What do our African brethren consider tit-bits? Ask Gordon Cumming.
He will enumerate a list longer than you can remember. Study his
‘Adventures,’ and you will become learned in the mystery of African
culinary operations. What are sheep’s-trotters and insipid boiled
calves’ feet compared to baked elephants’ paws?
Listen to his description of the whole art and mystery of the process
of preparing them:--
‘The four feet are amputated at the fetlock joint, and the trunk, which
at the base is about two feet in thickness, is cut into convenient
lengths. Trunk and feet are then baked, preparatory to their removal
to headquarters. The manner in which this is done is as follows:--A
party, provided with sharp-pointed sticks, dig a hole in the ground
for each foot and a portion of the trunk. These holes are about two
feet deep and a yard in width; the excavated earth is embanked around
the margin of the holes. This work being completed, they next collect
an immense quantity of dry branches and trunks of trees, of which
there is always a profusion scattered around, having been broken by
the elephants in former years. These they pile above the holes to the
height of eight or nine feet, and then set fire to the heap. When these
strong fires have burnt down, and the whole of the wood is reduced
to ashes, the holes and the surrounding earth are heated to a high
degree. Ten or twelve men then stand round the pit and take out the
ashes with a pole about sixteen feet in length, having a hook at the
end. They relieve one another in quick succession, each man running in
and raking the ashes for a few seconds, and then pitching the pole to
his comrade, and retreating, since the heat is so intense that it is
scarcely to be endured. When all the ashes are thus raked out beyond
the surrounding bank of earth, each elephant’s foot and portion of the
trunk is lifted by two athletic men, standing side by side, who place
it on their shoulders, and, approaching the pit together, they heave it
into it. The long pole is now again resumed, and with it they shove in
the heated bank of earth upon the foot, shoving and raking until it
is completely buried in the earth. The hot embers, of which there is
always a great supply, are then raked into a heap above the foot, and
another bonfire is kindled over each, which is allowed to burn down and
die a natural death; by which time the enormous foot or trunk will be
found to be equally baked throughout its inmost parts. When the foot
is supposed to be ready, it is taken out of the ground with pointed
sticks, and is first well beaten, and then scraped with an assagai,
whereby adhering particles of sand are got rid of. The outside is then
pared off, and it is transfixed with a sharp stake for facility of
carriage. The feet thus cooked are excellent, as is also the trunk,
which very much resembles buffalo’s tongue.’
Elephants’ petit(?) toes, pickled in strong toddy vinegar and cayenne
pepper, are considered in Ceylon an Apician luxury. As soon as it is
known that an elephant has been killed in Africa, every man in the
neighbourhood sets off with his knife and basket for the place, and
takes home as much of the carcase as he can manage to carry. The flesh
is not only eaten when fresh, but is dried and kept for months, and is
then highly esteemed.
The manner in which the elephant is cut up is thus described by the
author and sportsman I have already quoted:--‘The rough outer skin is
first removed, in large sheets, from the side which lies uppermost.
Several coats of an under skin are then met with. The skin is of
a tough and pliant nature, and is used by the natives for making
water-bags, in which they convey supplies of water from the nearest
_vey_, or fountain (which is often ten miles distant), to the elephant.
They remove this inner skin with caution, taking care not to cut
it with the assagai; and it is formed into water bags by gathering
the corners and edges, and transfixing the whole on a pointed wand.
The flesh is then removed in enormous sheets from the ribs, when the
hatchets come into play, with which they chop through and remove
individually each colossal rib. The bowels are thus laid bare; and in
the removal of these the leading men take a lively interest and active
part, for it is throughout and around the bowels that the fat of the
elephant is mainly found. There are few things which a Bechuana prizes
so highly as fat of any description; they will go an amazing distance
for a small portion of it. They use it principally in cooking their
sun-dried biltongue, and they also eat it with their corn. The fat of
the elephant lies in extensive layers and sheets in his inside, and the
quantity which is obtained from a full-grown bull, in high condition,
is very great. Before it can be obtained, the greater part of the
bowels must be removed. To accomplish this, several men eventually
enter the immense cavity of his inside, where they continue mining away
with their assagais, and handing the fat to their comrades outside till
all is bare. While this is transpiring with the sides and bowels, other
parties are equally active in removing the skin and flesh from the
remaining parts of the carcase.
