(_Conclusion_.)
The diet of the _Frenchman_, is chiefly vegetable, and his _frogs_ are
rarities reserved for the delectation of the opulent, and answering,
in some degree, to the brains and tongues of singing-birds amongst
ancient epicures; since, after being subjected to a peculiar process
of fattening and purifying, only the legs of these animals are eaten.
Light wines, beer, sugar and water, strong coffee, and a variety of
delicious liqueurs, are drunk by the French, but they have shown
themselves capable of conforming to the English taste in a relish for
stronger potations. _Spaniards_ of all ranks, use fruit, vegetables,
fish, and olives, for their principal diet, and oil and garlic are
used plentifully in their culinary operations; chocolate is their
chief beverage, but at dinner ladies drink nothing but water, and
gentlemen a little wine. The fare of the _Portuguese_ peasantry is
meagre in the extreme, although, they are, in fact, surrounded with
the abundant luxuries of nature; a piece of black bread and a pickled
pilchard, or head of garlic, is their usual subsistence, but a salted
cod is a feast. In _Italy_, ice-water and lemonade are luxuries
essential to the existence of all classes, and the inferior ones, who
never inebriate themselves with spirituous liquors, can procure them
at a cheap rate; macaroni and fruit are chief articles of food, but
the Italians are great gourmands, and delight in dishes swimming in
oil, which, to an English ear, sounds very disgustingly; however, it
must be remembered, that oil in Italy is so pure and fresh, that it
answers every purpose of our newest butter. A gentleman who had
resided some time in this country, informs us, that by the Italians,
_puppy-broth_ was reckoned a sovereign remedy in some slight
indispositions, and that he has constantly seen in the markets young
dogs skinned for sale. Of the _Turks_, the ordinary food is rice,
sometimes boiled with gravy, and sometimes made into _pilan_; a kind
of curry composed of mutton and fowl stewed to rags, and highly
seasoned gravy. This is eaten with their fingers, since they have
neither knives nor forks, and the Koran prohibits the use of gold and
silver spoons. Coffee and sherbet are their ordinary beverages, and by
the higher classes of "the faithful," wine is drunk in private, but an
intoxication of a singular and destructive description, is produced by
opium, which the Turks chew in immoderate quantities. The food of the
_Circassians_ consists of a little meat, millet-paste, and a kind of
beer fermented from millet. The _Tartars_ are not fond of beef and
veal, but admire horse-flesh; they prefer to drink, before any thing
else, mare's milk, and produce from it, by keeping it in sour skins, a
strong spirit termed _koumiss_. The _Jakutians_ (a Tartar tribe)
esteem horse-flesh as the greatest possible dainty; they eat raw the
fat of horses and oxen, and drink melted butter with avidity; but
bread is rare. The favourite food of the _Kalmuc Tartars_ is
horse-flesh, eaten raw sometimes, but commonly dried in the sun; dogs,
cats, rats, marmots, and other small animals and vermin are also eaten
by them; but neither vegetables, bread nor fruits; and they drink
koumiss; than which, scarcely any thing can be more disgusting,
except, perhaps, that beverage of the South Sea islanders, prepared by
means of leaves being masticated by a large company, and spit into a
bowl of water. The diet of the _Kamtschatdales_, is chiefly fish,
variously prepared; _huigal_, which is neither more nor less than fish
laid in a pit until _putrid_, is a _luxury_ with this people! They are
fond of caviar, made of roes of fish, and scarcely less disgusting
than huigal. A pound of dry caviar will last a Kamtschatdale on a
journey for a considerable time, since he finds bread to eat with it
in the bark of every birch and elder he meets with. These people boil
the fat of the whale and walrus with roots of _setage_. A principal
dish at their feasts, consists of various roots and berries pounded
with caviar, and mixed with the melted fat of whale and seal. They are
fond of spirits, but commonly drink water. For the _Arabs_, lizards
and locusts, afford food, but with better articles. The _Persians_
live like the Turks, or nearly so, but for the want of spoons, knives,
and forks, their feasts, if the provisions are good in themselves, are
