Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M.[26] was
obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy
thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living
animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. [Footnote 26: Thomas
Manning.] This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great
Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he
designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the
Cook's holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of
roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother)
was accidentally discovered in the manner following. The swine-herd,
Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was,
to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his
eldest son Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with
fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into
a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, spread the conflagration
over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes.
Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian make-shift of a
building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine
litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished.
China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East from the
remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in utmost consternation,
as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his
father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and
the labour of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the
pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and
wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely
sufferers, an odour assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he
had before experienced. What could it proceed from?--not from the
burnt cottage--he had smelt that smell before--indeed this was by no
means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the
negligence of this unlucky young fire-brand. Much less did it resemble
that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at
the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He
next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in
it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his
booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin
had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in
the world's life indeed, for before him no man had known it) he
tasted--_crackling_! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not
burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of
habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding, that it
was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and,
surrendering himself up to the newborn pleasure, he fell to tearing up
whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was
cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire
entered amid the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and
finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's
shoulders, as thick as hailstones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more
than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure, which he
experienced in his lower regions, had rendered him quite callous to
any inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His father
might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till he had
fairly made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of his
situation, something like the following dialogue ensued.
"You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? Is it not
enough that you have burnt me down three houses with your dog's
tricks, and be hanged to you, but you must be eating fire, and I know
not what--what have you got there, I say?"
"O, father, the pig, the pig, do come and taste how nice the burnt pig
eats."
The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he
cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt
pig.
Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked
out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half
by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out "Eat, eat,
eat the burnt pig, father, only taste--O Lord,"--with such-like
barbarous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke.
Ho-ti trembled every joint while he grasped the abominable thing,
wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural
young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had
done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn
tasted some of its flavour, which, make what sour mouths he would for
a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion
(for the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father and son
fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had
despatched all that remained of the litter.
Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the
neighbours would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable
wretches, who could think of improving upon the good meat which God
had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It was
observed that Ho-ti's cottage was burnt down now more frequently than
ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break out
in broad day, others in the night-time. As often as the sow farrowed,
so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a blaze; and Ho-ti himself,
which was the more remarkable, instead of chastising his son, seemed
to grow more indulgent to him than ever. At length they were watched,
the terrible mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to take
their trial at Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize town. Evidence was
given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and verdict about
to be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury begged that some of the
burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might be handed into
the box. He handled it, and they all handled it, and burning their
fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature
prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all the
facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given,--to the
surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all
present--without leaving the box, or any manner of consultation
whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty.
The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity of
the decision; and, when the court was dismissed, went privily, and
bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few
days his Lordship's town house was observed to be on fire. The thing
took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in every
direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district.
The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter
and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of
architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this
custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says my
manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery, that
the flesh of swine; or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked
(_burnt_, as they called it) without the necessity of consuming a
whole house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a gridiron.
Roasting by the string, or spit, came in a century or two later, I
forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the
manuscript, do the most useful, and seemingly the most obvious arts,
make their way among mankind.----
Without placing too implicit faith in the account above given, it must
be agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an experiment as
setting houses on fire (especially in these days) could be assigned in
favour of any culinary object, that pretext and excuse might be found
in ROAST PIG.
Of all the delicacies in the whole _mundus edibilis_, I will maintain
it to be the most delicate--_princeps obsoniorum_.
I speak not of your grown porkers--things between pig and pork--those
hobbydehoys--but a young and tender suckling--under a moon
old--guiltless as yet of the sty--with no original speck of the _amor
immunditiae_, the hereditary failing of the first parent, yet
manifest--his voice as yet not broken, but something between a
childish treble, and a grumble--the mild forerunner, or _praeludium_,
of a grunt.
_He must be roasted._ I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate them
seethed, or boiled--but what a sacrifice of the exterior tegument!
There is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that of the crisp,
tawny, well-watched, not over-roasted, _crackling_, as it is well
called--the very teeth are invited to their share of the pleasure at
this banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle resistance--with the
adhesive oleaginous--O call it not fat--but an indefinable sweetness
growing up to it--the tender blossoming of fat--fat cropped in the
bud--taken in the shoot--in the first innocence--the cream and
quintessence of the child-pig's yet pure food----the lean, no lean,
but a kind of animal manna--or, rather, fat and lean, (if it must be
so) so blended and running into each other, that both together make
but one ambrosian result, or common substance.