‘In Northern Cachar, India, the flesh of the elephant is generally
eaten. The Kookies encamp in the neighbourhood of the carcase until
they have entirely consumed it, or are driven away by the effluvia of
decomposition. Portions of the flesh that they cannot immediately eat
are dried and smoked to be kept for future consumption.
‘Fat of any kind is a complete godsend to the Bechuana and other tribes
of Southern Africa; and the slaughter of an elephant affords them a
rich harvest in disembowelling the carcase, and mining their way into
the interior of the huge cavity to remove the immense layers furnished
by such a large animal if in good condition.’
Galton, the African traveller, in his hints for bush cooking, tells
us:--
‘The dish called _beatee_ is handy to make. It is a kind of haggis made
with blood, a good quantity of fat shred small, some of the tenderest
of the flesh, together with the heart and lungs of the animal, cut
or torn into small shivers, all of which is put into the stomach and
roasted, by being suspended before the fire with a string. Care must be
taken that it does not get too much heat at first, or it will burst.
It is a most delicious morsel, even without pepper, salt, or any
seasoning.’
In all the large rivers of Southern Africa, and especially towards
the mouths, the hippopotami abound. The colonists give them the name
of sea-cows. The capture of one of these huge beasts, weighing, as
they sometimes do, as much as four or five large oxen, is an immense
prize to the hungry Bushman or Koranna, as the flesh is by no means
unpalatable; and the fat, with which these animals are always covered,
is considered delicious. When salted it is called zee-koe speck, is
very much like excellent fat bacon, and is greatly prized by the Dutch
colonists, not only for the table, but for the reputed medicinal
qualities which are attributed to it. In Abyssinia, hippopotamus meat
is commonly eaten.
The hog is one of those animals that are doomed to clear the earth
of refuse and filth, and that convert the most nauseous offal into
the nicest nutriment in its flesh. It has not altogether been unaptly
compared to a miser, who is useless and rapacious in his life, but
at his death becomes of public use by the very effects of his sordid
manners. During his life he renders little service to mankind, except
in removing that filth which other animals reject.
A delicate sucking pig, a Bath chap, or a good rasher of bacon are,
however, tit-bits not to be despised.
Lord Brougham hoped to see the day when every man in the United Kingdom
would read Bacon. ‘It would be much better to the purpose,’ said
Cobbett, ‘if his lordship would use his influence that every man in the
kingdom could eat bacon.’
In British India, only Europeans and the low Hindoos eat pork, but
wild hogs are very abundant, and afford good sport to the hunter.
The avoidance of pork arises as much from religious scruples as the
deep-rooted aversion to the domestic swine all must imbibe who have
only seen it in the East, where it is a tall, gaunt, half famished, and
half ferocious-looking brute, which performs the office of scavenger.
The legend which ascribes to the eating of human flesh the origin of
one of the most loathsome of diseases, scarce offers a more horrible
picture to the imagination than is presented by a letter recently
published in the _Ceylon Examiner_. The beautiful islands of Mauritius
and Bourbon are largely supplied with pork from Patna, a province of
Hindostan that has been over-run by the cholera. Both there and at
Calcutta the bodies of the natives are consigned to the Ganges, instead
of being interred. ‘Let any person,’ says the writer in the Ceylon
paper, ‘at daybreak start from the gates of Government House, Calcutta,
and, whether his walk will be to the banks of the river or to the banks
of the canals which on three sides surround the city, he will see pigs
feeding on the dead bodies of the natives that have been thrown there
during the night. During the day the river police clear away and sink
all that remains of the bodies. Bad as is the metropolis of India it
is nothing compared to Patna. Hundreds upon hundreds of human corpses
are there strewed along the strand; and fattening, ghoule-like, upon
these are droves upon droves of swine. These swine are slaughtered, cut
up, and salted into hams, bacon, and pickled pork, and then despatched
to Calcutta.... The great market for this poisonous swine produce is
the Mauritius and Bourbon, where it is foisted on the inhabitants as
the produce of Europe. Moreover, as these swine are sold in Calcutta
at 3s. or 4s. each carcase, it is stated that the inferior class
of homeward-bound vessels are provisioned with them, and thus this
human-fed pork is introduced into Europe and America.’
