DISCOVERING THE MERITS OF ROAST PIG.
By Charles Lamb.
The art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder
brother) was accidentally discovered in the manner following. The
swineherd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his
manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of
his eldest son, Bo-bo, a great, lubberly boy, who, being fond of playing
with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape
into a bundle of straw, which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration
over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes.
Together with the cottage (a sorry, antediluvian makeshift of a building,
you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of
new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have
been esteemed a luxury all over the east, from the remotest periods that
we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not
so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily
build up again with a few dry branches, and the labor of an hour or two,
at any time, as for the loss of the pigs.
While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his
hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an
odor assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before
experienced. What could it proceed from?--not from the burnt cottage--he
had smelt that smell before--indeed, this was by no means the first
accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this
unlucky firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed
or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether
lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if
there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them
he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of
the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time
in his life (in the world's life, indeed, for before him no man had known
it), he tasted--crackling!
Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now,
still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length
broke into his slow understanding, that it was the pig that smelt so, and
the pig that tasted so delicious, and, surrendering himself up to the
new-born pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched
skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his
beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed
with retributory cudgel, and, finding how affairs stood, began to rain
blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as hailstones, which
Bo-bo headed not any more than if they had been flies. The tickling
pleasure, which he experienced in his lower regions, had rendered him
quite callous to any inconveniences that he might feel in those remote
quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig
till he had made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of
his situation, something like the following dialogue ensued:
"You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? Is it not enough
that you have burnt me down three houses with your dog's tricks, and be
hanged to you! but you must be eating fire, and I know not what--what have
you got there, I say?"
"O, father, the pig, the pig! do come and taste how nice the burnt pig
eats."
The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he cursed
himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt pig.
Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out
another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main
force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, "Eat, eat, eat the
burnt pig, father, only taste--O Lord!" with suchlike barbarous
ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke.
Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped the abominable thing,
wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young
monster, when the crackling scorched his fingers, as it had done his
son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of
its flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for a pretence, proved
not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion, both father and son
fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had dispatched
all that remained of the litter.