Passing now to the rodents or gnawing animals, we find that the
large grey squirrel (_Sciurus cinereus_, Desm.) is very good eating.
The flesh of the squirrel is much valued by the Dyaks, and it will,
doubtless, hereafter be prized for the table of Europeans.
The marmot (_Arctomys Marmotta_), in its fat state, when it first
retires to its winter quarters, is in very good condition, and is then
killed and eaten in great numbers, although we may affect to despise it.
The mouse, to the Esquimaux epicures, is a real _bonne bouche_, and if
they can catch half-a-dozen at a time, they run a piece of horn or twig
through them, in the same manner as the London poulterers prepare larks
for the table; and without stopping to skin them, or divest them of
their entrails, broil them over the fire; and although some of the mice
may have belonged to the aborigines of the race, yet so strong is the
mastication of the natives, that the bones of the animal yield to its
power as easily as the bones of a rabbit would to a shark.
There is a very large species of rat spoken of as found in the island
of Martinique, nearly four times the size of the ordinary rat. It is
black on the back, with a white belly, and is called, locally, the
piloris or musk rat, as it perfumes the air around. The inhabitants eat
them; but then they are obliged, after they are skinned, to expose them
a whole night to the air; and they likewise throw away the first water
they are boiled in, because it smells so strongly of musk.
The flesh of the musk rat is not bad, except in rutting time, for then
it is impossible to deprive it of the musky smell and flavour.
So fat and sleek do the rats become in the West Indies, from feeding
on the sugar cane in the cane fields, that some of the negroes find
them an object of value, and, with the addition of peppers and similar
spiceries, prepare from them a delicate fricassée not to be surpassed
by a dish of French frogs.
There is a professional rat-catcher employed on each sugar plantation,
and he is paid so much a dozen for the tails he brings in to the
overseer. Father Labat tells us that he made his hunters bring the
whole rat to him, for if the heads or tails only came, the bodies
were eaten by the negroes, which he wished to prevent, as he thought
that this food brought on consumption! The health of the negroes was
then a matter of moment, considering the money value at which they
were estimated and sold. A rat hunt in a cane field affords glorious
sport. In cutting down the canes, one small patch is reserved standing,
into which all the rats congregate, and the negroes, surrounding the
preserve, with their clubs and bill-hooks speedily despatch the rats,
and many are soon skinned and cooked.
The negroes in Brazil, too, eat every rat which they can catch; and
I do not see why they should not be well-tasted and wholesome meat,
seeing that their food is entirely vegetable, and that they are clean,
sleek, and plump. The Australian aborigines eat mice and rats whenever
they can catch them.
Scinde is so infested with rats, that the price of grain has risen 25
per cent. from the destruction caused to the standing crops by them.
The government commissioner has recently issued a proclamation granting
head-money on all rats and mice killed in the province. The rate is to
be 3_d._ a dozen, the slayer having the privilege of keeping the body
and presenting the tail.
In China, rat soup is considered equal to ox-tail soup, and a dozen
fine rats will realize two dollars, or eight or nine shillings.
Besides the attractions of the gold-fields for the Chinese, California
is so abundantly supplied with rats, that they can live like Celestial
emperors, and pay very little for their board. The rats of California
exceed the rats of the older American States, just as nature on that
side of the continent exceeds in bountifulness of mineral wealth.
The California rats are incredibly large, highly flavoured, and very
abundant. The most refined Chinese in California have no hesitation
in publicly expressing their opinion of ‘them rats.’ Their professed
cooks, we are told, serve up rats’ brains in a much superior style to
the Roman dish of nightingales’ and peacocks’ tongues. The sauce used
is garlic, aromatic seeds, and camphor.
Chinese dishes and Chinese cooking have lately been popularly described
by the fluent pen of Mr. Wingrove Cooke, the _Times’_ correspondent
in China, but he has by no means exhausted the subject. Chinese
eating saloons have been opened in California and Australia, for the
accommodation of the Celestials who now throng the gold-diggings,
despite the heavy poll-tax to which they have been subjected.