Pork-eaters may believe as much of the following remarks as they
please. ‘It is said that the Jews, Turks, Arabians, and all those who
observe the precept of avoiding blood and swine’s flesh, are infinitely
more free from disease than Christians; more especially do they escape
those opprobria of the medical art, gout, scrofula, consumption, and
madness. The Turks eat great quantities of honey and pastry, and much
sugar; they also eat largely, and are indolent, and yet do not suffer
from dyspepsia as Christians do. The swine-fed natives of Christendom
suffer greater devastation from a tubercular disease of the bowels
(dysentery) than from any other cause. Those persons who abstain from
swine’s flesh and blood are infinitely more healthy and free from
humors, glandular diseases, dyspepsia, and consumption; while in those
districts, and among those classes, of men, where the pig makes the
chief article of diet, tubercle in all its forms of eruptions, sore
legs, bad eyes, abscesses, must prevail.’
These are the remarks of an American journalist, which, however, have
not, I conceive, the shadow of foundation.
‘It appears somewhat singular,’ remarks Mr. Richardson, in his history
of the pig, ‘that the flesh of the hog was prohibited in the ceremonial
of the Jewish law; the same prohibition being afterwards borrowed by
Mahomet, and introduced into the Koran.’ Great difference of opinion
prevails as to the cause of this prohibition; some alleging that this
food was unsuited to the land inhabited by the Jews. As, however, the
kinds of food to be eaten and rejected--doubtless to prevent that
luxurious epicurism unsuited to a growing and prosperous nation--were
to have a limit, this limit was fixed by two distinctive marks: they
must ‘divide the hoof, and chew the cud;’ that principle of restriction
admitting only a limited range to the food permitted. The pig, the
horse, and the camel were excluded. It was only in a state of low
nationality, or in times of great degeneracy, that the Jew ever tasted
pork.
The food of the hog varies in different localities, and probably
materially influences the flavour of the meat. In the River
Plata provinces they feed them on mutton. After describing the
purchase--8,000 at _eighteen-pence per dozen_ (?)--by a Mr. M. Handy,
a traveller adds, ‘As soon as the sheep became fattened on his own
lands, he killed about a thousand, sold the fleeces at five shillings
per dozen, and with the mutton he fed a herd of swine. Mentioning
this fact to a large party of Europeans, at the dinner table of Lord
Howden, when in Buenos Ayres, my statement was received with a murmur
of scepticism; but I offered to accompany the incredulous to the
pastures, where the remainder of the sheep were then feeding.’--(_Two
Thousand Miles’ Ride through the Argentine Provinces._) But the Yankees
beat this, according to a late American paper. In North America they
generally feed them on maize, but in some of the States, apples form
a principal portion of their food, and the ‘apple sauce’ thus becomes
incorporated with the flesh. A gentleman travelling down East, overtook
a farmer dragging a lean, wretched-looking, horned sheep along the
road. ‘Where are you going with that miserable animal?’ asked the
traveller. ‘I am taking him to the mutton mill, to have him ground
over,’ said the farmer. ‘The _mutton mill_? I never heard of such
a thing. I will go with you and witness the process.’ They arrived
at the mill; the sheep was thrown alive into the hopper, and almost
immediately disappeared. They descended to a lower apartment, and,
in a few moments, there was ejected from a spout in the ceiling four
quarters of excellent mutton, two sides of morocco leather, a wool
hat of the first quality, a sheep’s head handsomely dressed, and two
elegantly-carved powder horns.’
