ECONOMIC VALUE OF CUTTLE-FISHES.
I will now try to answer M. Hugo’s question concerning “these
blasphemies of creation against itself”—“Of what use are such
creatures? What purpose do they serve?”
It must not be supposed that in mentioning a few facts relative
to their economic value to mankind I consent to the narrow and
conceited doctrine that, either by laws fixed from the beginning, or
by successive fiats of creation, they were especially provided for
the future advantage of the human race. Many genera of them, which
formed no unimportant portion of the fauna of the ancient seas, lived
and died, and their families became extinct, ages upon ages before
man’s appearance on the earth. He has, it is true, utilised them to a
certain extent, and in various ways. In some parts of the world they
are a recognised addition to the food supply of the population; and,
in others, the means by which fishes more valuable than themselves
are obtained, and become marketable produce. But that this is the
sole object of their being, I cannot for a moment suppose; and
therefore I am content to believe that the Great Architect of the
Universe made them and all things for Himself, and that for His
pleasure they are and were created.
Although the cephalopods are seldom eaten in Great Britain, they
are appreciated as food by nearly all other maritime nations. Along
the western coast of France, and in the countries bordering on the
Mediterranean and Adriatic, they form a portion of the habitual
sustenance of the people, and are regularly exposed for sale in the
markets, both in a fresh and dried condition. Salted cuttles and
octopus are there eaten during Lent as commonly as salted cod are
brought to table in England on Good Friday; and, thus prepared,
generally form a portion of the provisions supplied to the Greek
fishing boats and coasters.[23] The Indians of North-Western America
look upon them as the proverbial alderman regards turtle, and devour
them with the same gusto and relish; only the savage roasts the
glutinous carcase, instead of making soup of it. In Chili, Peru,
Brazil, and Teneriffe, they are eagerly sought for; and they are
an article of daily consumption in India and China, and especially
in Japan, where there is a very important trade in them. Professor
Edward Forbes[24] relates his experience of the use of them by the
Greeks:—
“The traveller who, when treading the shores of the coasts and
islands of the Ægean, observes, as he can scarcely fail to do,
the innumerable remains of the hard parts of cuttle-fishes piled
literally in heaps along the sands—or, when watching the Greek
fishermen draw their nets, marks the number of these creatures
mixed up with the abundance of true fishes taken and equally prized
as articles of food by the captors—can at once understand why the
naturalists of ancient Greece should have treated so fully of the
history of the cephalopoda, and its poets have made allusions to them
as familiar objects. One of the most striking spectacles at night on
the coasts of the Ægean is to see the numerous torches glancing along
the shores, and reflected by the still and clear sea, borne by poor
fishermen paddling as silently as possible over the rocky shallows in
search of the cuttle-fish, which, when seen lying beneath the waters
in wait for his prey, they dexterously spear, ere the creature has
time to dart with the rapidity of an arrow from the weapon about to
transfix his soft but firm body. As in ancient times, these molluscs
constitute, now, a valuable part of the food of the poor, by whom
they are chiefly used. We can ourselves bear testimony to their
excellence. When well beaten, to render the flesh tender, before
being dressed, and then cut up into morsels and served in a savoury
brown stew, they make a dish by no means to be despised, excellent in
both substance and flavour. A modern Lycian dinner, in which stewed
cuttle-fish formed the first, and roast porcupine the second course,
would scarcely fail to be relished by an unprejudiced epicure in
search of novelty.”
I have tasted the octopus, sepia, and loligo, and am quite of
Professor Forbes’s opinion that they are very palatable when really
well cooked. They are all the better for being dressed with made
gravy, but may be eaten plainly boiled, and served with egg-sauce.
They are apt, however, to be very tough unless slowly simmered,
and should first be well beaten with a wooden mallet or the flat
of a cleaver. At Gibraltar, the Spanish fishermen may frequently
be observed engaged in softening an octopus by dashing it several
times with great violence on the stone landing steps at the
fish-market.[25] The flavour is not unlike that of the skate, or the
white part of a scallop. A writer in the “Echo” called the flesh of
the octopus “a sort of marine tripe, the chief merit of which lay in
the sauce in which it was served.” I am inclined to agree with him.
To many persons who have not, like the Greeks, been accustomed from
childhood to regard it as a delicacy, the appearance of an octopus,
alive or dead, is very revolting; and I admit that its boiled
carcase, put before one in unadorned simplicity, is not appetizing.