disgusting; besides which, the _sofera_, or cloth on which the dinner
is spread, is, from a superstitious notion that changing is unlucky,
so intolerably dirty and offensive in odour, that the stranger can
scarcely endure to sit beside it. With the _Chinese_, rice is the
"staff of life," but all kinds of animal food are eagerly devoured;
and pedlars offering for sale rats, cats, and dogs, may be seen in the
streets of Chinese towns. It is uncertain whether a depraved taste or
lack of superior animal food, induces a really civilized people to
devour such flesh. Weak tea, without sugar, or milk, is the common
beverage of the Chinese; in the use of ardent spirits they are
moderate. The _Peguese_, worshipping crocodiles, will drink no water
but from the ditches wherein those creatures abound, and consequently
are frequently devoured by them. The _Siamese_, besides a variety of
superior food, eat rats, lizards, and some kinds of insects. The
_Battas_ of Sumatra, prefer _human flesh_ to all other, and speak with
rapture of the soles of the feet and palms of the hands. Warm water is
the usual beverage of the _Manilla_ islanders. The _Japanese_, amongst
other things, drink a kind of beer distilled from rice, and called
_sacki_; it is kept constantly warm, and drunk after every morsel they
eat. Cocoa-nut milk and water, is the common beverage of the natives
of the _New Hebrides_. In _New Caledonia_ so great is the scarcity of
food, that the natives make constant war for the sake of eating their
prisoners, and sometimes, to assuage the cravings of hunger, they bind
ligatures tightly round their bodies and swallow oleaginous earth. The
_New Zealanders_ are cannibals sometimes in a dearth, and to gratify a
spirit of vengeance against their enemies. The _New Hollanders_, near
the sea, subsist on fish eaten raw, or nearly so; should a whale be
cast ashore, it is never abandoned until its bones are picked; their
substitute for bread, and that which forms their chief subsistence, is
a species of fern roasted, pounded between stones, and mixed with
fish. The general beverage of the negro tribes is palm-wine. No
disgust is evinced by the _Bosjesman Hottentots_ at the most nauseous
food, and having shot an animal with a poisoned arrow, their only
precaution, previous to tearing it in pieces and devouring it raw, is
to cut out the envenomed part. Half a dozen Bosjesmans, will eat a fat
sheep in an hour; they use no salt, and seldom drink anything,
probably from the succulent nature of their food. The _Caffres_ live
chiefly on milk; they have no poultry, nor do they eat eggs. When
flesh is boiled, each member of a family helps himself from the kettle
with a pointed stick, and eats it in his hand. Their substitute for
bread, which is made of Caffre-corn, a sort of millet, is the pith of
a palm, indigenous to the country.
The _Lattakoos_ eat, with equal zest, the flesh of elephants,
rhinoceroses, tigers, giraffes, quaggas, &c.; and sometimes, under an
idea that it confers valour, human flesh, of which they have otherwise
great abhorrence. They are very disgusting in their manner of
preparing food. The _Abyssinians_ usually eat the flesh of cattle raw,
and sometimes, although we believe the fact has been much
controverted, immediately as it is cut from the living animals. The
_Bisharye_, a tribe of Bedouin Arabs, eat raw flesh, drink raw sheep's
blood, and esteem the raw marrow of camels their greatest dainty.
The _Patagonians_ eat raw flesh with no regard to cleanliness. The
_Greenlanders_ subsist on fish, seals, and sea-fowls, prepared and
devoured in manners truly disgusting; train-oil is their sauce, and
the blood of seals, their favourite beverage! Some of the _North
American Indians_ diet on the flesh of the sea-dog, parts of the whale
and its fat, and an oil made of the blubber of both of these animals.
Whilst, singular is the contrast, some of the _South American_ tribes,
are able to digest monkeys, blackened in, and dried by fire, to such a
degree of wood-like hardness, as to be rendered capable of keeping, we
dare not say how long.
_Chacun à son gout_, says one proverb, but we trust that the readers
of this paper will, whenever they feel themselves inclined to quarrel
with _English_ fare, pause, and remember, another, viz.:--"A man may
go further and fare worse."