Behold him, while he is doing--it seemeth rather a refreshing warmth,
than a scorching heat, that he is so passive to. How equably he
twirleth round the string!--Now he is just done. To see the extreme
sensibility of that tender age, he hath wept out his pretty
eyes--radiant jellies--shooting stars--
See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth!--wouldst
thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness and indocility
which too often accompany maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would
have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable
animal--wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation--from these
sins he is happily snatched away--
Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade
Death came with timely care--
his memory is odoriferous--no clown curseth, while his stomach half
rejecteth, the rank bacon--no coalheaver bolteth him in reeking
sausages--he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the
judicious epicure--and for such a tomb might be content to die.
He is the best of Sapors. Pine-apple is great. She is indeed almost
too transcendent--a delight, if not sinful, yet so like to sinning,
that really a tender-conscienced person would do well to pause--too
ravishing for mortal taste, she woundeth and excoriateth the lips that
approach her--like lovers' kisses, she biteth--she is a pleasure
bordering on pain from the fierceness and insanity of her relish--but
she stoppeth at the palate--she meddleth not with the appetite--and
the coarsest hunger might barter her consistently for a mutton chop.
Pig--let me speak his praise--is no less provocative of the appetite,
than he is satisfactory to the criticalness of the censorious palate.
The strong man may batten on him, and weakling refuseth not his mild
juices.
Unlike to mankind's mixed characters, a bundle of virtues and vices,
inexplicably intertwisted, and not to be unravelled without hazard, he
is--good throughout. No part of him is better or worse than another.
He helpeth, as far as his little means extend, all around. He is the
least envious of banquets. He is all neighbours' fare.
I am one of those, who freely and ungrudgingly impart a share of the
good things of this life which fall to their lot (few as mine are in
this kind) to a friend. I protest to take as great an interest in my
friend's pleasures, his relishes, and proper satisfactions, as in mine
own. "Presents," I often say, "endear Absents." Hares, pheasants,
partridges, snipes, barn-door chickens (those "tame villatic fowl"),
capons, plovers, brawn, barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as I
receive them. I love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue of my
friend. But a stop must be put somewhere. One would not, like Lear,
"give everything." I make my stand upon pig. Methinks it is an
ingratitude to the Giver of all good flavours, to extra-domiciliate,
or send out of the house, slightingly (under pretext of friendship, or
I know not what) a blessing so particularly adapted, predestined, I
may say, to my individual palate--It argues an insensibility.
I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school. My good old
aunt, who never parted from me at the end of a holiday without
stuffing a sweetmeat, or some nice thing, into my pocket, had
dismissed me one evening with a smoking plum-cake, fresh from the
oven. In my way to school (it was over London Bridge) a grey-headed
old beggar saluted me (I have no doubt at this time of day that he was
a counterfeit). I had no pence to console him with, and in the vanity
of self-denial, and the very coxcombry of charity, school-boy-like, I
made him a present of--the whole cake! I walked on a little, buoyed
up, as one is on such occasions, with a sweet soothing of
self-satisfaction; but before I had got to the end of the bridge, my
better feelings returned, and I burst into tears, thinking how
ungrateful I had been to my good aunt, to go and give her good gift
away to a stranger, that I had never seen before, and who might be a
bad man for aught I knew; and then I thought of the pleasure my aunt
would be taking in thinking that I--I myself, and not another--would
eat her nice cake--and what should I say to her the next time I saw
her--how naughty I was to part with her pretty present--and the odour
of that spicy cake came back upon my recollection, and the pleasure
and the curiosity I had taken in seeing her make it, and her joy when
she sent it to the oven, and how disappointed she would feel that I
had never had a bit of it in my mouth at last--and I blamed my
impertinent spirit of alms-giving, and out-of-place hypocrisy of
goodness, and above all I wished never to see the face again of that
insidious, good-for-nothing, old grey impostor.
Our ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing these tender
victims. We read of pigs whipt to death with something of a shock, as
we hear of any other obsolete custom. The age of discipline is gone
by, or it would be curious to inquire (in a philosophical light
merely) what effect this process might have towards intenerating and
dulcifying a substance, naturally so mild and dulcet as the flesh of
young pigs. It looks like refining a violet. Yet we should be
cautious, while we condemn the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdom
of the practice. It might impart a gusto--
I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young students, when I
was at St. Omer's, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry on
both sides, "Whether, supposing that the flavour of a pig who obtained
his death by whipping (_per flagellationem extremam_) superadded a
pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible
suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in using
that method of putting the animal to death?" I forget the decision.
His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few bread crumbs, done up
with his liver and brains, and a dash of mild sage. But, banish, dear
Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole
hogs to your palate, steep them in shalots, stuff them out with
plantations of the rank and guilty garlic; you cannot poison them, or
make them stronger than they are--but consider, he is a weakling--a
flower.
_Lamb._