Another order of insects contains the so-called white-ant tribe
(_Termes_), which, in return for the mischief it does at certain times,
affords an abundant supply of food to some of the African natives. The
natives of Western Australia pull out the young from the nests at one
season of the year and eat them. Ducks and fowls also feed greedily on
them.
In many countries, the termites, or white-ants, serve for food. In some
parts of the East Indies, the natives catch the winged insects, just
before their period of emigration, in the following manner:--They make
two holes, the one to the windward, the other to the leeward; at the
leeward opening, they place the mouth of a pot, the inside of which
has been previously rubbed with an aromatic herb, called bugera; on
the windward side, they make a fire of stinking materials, which not
only drives these insects, but frequently the hooded snakes also, into
the pots, on which account they are obliged to be cautious in removing
them. By this method, they catch great quantities, of which they make,
with flour, a variety of pastry, which they can afford to sell very
cheap to the poorer ranks of people. When this sort of food is used
too abundantly, it produces, however, cholera, which kills in two or
three hours. It also seems that, in some form or other, these insects
are greedily eaten in other districts. Thus, when after swarming shoals
of them fall into the rivers, the Africans skim them off the surface
with calabashes, and, bringing them to their habitations, parch them in
iron pots over a gentle fire, stirring them about as is usually done in
roasting coffee; in that state, without sauce or any other addition,
they consider them delicious food, putting them by handfuls into their
mouths, as we do comfits.[30]
‘I have,’ says Smeathman, ‘eaten them dressed in this way several
times, and think them delicate, nourishing, and wholesome. They are
something sweeter, though not so fat and clogging, as the caterpillar
or maggot of the palm-tree snout-beetle (_Curculio palmarum_), which
is served up at all the luxurious tables of the West Indian epicures,
particularly of the French, as the greatest dainty of the western
world.’
Ants are eaten in many countries. In Brazil, the yellow ant, called
cupia, and a larger species under the name of tama-joura, are much
esteemed, being eaten by the aborigines mixed with resin for sauce. In
Africa, they are stewed with butter. Ants have really no unpleasant
flavour, but are very agreeably acid. In some parts of Sweden, ants are
distilled along with rye, to give a flavour to the inferior kinds of
brandy.
The large saubas (red-ants) and white-ants are an occasional luxury to
the Indians of the Rio Negro; and when nothing else is to be had in the
wet season, they eat large earth-worms, which, when the lands in which
they live are flooded, ascend trees, and take up their abode in the
hollow leaves of a species of _Tillandsia_, where they are often found
accumulated by thousands. Nor is it only hunger that makes them eat
these worms, for they sometimes boil them with their fish to give it an
extra relish.[31]
The cocoons of the wood ant (popularly and erroneously called ants’
eggs) are collected on the Continent as food for nightingales and
larks. A recent writer tells us, that in most of the towns in Germany
one or more individuals make a living, during summer, by the business.
He describes a visit to an old woman at Dottendorf, near Bonn, who had
collected for fourteen years. She went to the woods in the morning,
and collected in a bag the surfaces of a number of ant hills where the
cocoons were deposited, taking ants and all home to her cottage, near
which she had a tiled shed, covering a circular area, hollowed out in
the centre, with a trench full of water around it. After covering the
hollow in the centre with leafy boughs of walnut or hazel, she strewed
the contents of her bag on the level part of the area within the
trench, when the nurse-ants immediately seized the cocoons and carried
them into the hollow under the boughs. The cocoons were thus brought
into one place, and after being from time to time removed, and the
black ones separated by a boy, who spread them out on a table and swept
off what were bad with a strong feather, they were ready for market,
being sold for about 4_d._ or 6_d._ a quart. Considerable quantities of
these cocoons are dried for winter food for birds, and are sold in the
shops.
Humboldt mentions that he saw insects’ eggs sold in the markets of
Mexico, and which are collected on the surface of lakes. Under the
name of axayacat, these eggs, or those of some other species of fly,
deposited on rush mats, are sold as a caviare in Mexico. Something
similar, found in the pools of the desert of Fezzan, serves the Arabs
for food, having the taste of caviare.
In the _Bulletin de la Société Impériale Zoologique d’Acclimation_,
M. Guerin Méneville has published a very interesting paper on a sort
of bread which the Mexicans make of the eggs of three species of
hemipterous insects.
