The curiosities of food

by P. L. Simmonds

The bird is nearly the size of a duck, and web-footed, with a big round head and crooked bill like a hawk, and large full eyes like an owl; the head, part of the neck, and chief feathers of the wing and tail, are black, while the other parts of its body are covered with a fine milk-white down; the whole appearance being very singular. The diablotin only leaves its haunts at night time, flying with hideous screams like the owl, which it resembles in its dislike to day-light. The nests are made in holes in the mountains. When the palms are in fruit, the bird becomes one lump of fat. The hideous appearance of the bird and the strong scent once got over, it is said to be a delicious morsel.

We have our delicate tit-bits in spitted larks, and as many as four thousand dozen have been known to be taken in the neighbourhood of Dunstable between September and February. What the number sold in our metropolitan markets is annually, it is impossible to say. But larks are taken in much larger numbers in Germany, where there is an excise upon them, which has yielded as much as £1,000 a year in Leipsic—the larks of which place are famous all over Germany as being of a most delicate flavour.

In the Italian markets, besides carrion crows, strings of thrushes, larks, and even robin redbreasts are sold.

Young rooks, when skinned and made into pies are much esteemed by some persons, but they are very coarse eating.

One of the most delicious birds is the rice-bunting of South Carolina (Dolichonyx oryzivorus).

The rice-bunting migrates over the continent of America, from Labrador to Mexico, and over the great Antilles, appearing in the southern extremity of the United States about the end of March. Towards the middle and close of August, they enter New York, and Pennsylvania on their way to the south. There, along the shores of the large rivers lined with floating fields of wild rice, they find abundant subsistence, grow fat, and their flesh becomes little inferior in flavour to that of the European ortolan, on which account the reed, or rice birds, as they are then called, are shot in great numbers. When the cool nights in October commence, they move still farther south, till they reach the islands of Jamaica and Cuba in prodigious numbers to feed on the seeds of the guinea grass. Epicures compare the plump and juicy flesh of this delicacy to the ortolan.

On the shores of the Mediterranean there are feathered delicacies in the shape of the quail and the ortolan. Thousands of ortolans used to be shipped from the island of Cyprus, packed in casks of 300 or 400, prepared with spice and vinegar. When specially fattened for the table, they are regarded as most delicious; but, being merely lumps of fat, are so rich as soon to satiate the appetite of even a professed gourmand. In the West India Islands and the Southern States of America, the rice-bunting, as we have seen, takes its place, and is, occasionally, found in prodigious numbers, and greatly esteemed.

The bluish flesh of the toucan, notwithstanding its enormous and unsightly beak, is a wholesome and delicate meat; and there are no birds that give the Trinidad epicure a more delicious morsel. It is one of the most omnivorous of birds, and its powers of digestion and impunity to poisons are remarkable.

Parrot pie is said to be pretty good; at least, it may be so when other animal food is scarce.

Among the GALLINACEOUS fowls, large numbers contribute to the food delicacies of man. Some, like the turkey, peacock, &c., of considerable size; others, as the pigeon tribe, form smaller tit-bits.