In Hong Kong, rice with salt fish and fat pork is the principal article of Chinese diet; and for drink, tea and hot samshew, a spirit distilled from rice, and very unpalatable to Europeans.
Nearly all the beasts of the forest are eaten by the Dyaks of Borneo; even monkeys, alligators (if small), snakes, and other reptiles are esteemed. Like the French, they regard frogs as a delicate dish, and bestow considerable pains in procuring them.
The Greenlanders, although they do not usually eat their meat raw, have a superstitious custom, on every capture, of cutting out a piece of the raw flesh and drinking the warm blood. And the woman who skins the seal, gives a couple of pieces of the fat to each of the female spectators.
An European writer states, that he frequently followed the example of the Greenlanders in the chase, and assuaged his hunger by eating a piece of raw reindeer’s flesh; nor did he find it very hard of digestion, but it satisfied his appetite much less than cooked meat. The inhabitants of the high table-lands of Abyssinia, are also accustomed to eat raw flesh—the climate being as cold as that of the northern parts of Scotland. My friend, Mr. C. Johnston, in his travels in that country, thus puts in a plea for the practice by the Abyssinians.
In a country but poorly wooded, the chief supply of fuel being the dung of cattle, an instinctive feeling, dependent upon the pleasures of a state of warmth, has taught the Abyssinians that the flesh of animals eaten raw, is a source of great physical enjoyment, by the cordial and warming effects upon the system produced by its digestion, and to which I am convinced bon vivants more civilized than the Abyssinians would resort, if placed in their situation.
Travellers who have witnessed their brunde feasts, can attest the intoxicating effects of this kind of food, and they must have been astonished at the immense quantities that can be eaten in the raw state, compared to that when the meat is cooked, and at the insensibility which it sometimes produces.
Eating raw meat, which among the Esquimaux is for the most part an absolute necessity, by the Abyssinians is considered a luxury, or in fact, as a kind of dissipation; for eating it in that state is only indulged in by them at festivals, and it is then taken as a means of enjoyment, and is not more barbarous or disgusting than getting tipsy upon strong drinks.[4]
Another writer on ‘Life in Abyssinia,’ thus describes the native mode of eating meat.—‘There is usually a piece of meat to every five or six persons, among whom arises some show of ceremony as to which of them shall first help himself; this being at length decided, the person chosen takes hold of the meat with his left hand, and with his sword or knife cuts a strip a foot or fifteen inches long, from the part which appears the nicest and tenderest. The others then help themselves in like manner. If I should fail in describing the scene which now follows, I must request the aid of the reader’s imagination. Let him picture to himself thirty or forty Abyssinians, stripped to their waists, squatting round the low tables, each with his sword, knife, or ‘shotel’ in his hand, some eating, some helping themselves, and some waiting their turn, but all bearing in their features the expression of that fierce gluttony which one attributes more to the lion or leopard than to the race of Adam. The imagination may be much assisted by the idea of the lumps of raw pink and blue flesh they are gloating over. But I have yet to describe how they eat the strip of meat which I have just made one of the party cut off. A quantity of ‘dillikh’ or ‘aou-a-zé’ being laid on his bread, he dips one end of the meat into it, and then, seizing it between his teeth, while he holds the other end in his left hand, he cuts a bit off close to his lips by an upward stroke of his sword, only just avoiding the tip of his nose, and so on till he has finished the whole strip.’
Australian delicacies are somewhat different to our own. The flying-fox (Pteropus), an animal of the bat family, which makes sad havoc at night among the fruit trees of the colonists, is in return shot down without mercy. Their flesh is delicate, and they are almost invariably very fat, but owing to the demoniac appearance of their black leathery wings, and to the prejudice which this appearance excites, they are seldom eaten by the settlers. Travellers in the wilderness, however, are frequently indebted for a hearty meal to their success in bringing down these creatures.
The burrowing wombat, or native pig, which feeds chiefly on roots, is not deemed bad food. When divested of its fur and tough skin, its flesh, although red and coarse in appearance, resembles that of a pig in flavour, and is usually cooked by the colonists like fresh pork would be. The flesh of the porcupine ant-eater somewhat resembles that of a young sucking pig, and is highly esteemed.