The white bear is eaten by the Esquimaux and the Danes of Greenland; and when young, and cooked after the manner of beef steaks, is by no means to be despised, although rather insipid; the fat, however, ought to be avoided, as unpleasant to the palate.
The flesh of the badger (Taxus vulgaris, Desm.) is said to be good eating, and to taste like that of a boar. The omnivorous and thrifty Chinese eat it, as indeed they do that of the flesh of most animals, and consider its hams a very great dainty.
Many nations consider the flesh of the dog excellent. The Greeks ate it; and Hippocrates was convinced that it was a light and wholesome food. The common people of Rome also ate it. The Turks and some of the Asiatic citizens would thank any one who would rid the thoroughfares of the tribes of dogs which infest the streets and courts; and there is a reward given for their slaughter. Fine feasts might be made of them by those who liked them, while the skins would come in for dog-skin gloves. Many of the South Sea islanders fatten dogs for eating, but these live wholly on vegetable food.
The domestic dog of China is uniformly one variety, about the size of a moderate spaniel, of a pale yellow, and occasionally a black colour, with coarse bristly hair on the back, sharp upright ears, and peaked head, not unlike a fox’s, with a tail curled over the rump.
In China, the dog is fattened for the table, and the flesh of dogs is as much liked by them as mutton is by us; being exposed for sale by their butchers, and in their cook-shops.
At Canton, the hind quarters of dogs are seen hanging up in the most prominent parts of the shops exposed for sale. They are considered by the Chinese as a most dainty food, and are consumed by both rich and poor.
The breeds common in that country are apparently peculiar to itself, and they are objects of more attention to their owners than elsewhere in Asia. The Celestials, perhaps, having an eye to their tender haunches, which bad treatment would toughen and spoil.[5]
The Africans of Zanzibar hold a stew of puppies, as amongst us in the days of Charles the Second, as a dish fit for a monarch.
The Australian native dog or dingo, in aspect and colour resembling a fox, is hunted down by the colonists owing to its depredations among the flocks. The flesh even of this animal is eaten by the blacks. The aborigines are often driven for subsistence to the most wretched food, as snakes and other reptiles, grubs, lizards, and the larvæ of the white ant. When they do obtain better food, they prepare it with more care than might be expected. In cooking fish, they wrap it in soft bark and place it in hot ashes. By this process an acid from the bark is communicated to the fish, which gives it a most agreeable flavour.
A traveller in the Sandwich Islands, relating his experience, says,—‘Near every place at table was a fine young dog, the flesh of which was declared to be excellent by all who partook of it. To my palate its taste was what I can imagine would result from mingling the flavour of pig and lamb; and I did not hesitate to make my dinner of it, in spite of some qualms at the first mouthful. I must confess, when I reflected that the puppy now trussed up before us, might have been the affectionate and frolicsome companion of some Hawaiian fair—they all have pet pigs or puppies—I felt as if dog-eating were only a low grade of cannibalism. What eat poor Ponto?—