Mr. Albert Smith, writing home from China, August 22, 1858, his first
impressions, says:--
‘The filth they eat in the eating houses far surpasses that cooked
at that old _trattoria_ at Genoa. It consists for the most part of
rats, bats, snails, bad eggs, and hideous fish, dried in the most
frightful attitudes. Some of the _restaurateurs_ carry their cook-shops
about with them on long poles, with the kitchen at one end, and the
_salle-à-manger_ at the other. These are celebrated for a soup made,
I should think, from large caterpillars boiled in a thin gravy, with
onions.’
The following is an extract from the bill of fare of one of the San
Francisco eating houses--
Grimalkin steaks 25 cents.
Bow-wow soup 12 ”
Roasted bow-wow 18 ”
Bow-wow pie 6 ”
Stews ratified 6 ”
The latter dish is rather dubious. What is meant by stews _rat_-ified?
Can it be another name for rat pie? Give us light, but no pie.
The San Francisco _Whig_ furnishes the following description of a
Chinese feast in that city:--‘We were yesterday invited, with three
other gentlemen, to partake of a dinner _à la_ Chinese. At three
o’clock we were waited upon by our hosts, Keychong, and his partner in
Sacramento-street, Peter Anderson, now a naturalized citizen of the
United States, and Acou, and escorted to the crack Chinese restaurant
in Dupont-street, called Hong-fo-la, where a circular table was set out
in fine style:--
‘Course No. 1.--Tea, hung-yos (burnt almonds), ton-kens (dry ginger),
sung-wos (preserved orange).
‘Course No 2.--Won-fo (a dish oblivious to us, and not mentioned in the
cookery-book).
‘No. 3.--Ton-song (ditto likewise).
‘No. 4.--Tap-fau (another _quien sabe_).
‘No. 5.--Ko-yo (a conglomerate of fish, flesh, and fowl).
‘No. 6.--Suei-chon (a species of fish ball).
‘Here a kind of liquor was introduced, served up in small cups, holding
about a thimbleful, which politeness required we should empty between
every course, first touching cups and salaaming.
‘No. 7.--Beche-le-mer (a dried sea-slug, resembling India rubber, worth
one dollar per pound).
‘No. 8--Moisum. (Have some?)
‘No. 9.--Su-Yum (small balls, as bills of lading remark, ‘contents
unknown’).
‘No. 10.--Hoisuigo (a kind of dried oyster).
‘No. 11.--Songhai (China lobster).
‘No. 12.--Chung-so (small ducks in oil).
‘No. 13.--Tong-chou (mushrooms, worth three dollars per pound).
‘No. 14.--Sum-yoi (birds’ nests, worth 60 dollars per pound).
‘And some ten or twelve more courses, consisting of stewed acorns,
chestnuts, sausages, dried ducks, stuffed oysters, shrimps,
periwinkles, and ending with tea--each course being served up with
small china bowls and plates, in the handiest and neatest manner; and
we have dined in many a crack restaurant, where it would be a decided
improvement to copy from our Chinese friends. The most difficult feat
for us was the handling of the chop sticks, which mode of carrying to
the mouth is a practical illustration of the old proverb, ‘many a slip
’twixt the cup and lip.’ We came away, after a three hours’ sitting,
fully convinced that a China dinner is a very costly and elaborate
affair, worthy the attention of epicures. From this time, henceforth,
we are in the field for China, against any insinuations on the question
of diet _à la_ rat, which we pronounce a tale of untruth. We beg leave
to return thanks to our host, Keychong, for his elegant entertainment,
which one conversant with the Chinese bill of fare informs us, must
have cost over 100 dollars. _Vive la China!_’
Mr. Cooke, in his graphic letters from China, speaks of the fatness
and fertility of the rats of our colony of Hong Kong. He adds: ‘When
Minutius, the dictator, was swearing Flaminius in as his Master of the
Horse, we are told by Plutarch that a rat chanced to squeak, and the
superstitious people compelled both officers to resign their posts.
Office would be held with great uncertainty in Hong Kong if a similar
superstition prevailed. Sir John Bowring has just been swearing in
General Ashburnham as member of the Colonial Council, and if the rats
were silent, they showed unusual modesty. They have forced themselves,
however, into a state paper. Two hundred rats are destroyed every night
in the gaol. Each morning the Chinese prisoners see, with tearful eyes
and watering mouths, a pile of these delicacies cast out in waste. It
is as if Christian prisoners were to see scores of white sucking pigs
tossed forth to the dogs by Mahommedan gaolers. At last they could
refrain no longer. Daring the punishment of tail-cutting, which follows
any infraction of prison discipline, they first attempted to abstract
the delicacies. Foiled in this, they took the more manly course. They
indited a petition in good Chinese, proving from Confucius that it
is sinful to cast away the food of man, and praying that the meat
might be handed over to them to cook and eat. This is a fact, and if
General Thompson doubts it, I recommend him to move for a copy of the
correspondence.’