In America they speak of hogs as other countries do of their sugar,
coffee, and general exportable staple crops; and even when packed and
cured they occasionally compute the produce by the acre. Thus, the
_Louisville Courier_ stated recently, that there were five or six
_acres_ of barrelled pork piled up three tiers high, in open lots, and
not less than six acres more not packed, which would make eighteen
acres of barrels if laid side by side, exclusive of lard in barrels,
and pork bulked down in the curing houses, sheds, &c. Besides the above
slaughtered hogs, there were five or six acres more of live hogs in
pens, waiting their destiny.
In the Western States pork is the great idea, and the largest owner of
pigs is the hero of the prairie. What coal has been to England, wheat
to the Nile or the Danube, coffee to Ceylon, gold to California and
Victoria, and sheep to the Cape and Australia, pork has been to the
West in America.
The phrase, ‘Going the whole hog,’ must have originated in Ohio, for
there they use up the entire carcases of about three-quarters of a
million of pigs, and the inhabitants are the most ‘hoggish’ community
of the entire Union. What crocodiles were in Egypt, what cows are
in Bengal, or storks in Holland, pigs are in Cincinnati, with this
trifling difference, their sacredness of character lasts but as long
as their mortal coil; and this is abbreviated without ceremony, and
from the most worldly motives. In life, the pig is free, is honored;
he ranges the streets, he reposes in thoroughfares, he walks beneath
your horse’s legs, or your own; he is everywhere respected; but let
the thread of his existence be severed, and--shade of Mahomet!--what a
change! They think in Cincinnati of nothing but making the most of him.
Historically, socially, gastronomically, the pig demands our careful
attention. The connection with commerce, with the cuisine, and even
with the great interest of fire insurance, have all made him an object
of particular regard. In the early days of the Celestial Empire--as we
learn from the veracious writings of the witty and voracious essayist,
Charles Lamb--a wealthy Chinaman was so unfortunate as to have his
dwelling destroyed by fire. Prowling around the smoking ruins, and
seeking to save some of his valuables which the conflagration might
have spared, his hand came in contact with the smoking remains of a
poor pig which had perished in the flames; instantly, smarting with the
pain, he carried his hand to his mouth, when a peculiar flavour greeted
his palate, such as the gods (Chinese ones I mean, of course,) might
in vain have sighed for. Regardless of pain he applied himself once
more, and drew forth from the smoking cinders the remains of the pig.
Carefully brushing off the ashes, he regaled himself with the feast
before him, but closely preserved the secret he had learned. In a few
short months, however, the taste for roast pig came back so strong,
that John Chinaman’s house was burned down again, and again was a pig
found in the ashes. This was repeated so often that the neighbours grew
suspicious, and watched until they ascertained that the reason for the
conflagration was the feast that invariably followed. Once out, the
secret spread like wildfire; every hill-top shone with the flames of
a burning habitation--every valley was blackened with the ashes of a
homestead; but roast pig was dearer to a Chinaman than home or honour,
and still the work of destruction went on. Alarmed at a course which
bid fair to ruin every insurance office in the empire, the directors
petitioned in a body to the General Court of China, for the passing of
an Act that should arrest the evil and avert their threatened ruin; and
a careful examination of the revised statutes of China would probably
show stringent resolutions against the crime of burning houses for the
sake of roasting pigs.
Since the invention of the modern cooking stove, however, although
incendiarism has decreased only in a slight degree, still it has ceased
to be attributed to this cause, and a juicy crackling is no longer
suggestive of fallen rafters, or a houseless family.
‘There is an old adage, ‘Give a dog a bad name, and his ruin is
accomplished.’ Such may be true of the canine race; but the noble
family of animals of which I am treating, furnishes a striking
illustration that the proverb applies not to their numbers. A goose, it
is said, saved lordly Rome by its cackling; and had not their list of
Divinities just then been full, a grateful people would have found for
him a sedgy pool and quiet nest in Olympus. How did the ancestors of
that same people repay the pig for a service scarcely less important?
‘The veriest smatterer in the classics knows, that, when from flaming
Troy ‘Æneas the great Anchises bore,’ seeking in strange lands a new
home for his conquered people, a white sow, attended by thirty white
little pigs, pure as herself, pointed out to him the scene of his
future empire. But what did he and his people do for the pig in return?
