Besides the before-mentioned diversities of national and individual
taste for different kinds of substances, used as aliments, there are
other kinds of food which we at least think more singular. Some of the
tribes of Arabs, Moors, the Californians, and Ethiopians, eat
tad-poles, locusts, and spiders.
In some places the flesh of serpents, that of the _coluber natrix_ for
example, is eaten; and the viper is made into broth. Several other
reptiles are used as food by the European settlers in America, such as
the _rana bombina_ and _rana taurina_, two species of toads.
In the East, the _lacerta scincus_ is considered a great luxury, and
also an approdisiac. Even the rattle snake has been eaten, and the head
boiled along with the rest of the body of the animal.
The horse, ass, and camel, are eaten in several regions of the earth,
and the seal, walruss, and Arctic bear, have often yielded a supply to
sailors.
On the singular taste of epicures it is not necessary to speak. Mæcenas,
the prime minister of Augustus, and refined patron of Horace, had young
asses served upon his table when he treated his friends; and, according
to Pliny,[7] the Romans delighted in the flavour of young and well
fattened puppies. This strange practice subsists still in China, and
among the Esquimaux. Plump, and well roasted bats, laid upon a bed of
olives, are eaten in the Levant as a dainty.
[7] 2 Book 29, c. 4.
The Roman luxury, _garum_, which bore so high a price, consisted of the
putrid entrails of fishes, (first of the _garum_,) stewed in wine, and a
similar dish is still considered as a great luxury, in some parts of the
East. Some modern epicures delight in the trail of the woodcock, and
even collect with care the contents of the intestines which distill
from it in the process of roasting.
“_The Irishman_ loves usquebah,
_The Scot_ loves ale called blue cap,
_The Welshman_, he loves toasted cheese,
And makes his mouth like a mouse trap.”
APICIUS,[8] among other whimsical personages of ancient Rome, presented
to his guests ragouts, exclusively composed of tongues of peacocks and
nightingales. This celebrated epicure, who instituted a gormandizing
academy at Rome, having heard that shrimps and prawns of a superior
flavour were to be met with on the coasts of Africa than on the Italian
shore, freighted a ship, and sailed in search of these far famed marine
insects. This person spent more than £.60,000 merely to vary the taste
of culinary sauces.
[8] Three brothers of that name were celebrated at Rome, on account of
their unparallelled love of good eating.
Vitellus was treated by his brother with a dinner, consisting of 2,000
dishes of fish, and 7,000 of poultry--surely this is not doing things by
halves.
A Mr. Verditch de Bourbonne[9] is said to have bought 3,000 carps for
the mere sake of their tongues, which were brought, well seasoned and
_learnedly_ dressed, to his table, in one dish.
[9] Cours Gastronomique.