The flesh of the rhinoceros is eaten in Abyssinia, and by some of the Dutch settlers in the Cape Colony, and is in high esteem. The flesh of the hippopotamus used also to be eaten on the east coast of Africa, roasted or boiled, and fetched a high price as a delicacy. The fat was used in making puddings, instead of butter. The Portuguese settlers were permitted by the priests to eat the flesh of this animal in Lent, passing it off as fish from its amphibious habits, and hence their consciences were at ease.
The flesh of the tapir, when roasted, closely resembles beef, especially if it be young; and that of the water hare is also considered excellent food, being white and delicate, and much of the same flavour as that of the tapir.
HORSE-FLESH.
At Paris, where all eccentricities are found, and even encouraged, one of the latest gastronomic innovations is the use of horse-flesh. The French are always adding to their dietetic regimen by introducing new articles of food. This social phenomenon of making the horse contribute to the nourishment of the human race, is not altogether new. The ancient Germans and Scandinavians had a marked liking for horse-flesh. The nomade tribes of Northern Asia make horse-flesh their favorite food. It has long been authorized and publicly sold in Copenhagen.
With the high ruling prices of butcher’s meat, what think you, gentlemen and housekeepers, of horse-flesh as a substitute for beef and mutton? Are you innocently ignorant of the French treatise of that eminent naturalist and professor of zoology, M. St. Hilaire, upon horse for food? Banquets of horse-flesh are at present the rage in Paris, Toulouse, and Berlin. The veterinary schools there pronounce horse-bone soup preferable beyond measure to the old-fashioned beef-bone liquid, and much more economical.
Horse-flesh steak without sauce, and cold, is cited as a morsel superior to the finest game that flies! and cut, too, from a horse nearly a quarter of a century old; one of the labouring cavalry kind who pranced at the sound of the trumpet, and snuffed the battle from afar off, little dreaming he was doomed to steaks, soup, and washing-day hashes. Horse-flesh pie, too, eaten cold, is a dainty now at Berlin and Toulouse, and boiled horse, rechauffé, has usurped the place of ragouts and secondary dishes! What a theme, hippophology, to write upon. We shall soon hear in our city dining rooms, ‘A piece o’ horse, my kingdom for a piece of horse!’ ‘Waiter! a cut from the fore-shoulder, well done.’ ‘A horse sandwich and ale, and the morning paper.’ Our witty friend Punch had its horse-laugh recently upon the subject of the sensation this movement has created in equestrian circles.
A Frenchman, observes a recent writer, was one day remonstrating against the contempt expressed by Englishmen for French beef, the inferiority of which he would not admit. ‘I have been two times in England,’ said he, ‘but I nevere find the beef so supérieur to ours. I find it vary convenient that they bring it you on leetle pieces of stick for one penny, but I do not find the beef supérieur.’ ‘Good gracious!’ exclaimed the Englishman, ‘you have been eating cats’ meat for beef.’ What this Frenchman did in the innocence of his heart, his countrymen now do, it seems, with malice prepense.
And a Frenchman of considerable reputation, in a letter on alimentary substances, and especially upon the flesh of the horse, calls upon the whole world to put aside, what he considers, an ancient and absurd prejudice, and to realize at home that famous sentence in the geography we used to read at school, which, under the head of Norway, informed us ‘horse-flesh is publicly sold in the markets.’
‘M. Isidore St. Hilaire is very serious. He does not merely advocate the fillet of horse-flesh—the mare soup and fricasseed colt—in sarcastic allusion to the practice of Parisian restaurants. He comes gravely forward, with chapters of scientific evidence and argument, to contend that, while animal food is absolutely necessary to the proper nourishment of the human race, millions of Frenchmen eat no animal food, and every year millions of pounds of excellent meat are wasted. He knows how the cause he advocates lends itself to ridicule—he knows how difficult it has always been to get rid of a prejudice—he knows the fate of innovators; but, though a Frenchman, he braves ridicule, brings a heavy battery of facts to destroy what he deems a prejudice, and is already experiencing some of the triumph which follows a hard-won victory. For seven years he has been advocating the desirableness of eating horse-flesh—for seven or eight years he has been collecting evidence and gaining converts—and now he feels strong enough to appeal to the European public in a small volume.[9]