Chapter I: Part 1

THE

CURIOSITIES OF FOOD;

OR THE

DAINTIES AND DELICACIES OF DIFFERENT
NATIONS

OBTAINED FROM THE

ANIMAL KINGDOM.

BY

PETER LUND SIMMONDS, F.R.G.S., F.S.S.,

AUTHOR OF “A DICTIONARY OF TRADE PRODUCTS,”
“THE COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM,”
ETC., ETC.

_Cassius._ Will you dine with me to-morrow?

_Casca._ Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and your dinner worth
the eating.
JULIUS CÆSAR.

_Horatio._ O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

_Hamlet._ And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
HAMLET, Act 1, scene 5.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
1859.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY G. PHIPPS, RANELAGH STREET, EATON SQUARE.

PREFACE.

The sustentation of the body, and the repairing of its waste by an adequate supply of wholesome and nutritious daily food, is a subject of general importance, and necessarily occupies a large share of attention. But all nations have not the advantages of skilful cattle-breeders, slaughter-houses, well-supplied meat and poultry markets, and butchers’ shops graced with all the tempting joints of beef, mutton, and pork, which gladden the eyes of an Englishman, and keep up his stamina for labour. The traveller, the settler, and the savage, must be content to put up with what they can most readily obtain, and to avail themselves of many an unusual article of food, which would be rejected under more favourable circumstances, and with a greater choice for selection.

The subject of Food, in a physiological point of view, has been often discussed. Popular and learned treatises on all the art and mysteries of Cookery have been sold by thousands. We have had pleasant details furnished us too on the Food and the Commissariat of London.--But with respect to the animal substances, eaten by other people in foreign countries, we have known little--except from mere scraps of information.

The basis of the present volume is a lecture on the Curiosities of Food, which I delivered at several of the metropolitan literary institutions. Having been favourably received,--from the novelty of the subject, and the singularity of the specimens from my private museum by which it was illustrated,--I have been led to believe that it might prove generally interesting in a more amplified shape.

In order, however, to bring the details within a convenient compass, I have limited myself to a description of the Curiosities of Animal Food; but should the work be well received, I may follow it up hereafter by a companion volume, on the Curiosities of Vegetable Food.

In the arrangement of the materials for this work, one of two modes of description was open to me, either to dress up the details in characteristic pictures of the food-customs and viands in use in different quarters, and by different people; or to group the whole scientifically under natural history divisions. As the subject is curious and striking enough in its simplicity without the aid of fiction or embellishment, I have preferred adopting the latter arrangement, and have followed it as closely as the miscellaneous character of the selections and quotations would permit.

Many of the articles of food named are so outrageously repulsive, and the consideration of the subject, in a collected form, is altogether so new, that I have preferred citing authorities in all instances, so as to relieve myself from the charge of exaggeration, or the imputation of untenable assertions. For this reason, and from the varied and very extended nature of the field of enquiry, I can claim no merit for original writing in this work. I have merely desired to present the public with a readable volume; and I think its perusal will show that in this, as in other cases, truth is often stranger than fiction.

After a perusal of these pages, it can scarcely be said that, ‘there is nothing new under the sun,’ for many of the articles of food which I have described as being served up in different parts of the world, will be certainly new to many. Probably, some of the hints thrown out will make the fortune of any restaurateur in the city or at the west-end, who chooses to dish up one or more of the reputed delicacies, under a proper disguise, and with a high-sounding name.

P.L.S.

_8, Winchester Street, Pimlico,
December 1858._

CONTENTS.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

John Bull’s partiality for Beef, 2. Comparative quantities of meat eaten in Paris, New York, and London--Different parts of Animals eaten by choice, 5. Want of courage to taste new Food, 6. Various kinds of Food eaten in different countries--Man’s omnivorous propensities, 7. Weight of Food eaten in a man’s life-time--instances of gluttony, 10. Ethnological view of the question, 11. Jerked beef consumed in Cuba--Varieties of--_tasajo_, _rebenque_, _charqui_, _sesina_, 12. Mode of preparing the sun-dried meat in Chile--_Grasa_ or melted fat, 13. Biltonge or dried meat of the Cape Colony--_Pastoormah_--dried Elephant’s flesh--Hung Beef, 14. Mode of preparing Pemmican, 15. Gelatine--Beef and Bone Soup, 17. Jellies unnutritious--Portable Soup, 18. Meat Biscuit--Mode of making it, 19. Utilization of the Blood of Animals for food, 21. M. Brocchieri’s experiments--Anecdote of an unlucky Pig doomed to perpetual blood-letting, 23. Arctic luxuries--Climatic difficulties, 25. A Tuski Feast, 27. A Greenland Banquet, 29. Animal Food in the Arctic Regions, 30. A Sledge made of frozen Salmon, 34. Frozen Food brought to the St. Petersburg Market, 35. A Russian Dining-room, 36. Cooking at Cape Coast Castle--Food customs and delicacies of the Aborigines of various Countries, 38. Raw-flesh eaten in Greenland and Abyssinia, 42. Australian Food delicacies, 45.