A new article of traffic is about to be introduced into the China
market from India, namely, _salted rats_! The genius with whom the
idea originated, it would appear, is sanguine; so much so, that he
considers himself ‘on the fair road to fortune.’ The speculation
deserves success, if for nothing else than its originality. I have not,
as yet however, observed the price that rules in Whampoa and Hong Kong
nor the commodity quoted in any of the merchants’ circulars, though it
will, doubtless, soon find its place in them as a regular article of
import.
A correspondent of the _Calcutta Citizen_, writing from Kurrachee, the
chief town of the before mentioned rat infested province of Scinde,
declares that he is determined to export 120,000 salted rats to China.
The Chinese eat rats, and he thinks they may sell. He says:--‘I have
to pay one pice a dozen, and the gutting, salting, pressing, and
packing in casks, raises the price to six pice a dozen (about three
farthings), and if I succeed in obtaining anything like the price that
rules in Whampoa and Canton for corn-grown rats, my fortune is made, or
rather, I will be on the fair road to it, and will open a fine field of
enterprise to Scinde.’
Rats may enter into consumption in other quarters, and among other
people, than those named, when we find such an advertisement as the
following in a recent daily paper at Sydney:--
‘RATS! RATS! RATS!--To-night at 8 o’clock, rattling sport; 200 rats to
be entered at G. W. Parker’s Family Hotel.’
Query.--What ultimately becomes of these rats, and who are the persons
who locate and take their meals at this ‘Family Hotel?’ Probably they
are of the rough lot whose stomachs are remarkably strong.
Some classes of the Malabars are very fond of the bandicoot, or pig
rat (_Perameles nasuta_, Geoff. Desm.), which measures about fourteen
inches in length from head to tail, the tail being nearly as long as
the body. They are much sought after by the coolies, on the coffee
estates in Ceylon, who eat them roasted. They also eat the coffee rat
(_Golunda Ellioti_ of Gray), roasted or fried in oil, which is much
smaller, the head and body only measuring about four or five inches.
These animals are migratory, and commit great damages on the coffee
tree, as many as a thousand having been killed in a day on one estate.
The planters offer a reward for the destruction of these rodents, which
brings grist to the mill in two ways to the coolies who hunt or entrap
them, namely, in money and food.
The fat dormouse (_Myoxus glis_, Desm.) is used for food in Italy,
as it was by the ancient Romans, who fattened them for the table in
receptacles called Gliraria.
Dr. Rae, in his last arctic exploring expedition, states, that the
principal food of his party was geese, partridges, and lemmings
(_Arvicola Hudsonia_). These little animals were migrating northward,
and were so numerous that their dogs, as they trotted on, killed as
many as supported them all, without any other food.
There is another singular little animal, termed by naturalists
the vaulting rat, or jerboa. On an Australian species, the _Dipus
Mitchelli_, the natives of the country between Lake Torrens and the
Great Creek, in Australia seem chiefly to subsist. It is a little
larger than a mouse, and the hind legs are similar to those of the
kangaroo.
Captain Sturt and his exploring party once witnessed a curious scene.
They came to a native who had been eating jerboas, and after they met
him they saw him eat one hundred of them. His mode of cooking was
quite unique. He placed a quantity, for a few seconds, under the ashes
of the fire, and then, with the hair only partially burnt off, took
them by the tail, put the body in his mouth, and bit the tail off with
his teeth. After he had eaten a dozen bodies, he took the dozen tails,
and stuffed them into his mouth.
The flesh of the beaver is looked upon as very delicate food by the
North American hunters, but the tail is the choicest dainty, and
in great request. It is much prized by the Indians and trappers,
especially when it is roasted in the skin, after the hair has been
singed off; and in some districts it requires all the influence of the
fur-traders to restrain the hunters from sacrificing a considerable
quantity of beaver fur every year to secure the enjoyment of this
luxury. The Indians of note have generally one or two feasts in a
season, wherein a roasted beaver is the prime dish. It resembles pork
in its flavour, but it requires a strong stomach to sustain a full meal
of it. The flesh is always in high estimation, except when they have
fed upon the fleshy root of a large water lily, which imparts a rank
taste to it.