Did they load him with honours? Did they cherish him with corn? Did
they treat him with respect? No! with black ingratitude, which still
merits the indignation of every admirer of the pig, they affixed to the
animal the appellation of _Porcus_; and ‘poor cuss’ the pig would have
been to the present day, had not the Latin tongue long since ceased
to be the language of the world. But, ‘poor cuss’ he is no longer,
when in Worcester county he spurns his classic name, and, adopting the
vernacular, he ‘grows the whole hog,’ that he may ‘pork us,’ in return
for the care which we bestow upon him.
‘For the sake of our farmers, who are anxious to make a profit from
pig-raising, it is greatly to be regretted that the thirty-at-a-litter
breed has disappeared from the face of the earth. Breeding swine with
such a rate of increase must be almost as profitable as ‘shaving’ notes
at two per cent. per month; but still the impression is irresistibly
forced upon us, that, in a family so numerous, those who came last to
dinner, at least in their infant days, would not have gained flesh
very rapidly. Indeed, in such a family it would seem almost impossible
to dispense with the services of a wet nurse, in order to bring up
profitably the rising generation.
‘The course of the pig, like that of the Star of Empire, has ever
tended westward. From China we trace him to Italy, the gloomy mountains
of the Hartz, the broad plains of Westphalia, the fertile valleys of
France, and to the waving forests of ‘Merrie England;’ all have known
him since the days when their bold barons and hungry retainers sat down
to feast on the juicy chine of the wild boar, and the savoury haunch of
venison. In green Erin, piggy has been an important member of society;
true, he has shared his master’s meal, and basked in the comfortable
warmth of his cabin; but, like a ‘gintleman’ as he is, he has ever
paid the ‘rint;’ and St. Patrick, in the plenitude of his power and
influence, never saw the day he could have banished him from that ‘gem
of the ocean.’
‘When the pig first crossed to this western world remains in doubt.
Whether he came with the Pilgrims, pressing with the foot of a pioneer
the Blarney-stone of New England, and scanning with fearless eye the
cheerless prospect before him, or whether, regardless of liberty of
conscience, and careful only of his own comfort, he waited till the
first trials and toils of a new settlement had been met and overcome,
we have no record; enough for us that he is here; how or where he came
concerns us not. He is among us and of us. From souse to sausage we
have loved him; from ham to harslet we have honoured him; from chine to
chops we have cherished him. The care we have shown him has been repaid
a hundred-fold. He has loaded our tables, and lighted our fire-sides,
and smiling plenty has followed in his steps, where hungry famine would
have stalked in his absence.
‘But still further towards the setting sun has been the arena of
the pig’s greatest triumphs; there have been the fields of his
widest influence. Beneath the vast forests of Ohio, raining to the
ground their yearly harvests of mast--through her broad corn-fields,
stretching as far as the eye can see, he has roamed, and fed, and
fattened. From him, and the commercial interests he has mainly
contributed to establish, has grown a mighty State, scarcely second
to any in this confederacy; from his ashes has arisen a new order in
society--the ‘Bristleocracy of the great West.’
‘A broad levee bustling with business, lofty and spacious stores and
slaughter-houses, crowded pens, and a river bearing on its bosom
steamboats in fleets--all attest the interest which the pig has exerted
on the agricultural and commercial interests of the great State of
Ohio. He has filled the coffers of her bankers, and has bought the
silks which cover her belles. He has built the beautiful palaces which
adorn the ‘Queen City of the West,’ and feeds the princely luxury of
those who inhabit them. _There_ he is almost an object of worship,
and his position is considered as about equivalent to a patent of
nobility. Fancy dimly paints the picture, when a few years hence, the
wealthy pork merchant, who justly boasts his numerous _quarterings_,
shall, in the true spirit of heraldry, paint on the pannel of his
carriage, and on the escutcheon over his door-way, a lustrous shield,
bearing in brilliant colours a single pig, his bristles all _rampant_,
his tail closely _curlant_, and his mouth widely _opant_, till the
lions, the griffins, and the unicorns of the Old World shall fade into
insignificance before the heraldic devices of the New.’[7]
‘Your Spanish pig, who, by the way, is a no less important character
in his country than is his cousin in Ireland, is not raised for the
vulgar purpose of being fried to lard, or salted down to pork. He has,
in fact, no more fat than he has hair on him. He is a long-legged,
long-snouted, and long-tailed fellow, and would have been described
by Plato as an animal without hairs. But though the pickings on his
ribs be small, they are sweet. The Spaniard rolls the morsels under
his tongue as he does his easily-besetting sins. It is nut-fed flesh;
and has the flavour of acorns. This taste is as much prized in the
roasted joint as that of the skin in the sherry. Pig is game in Spain.