QUADRUMANA.

Monkeys eaten in South America, Africa, and the Eastern Archipelago, 46. Mode of cooking them. _Cheiroptera_, or hand-winged Animals--The Fox Monkey, and Bats eaten in the East, 50. _Carnivora_--Hyena eaten by Arabs--Pole-cat in North America--Foxes in Italy--Prairie Wolf in North America, 51. The Lion by the Arabs--The Tiger by the Malays--The Puma by the Americans, 52. No reason why Carnivorous Animals should not furnish wholesome and palatable Food--Bear’s Flesh--A draught of a Quart of Bear’s Grease, 53. Bear’s Paws and Steaks--Flesh of the Badger, 54. Dogs eaten in olden times by the Greeks and Romans, and still considered a delicacy in China, Zanzibar, Australia, and the Pacific, 57. Anecdote of a Dog Feast. _Marsupialia_, or Pouched Animals--The Kangaroo--Food delicacies from it--Mode of cooking, 58. Aboriginal practices and Food in Australia, 60. Kangaroo-Rat--Opossum--Wombat, 63. _Rodentia_--Marmot--Mouse--Musk-Rat, 64. Field-Rat--Rats eaten in West Indies, Brazil, Australia, China, &c., 65. Chinese Dishes and Chinese cooking, 66. California bills of fare, 69. Abundance of Rats in Hong Kong and in Scinde, 62. Salted Rats an article of export from India to China, 70. Bandicoot, Coffee Rat, Dormouse, Lemming, and Jerboa eaten as Food, 71. Beaver--Porcupine, 72. Anecdote on Rabbits, 73. Arctic Hare--Water Dog--Guinea Pig--Agouti--Paca and Viscascha, 74. _Edentata_, or Toothless Animals--Native Porcupine of Australia--Ant-eater and Armadillo, 76.

PACHYDERMATA, OR THICK-SKINNED ANIMALS.

Baked Elephants’ Paws--Mode of cooking them, 76. Cutting-up the Elephant, 78. African Haggis--Hippopotamus Flesh and Fat--Zee-koe Speck, 80. Products of the Hog--Reading Bacon and eating Bacon, 81. Swine feeding on Corpses in the Ganges, 82. Pigs fed on Mutton, 83. Acres of Pork in America, 84. ‘Going the whole Hog,’ 85. Origin of roast Pig, 86. Spanish Pigs, 90. _Toucinho_, or fat Pork, used in Brazil--Peccary, Rhinoceros, and Tapir eaten, 92. Horse-flesh, the recent endeavours to popularize it as an article of Food, 94. M. St. Hilaire’s exertions in the cause--Historical progress--Horse-flesh eaten in Africa, America, Asia, and Europe, 97. Experimental trials and cooking, 100. Horse-flesh eaten unknowingly in many cases, 104. Anecdote of Sausages--Evidence before Parliamentary committee respecting Horse Sausages, 105. Unwholesome Meat, 106. Blowing Veal, 109. Asses’ Flesh--The Quagga 110.

RUMINANTIA AND CETACEA.

Camel’s Flesh, 111. Axis Deer--Moose Deer--Caribboo--Venison not _Meat_ in North America--Reindeer, 112. Giraffe--Eland--Hottentot cooking--Antelope Tribe--The Hartebeest--Sassaby--Ourebi--Boshbok--Rheebok--Gnu, &c., 113. Alpaca Tribe--Sheep’s Milk--Large Tailed Cape Sheep--Dried Flesh of the Argali--Goat’s Flesh, 115. Bison Beef--Buffalo Humps--Musk-Ox, 116. _Cetacea_--Manatus, 117. Flesh and Tongue of the Sea-Lion, 118. Walrus Meat--Sea-Bear--Seal Flesh, 119. Flesh of the Whale eaten in various quarters--Porpoise, an ancient dainty--Mode of serving it at the tables of English Nobility, 120.

