There are several other small quadrupeds, including a burrowing or prairie-rat, which, at particular seasons, and in certain localities in Australia, constitute the chief animal food of the natives. The flesh of the little short-legged bandicoot is very white and delicate. Cooked like a rabbit, it furnishes the sportsman’s table with a splendid dish.
Among quadrupeds, besides the ordinary domestic fed or wild animals commonly eaten as food, we find apes and monkeys, the spider monkey, the marmozet, bats, hedgehogs, bears, racoons, badgers, and dogs; many of the carnivorous animals, as foxes, lions and tigers, the puma, &c., are also eaten. Then again we have the seal and the walrus.
QUADRUMANA.
African epicures esteem as one of their greatest delicacies a tender young monkey, highly seasoned and spiced, and baked in a jar set in the earth, with a fire over it, in gipsy fashion. Monkeys are commonly sold with parrots and the paca, in the markets at Rio Janeiro. The Indians, many negroes, and some whites, in Trinidad, eat of the flesh of the great red monkey, and say it is delicious. This, however, seems a semi-cannibal kind of repast—for it is the most vociferous and untameable of the Simian tribe.
Several species of monkey are used as food by the aboriginal inhabitants of the Malayan peninsula. As all kinds of monkeys are very destructive to his rice fields, the Dyak of Borneo is equally their enemy; and as this people esteem their flesh as an article of food, no opportunity of destroying them is lost.
Mr. Hugh Low says, he once saw some Dyaks roasting a monkey, but did not stay to observe whether they did not boil it afterwards, as they generally partially roast these animals to free them from the hair.
Monkeys are eaten in Ceylon by some of the natives, and the Africans on the Gold Coast eat them, according to the report of Governor Connor, in his Dispatch to the Colonial Office, March 2, 1857.—Reports on Colonial Possessions, transmitted with the Blue Book, for the year 1856.
In South America monkeys are ordinarily killed as game by the natives, for the sake of their flesh; but the appearance of these animals is so revolting to Europeans, that they can seldom force themselves to partake of such fare.
Mr. Wallace (Travels on the Amazon) says, ‘having often heard how good monkey was, I had it cut up and fried for breakfast; the meat somewhat resembled rabbit, without any peculiar or unpleasant flavour.’ The manner in which these animals are roasted by the natives, as described by Humboldt, further contributes to render their appearance disgusting.
‘A little grating or lattice of very hard wood is formed, and raised a foot from the ground. The monkey is skinned, and bent into a sitting posture, the head generally resting on the arms, which are meagre and long; but sometimes these are crossed behind the back. When it is tied on the grating, a very clear fire is kindled below; the monkey, enveloped in smoke and flame, is broiled and blackened at the same time. Roasted monkeys, particularly those that have a round head, display a hideous resemblance to a child; the Europeans, therefore, who are obliged to feed on them, prefer separating the head and hands, and serve only the rest of the animal at their tables. The flesh of monkeys is so dry and lean, that M. Bonpland has preserved, in his collection at Paris, an arm and hand, which had been broiled over the fire at Esmeralda, and no smell arises from them after a number of years.’