The porker does not live there in the chimney corner, and sit in the
best arm-chair, as in Paddy’s cabin; but he roams the fields, and goes
a-nutting with the boys and girls. He eats grass, as there are no cows
to eat it; and would milk the goats, doubtless, if they would let him.
He evidently knows more than the same animal in other countries; and
is, in consequence, more willing to be driven. He will squeal when he
feels the knife, but for no other reason. Nor is his squeal the same
as that heard at the North. There are more vowel sounds in it. It is
also less through the nose than in New England; and has some gutturals
even farther down the throat than those of a Dutchman. Your wild boar
is a monster compared with him. The flesh of the latter is to that of
the former as the crisp brown of roast pig is to the tanned hide in
your riding saddle. Accordingly, to refuse pork at a Spanish table is
to pronounce yourself ‘of the circumcision;’ and should you decline
a cut of a particularly nice ham, you would be set down as no better
than a heathen. However, you never would do it--particularly after
having read this essay. I assure you that when you may have eaten
up all the chickens which were stowed away in your saddle bags, you
cannot do better than to attack your landlord’s roast pig--provided
you can get it. Only it may cost you dear in the reckoning, as it is
thought a dish to set before the king. You may like pork, or you may
not; but one thing is certain, it is the only meat in the Peninsula
which has juices in it. Mutton may have a very little; and should you
travel far in the country, you would see the day when you would be
glad of a leg of it. But the beef is dry as ‘whittlings.’ An entire
joint of roast beef would kill a man as effectually as a joist of
timber. Whoever should undertake to live on Spanish beef a twelvemonth,
would become at the end of that time what he was, in fact, at the
beginning--wooden-headed. Make up your mind, therefore, to eat the
meat of the uncircumcised, if you have any thought of going to Spain.
You will often have to take your choice between that and nothing; and
my word for it, ’tis much preferable. For the land is leaner far than
pork; and happy is that traveller, who, when he is reduced to pickings,
can find a spare-rib to work upon. Forewarned--forearmed.[8]’
Pork is the great food of the Brazilian people. It is prepared and
eaten, according to Dr. Walshe, in a peculiar manner. When the pig
is killed, the butcher dexterously scoops out the bones and muscular
flesh, leaving behind only the covering of fat. In this state it is
salted, folded up, and sent in great quantities to Rio, where it is
called _toucinho_. All the stores and _vendas_ are full of it, and it
is used commonly for culinary purposes, and forms an ingredient in
every Brazilian article of cookery.
The flesh of the peccary (after cutting away the fetid orifice on
its back) and of the wild or musk hog, both known under the Indian
appellation of quanco in Trinidad, is much preferable to that of the
domestic swine.
The flesh of the rhinoceros is eaten in Abyssinia, and by some of the
Dutch settlers in the Cape Colony, and is in high esteem. The flesh of
the hippopotamus used also to be eaten on the east coast of Africa,
roasted or boiled, and fetched a high price as a delicacy. The fat was
used in making puddings, instead of butter. The Portuguese settlers
were permitted by the priests to eat the flesh of this animal in Lent,
passing it off as _fish_ from its amphibious habits, and hence their
consciences were at ease.
The flesh of the tapir, when roasted, closely resembles beef,
especially if it be young; and that of the water hare is also
considered excellent food, being white and delicate, and much of the
same flavour as that of the tapir.