I shall never forget the utter loathing, ludicrously mingled
with determination to conquer or conceal that feeling, which was
depicted on the countenances of some of the guests at a memorable
“octopus-lunch” given by my friend Sir John Cordy Burrows at
Brighton, in 1874.
His cook had never before prepared an octopus, and was, probably,
not well pleased to do so then. The nasty-looking object was placed
on the table in all its undisguised ugliness. Its skin, which in
the process of boiling had become lividly purple, and had not been
removed, was in places offensively broken and abraded; and its
arms, shrivelled and shrunk, sprawled helplessly on the dish, and,
somehow, looked, as they proved to be, as tough and ropy as so many
thongs of hunting-whips. Our genial host saw in an instant that
it was a failure in cookery, but, as usual, he was equal to the
occasion. With a twinkle of his eye he “took a sly glance at me,”
and gravely handed a portion of the octopus to an honoured guest.
“Now, sir,” said he, “just taste that, and enjoy one of the luxuries
of the ancient Greeks!” The ancient Greeks were, as it seemed to me,
mentally anathematized; but the plate was accepted, its contents
earnestly scanned, the knife and fork just brought into contact with
the viand, and then all were thrust hastily away. A gallant colonel,
who would probably be in “the first flight” across country, and would
not hesitate to lead a charge of his regiment, also “craned” at his
plate, and declined to taste the “luxury.” Sir Cordy then looked to
me as his “forlorn hope.” With the air of a veteran and connoisseur
I helped him and myself to some of the most approved portions of the
leathery creature. Manfully and perseveringly for some minutes I
tried to masticate a mouthful of it, but it was useless; and feeling
that if human teeth could make no more impression on it than on the
sole of an old boot, the human stomach incurred risk of difficulties
which all the well-known medical skill of our good host might be
unable to cure, I declined to sacrifice myself to an idea, and——;
well, I did not swallow it.
The octopus had not been beaten. We were! I afterwards saw this
little private experiment seriously described in a newspaper
paragraph, which was extensively quoted, as an endeavour to introduce
to the public a new and valuable article of marketable food.
In my opinion, the squid, or sleeve (_Loligo_), is the best of the
three. Rondeletius recommends their being dressed with oil and
vinegar. On the Normandy coast they are boiled with onions and
other vegetables, the liquor being saved as good stock for soup. At
Marseilles they are stuffed with dried tendrils of the vine. The
Chinese and Japanese prefer them seasoned with vinegar and ginger,
and attribute to the flesh various medicinal properties. In Mauritius
and the neighbouring islands they are generally curried.
The various genera of cuttle-fishes were held in high estimation
by the ancients; and it was a custom of the Greeks to send them
out as presents on the fifth day after the birth of a child, and
before giving it a name. At the nuptial feast of Iphicrates, who
married the daughter of Cotys, King of Thrace, a hundred polypi and
sepiæ were served. The Greek epicures prized them most when they
contained “roe,” and had them cooked with highly seasoned sauces. The
Lacedæmonians boiled them entire, and were not disgusted by the black
froth formed by their inky liquor diffusing itself in the water.
In “The Deipnosophists” of Athenæus are numerous quotations from
older writers relating to the use, as food, of the various kinds of
cuttle-fishes. Athenæus, who was an Egyptian, born in Naucratis, a
town on the left side of the Canopic mouth of the Nile, lived and
wrote in the first half of the third century. He appears to have
been imbued with a great love of learning, in the pursuit of which
he indulged in the most extensive and multifarious reading. His
“common-place book” must have been a marvel of industrious annotation
and careful record, for he has saved from oblivion, by his extracts
from their writings, many authors whose works have been long ago
lost, and of whose existence future generations would have been
unaware, if he, by his faithful and pains-taking acknowledgment of
his indebtedness to them, had not handed them down to posterity.
He devotes many chapters to the history of festive entertainments,
and the dishes served at banquets of the old Romans and Greeks;
and by his collection from numerous authors of passages, some of
which contain but a few words, and were probably regarded by their
contemporaries as of fugitive interest, has given us an insight
of the elaborate preparations made for dinner-parties, and the
appreciation of artistic cookery by _gourmets_ in those days. Some of
our household cooks in this nineteenth century would “give warning”
instantly if asked to get ready for table for their master’s friends
such a profuse variety of dishes. Course followed course in skilfully
arranged sequence, all intended to tempt the palate, or supposed to
possess some medicinal or stomachic virtue, and presenting, in their
combination, a feast compared with which our lord mayor’s dinners
are unrefined in their mere plenty. In all important entertainments,
public or private, the cuttle-fishes of the Mediterranean were highly
esteemed as delicacies, and were as well known and regularly looked
for in the _menu_ as are salmon and turbot at similar gatherings
now. In the following extracts from the notebook of Athenæus, by the
“polypus” is meant the _Octopus_, by the “cuttle-fish” the _Sepia_,
and by the “squid” or “squill,” the genus represented by our _Loligo_.
