The curiosities of food

by P. L. Simmonds

Passing now to the rodents or gnawing animals, we find that the large grey squirrel (Sciurus cinereus, Desm.) is very good eating. The flesh of the squirrel is much valued by the Dyaks, and it will, doubtless, hereafter be prized for the table of Europeans.

The marmot (Arctomys Marmotta), in its fat state, when it first retires to its winter quarters, is in very good condition, and is then killed and eaten in great numbers, although we may affect to despise it.

The mouse, to the Esquimaux epicures, is a real bonne bouche, and if they can catch half-a-dozen at a time, they run a piece of horn or twig through them, in the same manner as the London poulterers prepare larks for the table; and without stopping to skin them, or divest them of their entrails, broil them over the fire; and although some of the mice may have belonged to the aborigines of the race, yet so strong is the mastication of the natives, that the bones of the animal yield to its power as easily as the bones of a rabbit would to a shark.

There is a very large species of rat spoken of as found in the island of Martinique, nearly four times the size of the ordinary rat. It is black on the back, with a white belly, and is called, locally, the piloris or musk rat, as it perfumes the air around. The inhabitants eat them; but then they are obliged, after they are skinned, to expose them a whole night to the air; and they likewise throw away the first water they are boiled in, because it smells so strongly of musk.

The flesh of the musk rat is not bad, except in rutting time, for then it is impossible to deprive it of the musky smell and flavour.

So fat and sleek do the rats become in the West Indies, from feeding on the sugar cane in the cane fields, that some of the negroes find them an object of value, and, with the addition of peppers and similar spiceries, prepare from them a delicate fricassée not to be surpassed by a dish of French frogs.

There is a professional rat-catcher employed on each sugar plantation, and he is paid so much a dozen for the tails he brings in to the overseer. Father Labat tells us that he made his hunters bring the whole rat to him, for if the heads or tails only came, the bodies were eaten by the negroes, which he wished to prevent, as he thought that this food brought on consumption! The health of the negroes was then a matter of moment, considering the money value at which they were estimated and sold. A rat hunt in a cane field affords glorious sport. In cutting down the canes, one small patch is reserved standing, into which all the rats congregate, and the negroes, surrounding the preserve, with their clubs and bill-hooks speedily despatch the rats, and many are soon skinned and cooked.

The negroes in Brazil, too, eat every rat which they can catch; and I do not see why they should not be well-tasted and wholesome meat, seeing that their food is entirely vegetable, and that they are clean, sleek, and plump. The Australian aborigines eat mice and rats whenever they can catch them.

Scinde is so infested with rats, that the price of grain has risen 25 per cent. from the destruction caused to the standing crops by them. The government commissioner has recently issued a proclamation granting head-money on all rats and mice killed in the province. The rate is to be 3d. a dozen, the slayer having the privilege of keeping the body and presenting the tail.

In China, rat soup is considered equal to ox-tail soup, and a dozen fine rats will realize two dollars, or eight or nine shillings.