select a nice mixed flesh and fat one, clean it as you would a beaver, split it up the front, impale it on a sharp pointed stick, introduce the point near the root of the tail, and bring it up to the inside of the head. Plant your screwer in front of your camp fire, giving it an occasional twist, while getting your tea and other things ready. When done stand it back from the excessive heat for a short while to cool and harden. Fill your pannican of tea, spread out your biscuits, cut off a quarter section of your roast suckling, and fall to, and a hundred to one you never ate anything more delicious. I know prejudice has to be gotten over, "I have been there myself."
I starved once for a day and a night, did hard paddling and portaging all day and went supperless at night, simply because I could not get over the idea of "rat." We had about a dozen with us, and my Indian companion roasted a couple each meal and demolished both himself with satisfaction and relish; for myself the thought of the name was enough.
Take again the Canadian lynx. Were this name always adhered to, there would be less room for prejudice, but unfortunately it is more frequently called cat. I admit it has all the appearances and manners of the cat, but let someone, unknown to you, fry some fat cutlets from the ham of a lynx, and fifty to one you will relish it as very fine veal and you cannot be convinced to the contrary. There again is the porcupine, I think sometimes known as the hedgehog. When they are in good condition, nicer or more juicy meat a hunter cannot put his teeth into. When properly prepared and properly cooked, the white mans "rarebit", the suckling pig, cannot prove its points.
The arctic or snow owl is a bird that gives as fine a flavored flesh, and the same in color and appearance as a fat capon. But where one is set against it, is when served up in Indian fashion, boiled whole, it has then the appearance of a young baby, and one would almost have to be a professional cannibal to tackle the object. The thick, plump thighs, the round bald head, makes the appearance to a young infant almost startling. However, if one closes his mental eyes to this similitude, the flesh is most toothsome.