Plato, the comic poet, mentioning in his “Phaon” the banquet of
Philoxenus the Leucadian, says:—
“Good-sized _polypus_ in season,
Should be boiled—to roast them’s treason,
But if early, and not big,
Roast them; boiled ar’n’t worth a fig.”
Alexis, in his “Pseudypobolemæus,” writes:—
Take the stiff feelers of the _polypus_,
And with them you shall find some modest liver
And cutlets of wild goats, which you shall eat.
The eggs of the octopus and sepia were also regarded as dainties.
Hegemon of Thasos thus refers to them in his “Philuma:”—
Go quickly! buy me of that _polypus_,
And fry the _roe_, and give it us to eat.
But to fry octopus was not, by some, considered good cooking.
Nicostratus of Philetærus says, in the “Antyllus:”—
I never again will venture to eat cuttle-fish which has been
dressed in a frying-pan.
They ate heartily at breakfast in those times, it seems, for
Epicharmus tells us in “The Sirens:”—
In the morning early, at the break of day,
We roasted plump anchovies,
Cutlets of well-fed pork and _polypi_;
And then we drank sweet wine.
Philoxenus, the poet of Cythera, is reported to have been a very
greedy man. He wished that he had a throat three cubits long, that he
might drink as long as possible, and that his food might all at once
delight him. Machon, the comic poet, relates how his fondness for
well-cooked octopus and his insatiate gluttony caused his death:—
They say Philoxenus, the ancient poet
Of Dithyrambics, was so wonderfully
Attached to fish, that once at Syracuse
He bought a polypus two cubits long,
Then dress’d it, and then ate it up himself,
All but the head—and afterwards fell sick,
Seized with a sharp attack of indigestion.
Then when some doctor came to him to see him
Who saw that he was greatly out of order;
“If,” said the doctor, “you have any business
Not well arranged, do not delay to settle it,
For you will die before six hours are over!”
Philoxenus replied, “All my affairs,
O Doctor, are well ended and arranged
Long, long ago; but now, since deadly fate
Calls me away, who can’t be disobeyed,
That I may go below with all my goods,
_Bring me the relics of that polypus!_”
We learn something of the most approved methods of cooking the
“cuttle-fishes” and “squids” from the following passages. Sotades, in
his play entitled “The Shut-up Women,” introduces a cook, who makes a
speech in which these molluscs are mentioned:—
A fine dish is the squill, when carefully cook’d,
But the rich cuttle-fish is eaten plain;
Though I did stuff them all with a rich forced-meat
Of almost every kind of herb and flower.
Alexis, in his “Wicked Woman,” also introduces a cook, who speaks as
follows:—
Now these three cuttle-fish I have just bought
For one small drachma. And when I’ve cut off
Their feelers and their fins, I then shall boil them;
And, cutting up the main part of their meat
Into small discs, and rubbing in some salt,
After the guests already are sat down
I then shall put them in the frying-pan,
And serve up hot towards the end of supper.
Eriphus says, in his “Melibœa:”—
These things poor men cannot afford to buy;—
The entrails of the tunny, or the head
Of greedy pike, or conger, or cuttle-fish,
Which I don’t think the gods above despise.
Athenæus cites a great many more authors, who testify to the esteem
in which the cephalopoda were held in the olden times, as the
constituents of dainty dishes.
Cuttle-fishes are employed as bait by fishermen, and, by their
abundance at certain seasons in the neighbourhood of Newfoundland,
they exercise an important influence on the cod-fishery; thus
playing, as D’Orbigny remarks, an important part in the commerce of
the most flourishing nations of Europe.
From a letter from Mr. W. E. Cormack, an intelligent Newfoundland
merchant, who distinguished himself by being the first European who
succeeded in crossing Newfoundland—communicated by Professor Jameson
to the “Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal” (1826, p. 32)—we learn
that more than a hundred millions of cod are caught annually with
cuttle-fish as bait, about two hundred millions with the capelin, and
one hundred millions with herrings and “shell-fish.”
