The Rev. R. Sheppard caused some of our large English grasshoppers, or field crickets, to be cooked in the way here recommended, only substituting butter for vinegar, and found them to be excellent food.
From these statements it will be seen, that the locusts which formed part of the sustenance of John the Baptist, and about which there has been much controversy among learned men, could be nothing else but the animal locust, so common a food in the East, and even in Africa, to the present day. They are eaten even by the North American Indians.
‘Among the choice delicacies with which the California Digger Indians regale themselves during the summer season,’ (says the Empire County Argus,) ‘is the grasshopper roast. Having been an eye witness to the preparation and discussion of one of their feasts of grasshoppers, we can describe it truthfully. There are districts in California, as well as portions of the plains between Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, that literally swarm with grasshoppers, and in such astonishing numbers that a man cannot place his foot to the ground, while walking there, without crushing great numbers. To the Indian they are a delicacy, and are caught and cooked in the following manner:—A piece of ground is sought where they most abound, in the centre of which an excavation is made, large and deep enough to prevent the insect from hopping out when once in. The entire party of diggers, old and young, male and female, then surround as much of the adjoining grounds as they can, and each with a green bough in hand, whipping and thrashing on every side, gradually approach the centre, driving the insects before them in countless multitudes, till at last all, or nearly all, are secured in the pit. In the meantime, smaller excavations are made, answering the purpose of ovens, in which fires are kindled and kept up till the surrounding earth, for a short distance, becomes sufficiently heated, together with a flat stone, large enough to cover the oven. The grasshoppers are now taken in coarse bags, and after being thoroughly soaked in salt water for a few moments, are emptied into the oven and closed in. Ten or fifteen minutes suffice to roast them, when they are taken out and eaten without further preparation, and with much apparent relish, or as is sometimes the case, reduced to powder and made into soup. And having from curiosity tasted, not of the soup, but of the roast, really, if one could but divest himself of the idea of eating an insect, as we do an oyster or shrimp, without other preparation than simple roasting, they would not be considered very bad eating, even by more refined epicures than the Digger Indians.’
NEUROPTERA.
Another order of insects contains the so-called white-ant tribe (Termes), which, in return for the mischief it does at certain times, affords an abundant supply of food to some of the African natives. The natives of Western Australia pull out the young from the nests at one season of the year and eat them. Ducks and fowls also feed greedily on them.
In many countries, the termites, or white-ants, serve for food. In some parts of the East Indies, the natives catch the winged insects, just before their period of emigration, in the following manner:—They make two holes, the one to the windward, the other to the leeward; at the leeward opening, they place the mouth of a pot, the inside of which has been previously rubbed with an aromatic herb, called bugera; on the windward side, they make a fire of stinking materials, which not only drives these insects, but frequently the hooded snakes also, into the pots, on which account they are obliged to be cautious in removing them. By this method, they catch great quantities, of which they make, with flour, a variety of pastry, which they can afford to sell very cheap to the poorer ranks of people. When this sort of food is used too abundantly, it produces, however, cholera, which kills in two or three hours. It also seems that, in some form or other, these insects are greedily eaten in other districts. Thus, when after swarming shoals of them fall into the rivers, the Africans skim them off the surface with calabashes, and, bringing them to their habitations, parch them in iron pots over a gentle fire, stirring them about as is usually done in roasting coffee; in that state, without sauce or any other addition, they consider them delicious food, putting them by handfuls into their mouths, as we do comfits.[30]
‘I have,’ says Smeathman, ‘eaten them dressed in this way several times, and think them delicate, nourishing, and wholesome. They are something sweeter, though not so fat and clogging, as the caterpillar or maggot of the palm-tree snout-beetle (Curculio palmarum), which is served up at all the luxurious tables of the West Indian epicures, particularly of the French, as the greatest dainty of the western world.’
Ants are eaten in many countries. In Brazil, the yellow ant, called cupia, and a larger species under the name of tama-joura, are much esteemed, being eaten by the aborigines mixed with resin for sauce. In Africa, they are stewed with butter. Ants have really no unpleasant flavour, but are very agreeably acid. In some parts of Sweden, ants are distilled along with rye, to give a flavour to the inferior kinds of brandy.
The large saubas (red-ants) and white-ants are an occasional luxury to the Indians of the Rio Negro; and when nothing else is to be had in the wet season, they eat large earth-worms, which, when the lands in which they live are flooded, ascend trees, and take up their abode in the hollow leaves of a species of Tillandsia, where they are often found accumulated by thousands. Nor is it only hunger that makes them eat these worms, for they sometimes boil them with their fish to give it an extra relish.[31]