BIRDS.

No Carnivorous Birds eaten--_Insessores_ or Perching Birds--Becafico--Edible nest of the Eastern Swallow or Swift, 122. Mode of collecting, localities, statistics, and details in the Eastern Archipelago, 123. The Guacharo Bird, 128. The Diablotin or Goat-sucker--Spitted Larks, 129. Crows, Thrushes, and Robin Redbreasts eaten in Italy--The Rice Bunting, 130. The Toucan--Parrot Pie--GALLINACEOUS Fowls--Peacock Enkakyll, 131. Wild Turkey of New Granada--Value of Poultry and Eggs consumed, 132. Fixed Tariff for Poultry and Game, &c., in London in 1272--Price of Eggs, Pigeons, &c., in 1313, 133. Prices of Poultry and Game in 1575, 134. Prices of Food and Poultry in 1531, 135. Ancient Receipt for making a Game Pie in 1394, from the Books of the Salter’s Company--Prices of Cattle and Dairy produce in 1548, 137. Consumption and Statistics of Eggs--Comparative use in Paris and London--Imports from Ireland--Modes of testing the quality of Eggs, 138. Preservation of Eggs--Salted Eggs--Pickled Eggs--Painted Eggs--Condensed Egg, 140. Roman Preserves for fattening Poultry--Wild Game in Jamaica, 142. Canadian mode of cooking Partridge, 143. Red-legged Partridge run down on foot--Quail--Turtle Dove--Passenger Pigeon, 144. Hogs fed upon the Squabs--Canvas-back Duck, 146. Cock of the wood--Wild Birds of New Zealand, 147.

GRALLATORES.

Ostrich and Emu Eggs, 148. Bustards, 149. Clucking Hen and Mangrove Hen of Jamaica, 150. Bittern--Snipe Woodcock--Flamingoes’ tongues, 152.

NATATORES.

Sea-gulls eaten by the Chinese--Livers and Hearts of Penguins--Puffins pickled with Spices, 153. The Mutton-Bird of Australia--Habits of the Bird--Mode of taking them by the New Zealanders, 154. Birds eaten in the Arctic Regions--Grouse Pie--Dovekey and Auk Pie--Guillemot Soup, 156. Eggs of Sea Fowl--Large sale of them in San Francisco, and at the Cape of Good Hope, 158. Penguins’ Eggs in Tristan d’Acunha, 160. The Rookeries--Exciting Sport, 161. Annual Egg gathering visits to the Pedro Keys from Jamaica--Description of the Islets--Birds which frequent them--Recognised customs among the Boatmen--The Egg Bird, 163. Turtle Eggs, 167. Wild and Domestic Geese--Half-hatched Eggs eaten by the Esquimaux, 168. Cygnets--Pintail Duck--Widgeon and Teal, 169.

REPTILIA.