Poole, in Dorsetshire, has long been one of the principal ports and
depôts of the Newfoundland trade. My friend Mr. Wm. Penney of that
town, very kindly obtained for me, in compliance with my request,
some authentic recent information on the subject from a gentleman who
for many years resided in Newfoundland, as the agent of a Poole firm.
He writes:—
“My friend Mr. E——, who has spent some years in Newfoundland, informs
me that the bait used for the cod-fishery there at the commencement
of May is the herring; during June, July, and August, the capelin;
and about the end of August, and throughout September they use the
squids, which come into the bays in great abundance. They are caught
by means of a “jigger,” which is a conical piece of lead, round
the circumference of the base of which are inserted eight or ten
hooks. The fishermen go out in punts squid-jigging of an evening,
to catch the bait required for the next day’s fishing. About 100 or
more squids are caught by each boat, and thousands of them are taken
during the season about 150 or 200 yards from the shore, in tolerably
deep water. In many stations more than a dozen boats are engaged in
squid-catching. During the squid-jigging the fishermen hollo and
shout, and make a great noise; for what purpose Mr. E—— does not
know. All parts of the squid are cut up, and used as bait; what is
not required the next day is thrown away or given to the pigs. In the
northern district, between Cape Freels and Cape St. John, the fishing
spots are at Robin’s Cave Head, and Friday’s Bay, on the anchorage
ground. The fishing takes place about sun-down. The squid is of an
oval form, and resembles somewhat our cuttle-fish, but it has no
solid bone. The length of the body is from eight inches to a foot,
and it is about two inches in diameter. The flesh is said by the
fishermen to be remarkably sweet and good eating, and to be excellent
fried. About the end of September the squid disappears, and herring
are then again caught: thus herring forms the bait for the fishery at
the commencement and end of the fishing season. Mr. E—— believes that
the squid is caught and used for bait all round Newfoundland, but he
can only speak with certainty of the northern district.”
I learn from other sources that the same mode of fishing is followed
in other parts of Newfoundland, and that hundreds of boats are
engaged during September in “jigging;” a crew of three men usually
taking from one hundred to five hundred in a day. The squids come
into the bays in such vast shoals that sometimes, during violent
gales, hundreds of tons of them are thrown up together in beds on
the flat beaches, and their decay spreads an intolerable effluvium
around.[26]
The Greek fishermen use, as a “jigger,” the bone of the _Sepia_
surrounded with hooks, believing it to be more attractive than the
leaden weight above described.
This mode of catching squid is of very early origin. It was a common
practice in Oppian’s time, although the “jigger” he describes was
somewhat different from that now in use. He writes:—
For _sleves_ a slender shaft the swain provides
Cylindric, like a distaff: round the sides
Adjacent hooks their radiant files extend,
With points supine the dreadful rows descend,
To silent deeps the fatal engine slides,
The steely curves a painted rainbow hides.
The incurious sleve invades his artful fate,
And throws his branching snouts around the bait.
Within the hooks the thready tendrils twine,
Entangled in th’ embrace they would resign.
In vain to disengage his hold he tries,
In his own chains the self-caught captive dies.
Oppian also describes another method of taking cuttles, which in some
localities is still resorted to at certain seasons. The fishermen
fasten the end of a line round a living female octopus or sepia, and
lower her down towards a rocky bottom. On the male coming to woo he
comes to woe, for both are pulled up together.
There is nothing incredible in this. The Japanese, at the present
day, use a spawning female fish as a lure for others of the same
species. Having found one nearly, but not quite, ready to deposit her
roe, they squeeze from her a portion of it, which hangs suspended
from the body, and then anchor her near the shore by a hook and
line. The males are instinctively drawn to the spot, a seine is shot
round them, and all are easily taken. A similar process is commonly
resorted to by entomologists for the capture of rare species of moths
and butterflies.
Cuttles are often caught in the Adriatic by sinking in the sea
branches of trees and faggots, which entice them, as being suitable
spawning ground and offering good anchorage for their eggs.
It is somewhat remarkable that whilst the octopus shuns the light and
retreats from that of a lanthorn, the cuttle and squid are attracted
by it. At Trincomalee, at certain seasons of the year, the bay is
illuminated during the night by hundreds of lights of fishing boats
moving hither and thither. A dead cuttle is generally the bait used.
