The curiosities of food

by P. L. Simmonds

The aborigines of Australia live chiefly on the native animals they can procure—the kangaroo, the wallaby, bandicoot, kangaroo rat, opossum, and wombat; every bird and bird’s egg that can be procured; and in the case of tribes near the sea, cray-fish, and shell-fish, form the staple article of their diet.

Under the influence of Christianity, the fish, flesh, or fowl, which the Pacific Islanders previously regarded as incarnations of their gods, are now eaten without suspicion or alarm. One, for instance, saw his god in the eel, another in the shark, another in the turtle, another in the dog, another in the owl, another in the lizard; and so on throughout all the fish of the sea, and birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. In some of the shell-fish, even, gods were supposed to be present. A man would eat freely of what was regarded as the incarnation of the god of another man, but the incarnation of his own particular god he would consider it death to injure or to eat. The god was supposed to avenge the insult by taking up his abode in that person’s body, and causing to generate diseases.

The Sonthal, or lowlander of Bengal, being unfettered by caste, eats without scruple his cow or buffalo beef, his kids, poultry, pork, or pigeons, and is not over particular as to whether the animals have been slain, have died a natural death, or have been torn by wild animals. When the more substantial good things of life, such as meat and poultry are scarce, he does not refuse to eat snakes, ants, frogs, and field rats.

In Eastern Tibet regular meals are not in vogue; the members of a family do not assemble to dine together, but ‘eat when they’re hungry, drink when they’re dry.’ ‘We remember,’ says a writer in Blackwood, ‘to have heard a graphic description of the Tibetan cuisine, from a humorous shikaree, or native Nimrod of our Himalayan provinces. The Bhoteea folk (he said) have a detestable way of eating. They take a large cooking pot full of water, and put in it meat, bread, rice, and what not, and set it on the fire, where it is always a-simmering. When hungry, they go and fish out a cupful of whatever comes uppermost, perhaps, six or seven times a day. Strangers are served in the same way. If a man gets hold of a bone, he picks it, wipes his hands on his dress, and chucks it back into the pot. So with all crumbs and scraps, back they go into the pot, and thus the never-ending still-beginning mess stews on.’

If we visit Burmah, we find there a rather indiscriminate use of all that can satiate the appetite, without much regard to selection. Immense quantities of pressed fish are prepared, called gnapee, which constitutes a main article of their diet. In some cases the fish is washed and pounded, and this description generally consists of prawns. In the coarser sorts the pieces of fish are entire, half putrid, half pickled. They are all fetid and offensive to Europeans.

A kind of red ant is eaten fried, or with their dried fish, and a worm, which in the lower provinces of Burmah is found in the heart of a shrub, is considered such a delicacy, that every month a great quantity is sent to the capital to be served up at the table of the emperor. It is eaten either fried or roasted.

According to Sir John Bowring, the Chinese have no prejudices whatever as regards food; they eat anything and everything from which they can derive nutrition. Dogs, especially puppies, are habitually sold as food. In the butchers’ shops large dogs skinned and hanging with their viscera, may be seen by the side of pigs and goats. Even to the flesh of monkeys and snakes they have no objection.

The sea slug is an aristocratic and costly delicacy, which is never wanting, any more than the edible birds-nests, at a feast where honour is intended to be done to the guests. These birds-nests are worth twice their weight in silver. They are glutinous compositions formed by a kind of swallow, in vast clusters, found in Java, Sumatra, and the rocky islets of the Indian Archipelago. Dried sharks’ fins and fish maws are also highly prized.

But while the rich fare sumptuously, the mass of the poor subsist on the veriest garbage. The heads of fowls, their entrails and fat, with every scrap of digestible animal matter, earth-worms, sea reptiles of all kinds, mice, and other vermin are greedily devoured. Lots of black frogs, in half dozens, tied together, are exposed for sale in shallow troughs of water. The hind-quarters of a horse will be seen hung up in a butcher’s shop, with the recommendation of a whole leg attached.

Unhatched ducks and chickens are a favorite dish. Nor do the early stages of putrefaction create any disgust. Rotten eggs are by no means condemned to perdition. Fish is the more acceptable when it has a strong fragrance and flavour to give more gusto to the rice, which forms the two meals of the population, morning and evening. In the shops, fat pork chops will be found dried and varnished to the colour of mahogany, suspended with dry pickled ducks’ gizzards, and strings of sausages cured by exposure to the sun.