In the London "Zoo" one day, as we were nearing the bear den, we heard
the most heartrending cries on the part of one of its denizens. It
sounded as if some bruin were being murdered or vivisected. In reality,
the wails and tears were all due to the fact that one of the animals
"wanted more"--more of the jam which an attendant was distributing
to his charges in turn by the spoonful. That bear had a particularly
"sweet tooth"; but is not bruin proverbial for his love of wild honey?
It is a _casus belli_ with many a swarm of bees.
If you wish to make a horse love you, let him take cubes of sugar from
the palm of your hand. As for dogs, they are supposed to be about as
carnivorous as carnivorous can be; yet I have heard of a dog who, for
months, daily brought a basket of meat from the village butcher and
never touched it; but one morning some horehound candy was put in the
basket and that was too much for his integrity; he stopped on the way
and ate it all up. I felt inclined to doubt that story until I found
that Laddie, my own beautiful collie, invariably was much more eager
for sugar than for meat (with the possible exception of imported Lyons
sausage). Candy and sweetened cream are his ideas of ambrosia and
nectar.
To make friends with cows and sheep you need salt. With a few handfuls
of it in your pocket you can soon make them leave the richest grass and
come crowding around you when you take your daily walk in the fields.
We ourselves crave salt in food, but we do not lick it eagerly as some
domestic as well as wild animals do. In Central Africa, however, where
it is a luxury hard to get, men and women devour it with the same zest
that our youngsters show for candy.
So far as I know, no animal likes sour things; plain water would be
invariably preferred to lemonade. Cows and pigs, to be sure, eagerly
eat apples, and other fruits, and so do horses; they eat them though
they be sour; but if you give them a whole bushel, they pick out the
sweet ones first.
The liking for sour things is a human attribute. School children are
often more eager for a pickle than for a stick of candy; and adults as
well as the young ones enjoy tart or sub-acid fruits of all kinds. What
could be better than a pie or a tart made of green gooseberries or
sour currants? I would give all the confectionery and sweet cakes in
the world for a tree of sour cherries. Of the delights of sour salads I
wrote at length in the chapter on French supremacy.
Bitter herbs are eaten sometimes by browsing animals, but I doubt if
they would select them by choice. The liking for bitter foods and
drinks is not only a human attribute; it is a specifically epicurean
trait. How very much better Scotch marmalade made of bitter oranges
is than marmalade made of ordinary oranges! Slightly bitter also is
the best pomelo. Bitter almond is a favorite flavoring for cakes and
candies. The best of all salads, escarole and the endive tribe in
general, are bitter. Bottled "bitters" are widely used as appetizers.
Physicians of all periods have agreed that bitter substances increase
the appetite. Professor Pawlow considers them the strongest of all
stimulants to a jaded palate. He inclines to the belief that "bitters
not only act directly on the gustatory nerves in the mouth, but that
they also act on the mucous membrane of the stomach in such a way that
sensations are generated which contribute to the passionate craving for
food."