Enumeration of the Reptiles in the Four Orders, eaten as Food, 169. Land Tortoises and their Eggs, 170. Terrapin or Box Tortoise--Cruel mode of killing them, 171. Tenacity of Life--Fluviatile Tortoises--The Hiccatee of Honduras, 172. Shooting a Turtle--Abundance of large Land Tortoises in the Gallipagos Islands--Very generally eaten in the Pacific, Australia, South America, and Europe--Tortoise oil, 174. Salted Turtle--Chasing the Turtle--Horrible process of removing the Shell, 175. Dampier’s Description of Land Tortoises in the West Indies in 1684--First Introduction of Turtle to England--Statistics of Consumption--Noted City Houses for Turtle Soup, 176. Turtling in the Grand Caymans, West Indies, 177. Mock Turtle and Real Turtle--Ascension the Head Quarters for keeping Turtle, 178. Adventures of Old ‘Nelson’--Turtle should be sent home in a Sealed Cask--Jaguars of South America fond of Turtle and their Eggs--A Brazil Native will eat 20 or 30 Turtle Eggs at a meal, 180. Description of the Eggs--Hawk’s-bill Turtle eaten, but sometimes unwholesome--Collecting Turtle Eggs on the Orinoco, by the Indians--Preparation of an Oil called ‘Mantega’ from them--Gives Employment to several thousand Persons, 181. Quantity made and Value--Not very pure--Uses of Turtle Oil for Culinary and Illuminating Purposes, 182. The Iguana--Description of it--Repulsive Appearance--Very Delicate Eating, 183. Mode of cooking it--First Repugnance of the Early Spaniards to it, as related by Peter Martyn, 184. Mode of Catching the Reptile by Natives, 185. Hunted by Dogs in the Bahamas Islands--Met with and esteemed in Australia, 186. Aboriginal Appreciation of it--Eaten by Natives of Ceylon, 187. Eggs of this Lizard an esteemed Delicacy--Should be introduced to our Tables--All kinds of Lizards eaten by the Blacks of Australia, 188. Lizard Family obnoxious to Poisons--Lizards brought to the Rio Janeiro market--Hatching a Crocodile by a Fancy Poultry Breeder, 190. Eggs of the Alligator eaten--Effect of Imagination on the Stomach, at a Dinner given by Dr. Buckland, 191. Australian Crocodile eats like Veal, 192. Origin of the Australian ‘Bunyip’ Fiction--Flesh of the Crocodile musky, 193. Various Opinions of Alligator Meat, 194. An Alligator Hunt in South America, 195. Eggs and Skin of the Alligator eaten--Oil prepared from the Fat, 196. Lizards, Serpents, and Snakes, 197. Swallowing Live Lizards supposed to cure the Cancer--Boa-constrictor eaten, 198. Fried Rattlesnake or ‘Musical Jack,’ 199. Roasted Snakes in Australia, 202. Extending use of Frogs for Food in Europe, America, and the East--Toads frequently sold for frogs, 204. Mode of skinning and preparing them--Eaten boiled in Brazil, without any Preparation, 206.

FISH.

Abundance of Fish--Modes of preserving them--Analyses of their Flesh, 208. Presence of Iodine, 210--Fish Chowder--Fish Glue and Isinglass--Fish-maws, immense Trade in, 211. Caviar and the dried Roes of Fish, 212. Ancient Customs, Prices, and Kinds of Fish used, 215. Fish Ordinaries, 216. The Russian _Piroga_, an oily Fish-cake--Dried loaves of putrid pounded Fish eaten in Africa and South America, 218. Bony Fishes--Unwholesome and Poisonous Fishes--Assumed Causes for the Fish Poison, 219. Fish Liver and Gall, 221. Classification of Fishes--Neglect of our Fisheries, 222. Ocean Fishes dry eating--Mode of drying the Bonito--The hard horny pieces, under the name of _Cummelmums_, used to rasp over Rice, 223. Shark’s Flesh sold in the Havana Market--Shark Hunting--Excitement of the Sport, 224. The Picked Shark--Spotted Dog-Fish--Pigs fed on them--Shark oil, 228. Fisheries for the Sharks in India for the Fins--Extensive Trade in these to China--Dogs trained to bring Sharks ashore, 229. Anecdotes of Sharks, 231. The Sturgeon, a Royal Fish--Flesh not much esteemed--Sturgeon’s Skull-cap and Shark’s Fin Stew, Chinese Delicacies, 236. Lampreys--Eel Pies and stewed Eels--Spearing Eels--Jews prohibited from eating them, 238. Comparison between British Fish and Mediterranean Fish, 240. Finnon Haddock--Fresh Herrings--Pickled Herrings--Red Herrings and Bloaters--Origin of Smoked Herrings--Herring Pies sent from Yarmouth periodically to the Queen, 242. Conger Eel dried and grated to powder for making Fish Soup--Congers formerly reared in Vivaria by the Romans, 244. The Sand-Eel and Sand-launce--Smelts--Whitebait, 245. Substitutes for Whitebait in distant Seas, 246. The Anchovy--An Irishman’s Blunder, 249. The Sardine Fishery, 252. West Indian Fishes--Hog Fish--Snapper--Queen Mullet--Paracuta--Callipeva--Red Mullet--King Fish, &c., 253. The Sun Fish--Pacou--Gourami--Caffum, 256. The Pirarucu--The Sheep’s Head--The Green Cavalla--The John and Goggle-Eye--The Flying Fish, 259. Sprats--Coveeching Fish--Mud Fish, 261. Lut-fisk of Sweden--Fish exported from New Brunswick--The Sea-perch--The striped Bass--Brook Trout and Sea Trout, 263. Gaspereaux or Alewives--Salmon-trout--Skate--Capelan--Halibut Fins--Smoked Eels in New Brunswick and Port Phillip, 266. White Fish of the North American Lakes--Gizzard Fish--Mashkilonge--Trout and other Lake Fish, 268. Modes of Fishing--Scoop Nets and Gill Nets--Angling through the Ice, 271. Extreme Fatness of Lake Fish, 274. Fish Soup, 275. Fish of the Pacific Coasts--Robalo, Corvino, Lisa, Bagre, 227. A Hawaiian Restaurant--Raw Fish eaten--Salmon the King of Fresh-water Fish, 278. Salmon Fisheries of Oregon and California, 279. Chinese Fisheries--Fish of the Australian and Indian Seas--Tamarind-fish--Mango-fish--Black and white Pomfrets--Bombay Duck, 284. Fish of the Cape Colony--Géelbeck or Cape Salmon, Snook, Silver fish, Harders, Jacob Evertsen, Kabeljauw, Hottentot Fish, Windtoy, Bamboo Fish, Galleon, Lake, &c., 286.

