The curiosities of food

by P. L. Simmonds

Guanas are very large and plentiful on the outlying cays and islands of the Bahamas. They are hunted with a small kind of hound, and if taken alive, the mouth is sewed up with twine, and they keep alive a month or six weeks without food. Nassau, New Providence, the capital is chiefly supplied from these islands with the guana.

There are several varieties of this reptile in Australia, but that which is most common is from four to six feet in length, and from about a foot and a half to two feet across the broadest part of the back, with a rough dark skin, enlivened by yellow spots. Although perfectly harmless, as far as the human race are concerned, this huge lizard is a terrible foe to the smaller quadrupeds—opossums, bandicoots, kangaroo-rats, &c.,—on which it preys. It is very destructive also among hen roosts, and often takes up its quarters in the vicinity of a farm-house for the convenience of supping on the hens and their eggs.

The guana is much sought for and esteemed by the blacks as an article of food, and is frequently presented as a great delicacy to the young ‘gins.’ By the settlers it is not often eaten, owing to the natural feeling of dislike which is created by its form and habits. Those, however, who do not entertain these feelings, or are able to overcome them, find the flesh of the creature really excellent. It is not unlike that of a rabbit, to which, in flavour, it is fully equal, and eats best when stewed or curried.

The guana usually lives in trees, and, on the approach of man, it invariably makes off with great alacrity, scrambling rapidly up the nearest trunk; but it is easily brought down by a shot.

Captain Keppel tells us, ‘that while out on a shooting excursion at Port Essington, he observed a native plucking the feathers off a goose; while so employed his eye caught the tip-end of the tail of an iguana, an animal of the lizard kind, about four feet long, which was creeping up the opposite side of a tree; he tossed the goose, without further preparation, on to the fire, and ascended the tree as easily as Jack would run up the well-rattled rigging of a man-of-war. He almost immediately returned with the poor animal struggling in his scientific grasp. It was the work of a minute to secure it to a stick of about the same length as itself to prevent its running away, when it was made to change places with the goose, which, being warm through, was considered to be sufficiently done. The whole goose he devoured, making no bones, but spitting out the feathers. Then came the iguana’s turn, which, although less tender, was not the less relished. It appeared to require great muscular strength to detach the flesh from the skin. The operation being finished, he lay down to sleep. His wife, having sprinkled him with dirt to keep the flies off, was proceeding to eat the skin of the iguana, when the arrival of some more geese offered her a more satisfactory repast.’

The iguana is, I believe, the Talagowa of the natives of Ceylon—le Monitor terrestre d’Egypte of M. Cuvier. The Indian monitor (Monitor dracæna, Gray) is found in great abundance in all the maritime provinces of Ceylon. The natives are partial to its flesh. Dr. Kelaart states that he once tasted some excellent soup made from a tender guana, which was not unlike hare soup. At Trincomalee they are hunted down by dogs, and sold in the market for 6d. each. They feed on the smaller reptiles and insects, and measure, when large, four feet five inches. Despite its repulsive appearance, the iguana is eagerly hunted for food by the natives of Africa, Australia, America, and Asia.

The eggs of the guana are another article deserving the attention of gourmands. One of these lizards sometimes contains as many as four-score eggs. These are about the size of a pigeon’s egg, with a very soft shell, which contains only a very small quantity of the albumen. The yolk, unlike that of other eggs, does not become hard and dry when boiled, but is soft and melting as marrow.

It would be a refreshing sight to see Alderman A., or Sheriff B., or any other civic dignitary who has gone the round of all the dishes which native and foreign skill have been able to produce, and to whom a new combination would convey as much delight as a black tulip or a blue dahlia would to a horticulturist, partaking for the first time of pâté de foie gras de l’hiccatee, or a dish of the eggs of the iguana garnished with anchovies. The inhabitants of some of the Pacific islands esteem the large oval eggs of the lizards as food.

The meat of the Amblyrynchus subcristatus, another lizard, when cooked, is white, and by those whose stomachs rise above all prejudices it is relished as very good. Humboldt has remarked, that in intertropical South America, all lizards which inhabit dry regions are esteemed delicacies for the table.

There are an almost innumerable variety of lizards, properly so called, in all parts of the colony of New South Wales, and the whole of the larger kinds are used for food by the blacks, although but very rarely eaten by the settlers. Those who have eaten them, state that their flesh resembles that of a fowl. The dragon lizard, or as it is sometimes called, the frilled lizard, is the most remarkable, being provided with a large frill, which it has the power of extending suddenly, and in a rather startling manner, when attacked or alarmed; it is usually about a foot and a half or two feet long. The Jew lizards are dark coloured, with a dewlapped and puffy appearance about the throat and neck, varying in size, but seldom exceeding two feet in length. The scaly lizards are fierce looking, although harmless, reptiles, with a spotted scaly hide, generally about a foot long, and remarkable for having small round club-shaped tails. They are easily domesticated, but as their appearance is far from attractive, they are seldom made pets of. The large spiny-backed rock lizard resembles a guana, the only material points of difference being that it has a heavy dewlap beneath its chin, and a row of spines along the back from the head to the tail. The flat-tailed lizard, called by the natives the Rock Scorpion, is imagined by them to be venomous, although in reality it is perfectly harmless; it is nocturnal in its habits, and possesses to a peculiar extent the singular power, which is more or less vested in all the lizard family, of leaving its tail in the hands of any one who attempts to capture it by laying hold of that appendage, and of making off apparently scatheless. The sleeping lizard is in body, as well as in its sluggish habits, exactly like the terrible death adder, from which it is only to be distinguished by its short feet.