This is suspended in the water, and when hauled in from time to time,
one or more of its species are found fast to it, and feeding on their
deceased relative. When removed from the water they emit a peculiar
“squelching” noise, which has been compared to the grunting of a
hog. It appears to me to be caused by the forcing of air, instead of
water, through the syphon tube.[27]
They are also frequently taken by spearing, as described by Edward
Forbes; and my friend, Mr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., mentions[28]
having seen in a curious Japanese book, preserved in the British
Museum, a picture of a man in a boat engaged in catching
cuttle-fishes with a spear, and also of a fishmonger’s shop in Japan
at which a number of enormous cuttle-fishes are represented hanging
up for sale.
The crystalline lens of the eye, which is soft in quadrupeds, and
cartilaginous in fishes, is very solid in the cephalopoda. It is
almost calcareous, and very peculiar in its form. It consists of
two double concave portions, divided by a deep groove, in which are
inserted the ciliary processes. The two halves, which are almost
globose at their outer surfaces, separate easily, and exhibit
internally a series of concentric coats, which reflect light with a
beautiful nacreous opalescence and play of colours. In some parts of
Italy the women use these lenses as beads for necklaces. I have seen
them thus worn at Genoa on festival days. They appear also to have
been used as ornaments by the ancient Peruvians. Dr. J. E. Gray, in
his “_Spicilegia Zoologica_,” published in 1828, says that the Rev.
Mr. Hennah brought to this country several of a large size which he
found in the tombs and old habitations of the natives; and that Mr.
Stutchbury had informed him that the Sandwich Islanders sold these
lustrous eyes to the Russians as pearls.
The “cuttle-bone” or dorsal plate of _Sepia_, sometimes called
“sea-biscuit,” from its shape and its being frequently found floating
on the surface of the water, is used, when pounded, as polishing
powder, by jewellers, and, under the name of “pounce,” to smooth
writing-paper where an erasure has been made with a penknife. Known
as “white coral powder,” it used to be regarded as the very best
dentifrice,[29] and was formerly prescribed in medicine as an antacid
and absorbent.
The Roman ladies employed it, burned and pulverised, as a cosmetic
for the face; and it was, no doubt, a good substitute for the “pearl
powder” now in fashion. Broken pieces of it are also occasionally
placed between the wires of the cages of song-birds, for them to peck
at, instead of chalk or other calcareous substances.
The “ink” which the cuttle-fish has the power of ejecting when
alarmed, for the purpose of obscuring the water and hiding its own
retreat, was formerly used in writing. Cicero mentions this use of
it, and from it is also made the true “sepia” of artists. I have more
than once lately seen it stated that the ink of the cuttle-fish is no
longer employed for this purpose, and that “sepia” is now prepared
from lamp-black. A great deal of rubbish of this kind is probably
sold; but I have recently seen at Messrs. Newman’s, the well-known
artists’ colourmen, in Soho Square, thousands of the ink-bags of
cuttles in the raw state, ready to be manufactured into “sepia.” The
fishermen of some of our southern counties, when cleaning cuttles and
squids for bait, habitually dry the ink-bags and their contents, and
preserve them until Messrs. Newman’s agent visits the district and
collects them. If the Newfoundland fishermen, when “squid-jigging,”
would take the trouble to preserve the ink-bags, they would find a
ready sale for them, and might make of them a profitable perquisite.
The beautiful drawings with which Cuvier illustrated his “Anatomy
of the Mollusca” were executed with the ink which he had collected
whilst dissecting many specimens of the cephalopoda; and it is well
known that fossil cuttle-fishes have been found with the ink-bag
perfect, and that from its contents excellent “sepia” has been
obtained. Some of these ink-bags found in the lias, associated with
traces of the “pen” or inner shell, are nearly twelve inches long,
and must have belonged to calamaries of gigantic size. It is an
oft-told anecdote that the late Dr. Buckland gave some of this fossil
ink to Sir Francis Chantrey, who pronounced it to be of unusually
good quality, and with it made a drawing of the specimen from
which it was taken. This drawing is now in the possession of Dean
Buckland’s son and Sir Francis’s godson, my friend Frank Buckland.
I have also seen a cake of fossil sepia prepared by Messrs. Newman
for Professor Dick, of Cambridge, about the year 1850, which rubs as
smoothly, and is as rich in colour, as that manufactured from the ink
of recent cuttle-fishes.