The flesh of a young porcupine is said to be excellent eating, and
very nutritious. The flavour is something between pork and fowl. To be
cooked properly, it should be boiled first, and afterwards roasted.
This is necessary to soften the thick, gristly skin, which is the best
part of the animal. The flesh of the porcupine is said to be used by
the Italians as a stimulant; but, never having tasted it myself, I
cannot speak from experience as to the virtue of this kind of food.
The Dutch and the Hottentots are very fond of it; and when skinned and
embowelled, the body will sometimes weigh 20 lbs. The flesh is said to
eat better when it has been hung in the smoke of a chimney for a couple
of days.
The flesh of the crested porcupine (_Hystrix cristata_) is good and
very agreeable eating. Some of the Hudson Bay trappers used to depend
upon the _Hystrix dorsata_ for food at some seasons of the year.
Rabbits, which form so large an article of consumption with us, are not
much esteemed as an article of food by the negroes in the West Indies,
resembling, in their idea, the cat. Thus, a black who is solicited
to buy a rabbit by an itinerant vendor, would indignantly exclaim,
‘Rabbit? I should just like to no war you take me for, ma’am? You tink
me go buy rabbit? No, ma’am, me no cum to dat yet; for me always did
say, an me always will say, dat dem who eat rabbit eat pussy, an dem
who eat pussy eat rabbit. Get out wid you, and your rabbit?’
And yet, with all this mighty indignation against rabbits, they do not
object, as we have seen, to a less dainty animal in the shape of the
rat.
Although the negroes in the West Indies do not care for rabbits, yet
their brethren in the American States are by no means averse to them.
A field slave one day found a plump rabbit in his trap. He took him
out alive, held him under his arm, patted him, and began to speculate
on his qualities. ‘Oh, how fat. Berry fat. The fattest I eber did see.
Let me see how I’ll cook him. I’ll broil him. No, he is so fat he lose
all de grease. I fry him. Ah yes. He so berry fat he fry hisself.
Golly, how fat he be. No, I won’t fry him--I stew him.’ The thought of
the savory stew made the negro forget himself, and in spreading out
the feast in his imagination, his arms relaxed, when off hopped the
rabbit, and squatting at a goodly distance, he eyed his late owner
with cool composure. The negro knew there was an end of the stew, and
summoning up all his philosophy, he thus addressed the rabbit, at the
same time shaking his fist at him, ‘You long-eared, white-whiskered
rascal, you not so berry fat arter all.’
I need not here touch upon hare soup, jugged hare, or roasted hare,
from the flesh of our own rodent; but the Arctic hare (_Lepus
glacialis_) differs considerably from the English in the colour and
quality of its flesh, being less dry, whiter, and more delicately
tasted; it may be dressed in any way. When in good condition it weighs
upwards of 10 lbs.
The capybara, or water hog (_Hydrochœrus capybara_), an ugly-looking,
tailless rodent, the largest of the family, is hunted for its flesh in
South America, and is said to be remarkably good eating. It grows to
the size of a hog two years old.
The flesh of the guinea pig (_Cavia cobaya_, Desm.) is eaten in South
America, and is said to be not unlike pork. When he is dressed for the
table his skin is not taken off as in other animals, but the hair is
scalded and scraped off in the same manner as it is in a hog.
The white and tender flesh of the agouti (_Dasyprocta Acuti_, Desm.),
when fat and well dressed, is by no means unpalatable food, but very
delicate and digestible. It is met with in Brazil, Guiana, and in
Trinidad. The manner of dressing them in the West Indies used to be to
roast them with a pudding in their bellies. Their skin is white, as
well as the flesh.
The flesh of the brown paca (_Cœlogenus subniger_, Desm.), a nearly
allied animal, is generally very fat, and also accounted a great
delicacy in Brazil.
Another South American rodent, the bizcacha, or viscascha (_Lagostomus
trichodactylus_), is eaten for food. It somewhat resembles a rabbit,
but has larger gnawing teeth, and a long tail. The flesh, when cooked,
is very white and good.