According to M. Craveri, by whom some of the Mexican bread, and of the
insects yielding it, were brought to Europe, these insects and their
eggs are very common in the fresh waters of the lagunes of Mexico. The
natives cultivate, in the lagune of Chalco, a sort of carex called
touté, on which the insects readily deposit their eggs. Numerous
bundles of these plants are made, which are taken to a lagune, the
Texcuco, where they float in great numbers in the water. The insects
soon come and deposit their eggs on the plants, and in about a month
the bundles are removed from the water, dried, and then beaten over a
large cloth to separate the myriad of eggs with which the insects had
covered them.
These eggs are then cleaned and sifted, put into sacks like flour,
and sold to the people for making a sort of cake or biscuit called
‘hautlé,’ which forms a tolerably good food, but has a fishy taste, and
is slightly acid. The bundles of carex are replaced in the lake, and
afford a fresh supply of eggs, which process may be repeated for an
indefinite number of times.
It appears that these insects have been used from an early period, for
Thomas Gage, a religionist, who sailed to Mexico in 1625, says, in
speaking of articles sold in the markets, that they had cakes made of a
sort of scum collected from the lakes of Mexico, and that this was also
sold in other towns.
Brantz Mayer, in his work on Mexico (_Mexico as it was and as it is_,
1844), says,--‘On the lake of Texcuco I saw men occupied in collecting
the eggs of flies from the surface of plants, and cloths arranged in
long rows as places of resort for the insects. These eggs, called
_agayacath_’ (Qy. _axayacat_), ‘formed a favourite food of the Indians
long before the conquest: and when made into cakes, resembles the roe
of a fish, having a similar taste and appearance. After the use of
frogs in France, and birdsnests in China, I think these eggs may be
considered a delicacy, and I found that they are not rejected from the
tables of the fashionable inhabitants of the capital.’
The more recent observations of Messrs. Saussure, Sallé, Virlet
D’Aoust, &c., have confirmed the facts already stated, at least, in the
most essential particulars.
‘The insects which principally produce this animal farinha of Mexico,
are two species of the genus _Corixa_ of Geoffroy, hemipterous insects
of the family of water-bugs. One of the species has been described
by M. Guerin Méneville as new, and has been named by him _Corixa
fermorata_: the other, identified in 1831 by Thomas Say as one of those
sold in the market at Mexico, bears the name of _Corixa mercenaria_.
The eggs of these two species are attached in innumerable quantities
to the triangular leaves of the carex forming the bundles which are
deposited in the waters. They are of an oval form with a protuberance
at one end and a pedicle at the other extremity, by means of which they
are fixed to a small round disc, which the mother cements to the leaf.
Among these eggs, which are grouped closely together, and sometimes
fixed one over another, there are found others, which are larger, of
a long and cylindrical form, and which are fixed to the same leaves.
These belong to another larger insect, a species of _Notonecta_, which
M. Guerin Méneville has named _Notonecta unifasciata_.’[32]
It appears from M. Virlet d’Aoust, that in October the lakes Chalco and
Texcuco, which border on the city of Mexico, are haunted by millions
of small flies, which, after dancing in the air, plunge down into
the shallowest parts of the water, to the depth of several feet, and
deposit their eggs at the bottom.
‘The eggs of these insects are called hautle (haoutle), by the Mexican
Indians, who collect them in great numbers, and with whom they appear
to be a favourite article of food.
‘They are prepared in various ways, but usually made into cakes, which
are eaten with a sauce flavoured with chillies. To collect the eggs
the Indians prepare bundles of rushes, which they place vertically in
the lake at some distance from the shore. In about a fortnight, every
rush in these bundles is completely covered with eggs. The bundles are
then drawn out and dried in the sun upon a cloth for not more than an
hour, when the eggs are easily detached. The bundles of rushes are then
placed in the water again for another crop.’[33]
Mr. Ruschenberger, the surgeon to the American expedition to Siam, in
describing a state feast given to the officers, states that the dinner
was remarkable for the variety and exquisite flavour of the curries.
Among them was one consisting of ants’ eggs, a costly and much esteemed
luxury of Siam. They are not larger than grains of sand, and to a
palate unaccustomed to them, are not particularly savory. They are
almost tasteless. Besides being curried, they are brought to the table
rolled in green leaves, mingled with shreds or very fine slices of fat
pork. Here was seen an ever-to-be-remembered luxury of the East.