INSECTS.

Insects furnish many good Delicacies--Fairy Cates, 292. _Coleoptera_--Larvæ or Grubs of Beetles eaten in various localities--Roman Epicures used to Fatten them, 293. Goliath Beetles eaten in Africa--Turkish Women cook Beetles in Butter to fatten themselves, 295. _Orthoptera_--Locusts extensively eaten in Africa and Arabia--Modes of Collecting and Cooking them, 296. Animals and Birds feed greedily on them--Descriptions given by various Travellers, 300. Locusts eaten in Eastern Asia--Grasshoppers tried and found to be good eating--A Grasshopper Roast in California, 304. _Neuroptera_--Termites, or White Ants, eaten by the Africans and South American Indians--Yellow and Red Ants in Brazil--Ants Distilled for Brandy in Sweden--Cocoons of the Wood Ant collected and sold for Feeding Birds, 305. Caviar of Insect Eggs in Mexico--_Axayacat_--Mode of Collecting--Cakes and Bread, called Hautle, made from them--Curry of Ants’ Eggs, 306. _Hymenoptera_--Bees eaten in Ceylon--Caterpillars of the Butterfly--Silk-worm Chrysalids Bugong Moth, a great Delicacy to Natives of Australia--Sage-Apples or Galls, in the Levant, 311. _Hemiptera_--The Cicada or Chirping Flies eaten in America and Australia--Caterpillars eaten like Sugar Plums, 314.

ARACHNIDA.

Spiders eaten in Various Quarters as Centipedes are in others, 316.

CRUSTACEA.

Flesh of Crustaceans Difficult of Digestion--Varieties of Consumed--Land Crabs--Their Habits--Varieties--Mode of Cooking them--An Ingredient in the Famous ‘Pepper-pot,’ 316. Abundance of Land Crabs at the Bahamas--mentioned by Virgil--Mason Crab of Chile eaten, 321. The Lobster--Where principally Caught--Preserved Fresh Lobsters, 322. Salted Lobsters--Pond or Saltern, for keeping them, at Southampton--A Tale with a Moral, 327. Turning Lobsters on their Backs, 328. Live Crablets eaten by the Chinese, 329. Shrimps and Prawns--Enormous Consumption of them--Instructions for Cooking them, 350. Dried Prawns and Shell-fish--Large Trade in them in the East, 332. _Balachong_ or _Gnapee_, 333.

MOLLUSCA, &c.

Oysters--‘Natives and Scuttlemouths’--Racoon or Parasitic Oysters, 334. Large Trade in Oysters in America, at New York, Baltimore, Boston, and New Orleans, 335. Bottled Oysters at the Cape--Mussels--‘Old Maids’--Scallops--Clams and Clam Digging--Largely used for Bait, 342. Periwinkles--Large Consumption of, in London--Whelks, Boiled and Pickled, 345. Snails a Fashionable Article of Diet--Roman Taste for them--A Snail Pie--The Vineyard Snail--Modes of Dressing them, 346. Attempt of Two Philosophers to relish them, 347. Snail Soup--The Parrot’s-bill Barnacle eaten, 349. _Annelida_--Palolo, a Pacific Delicacy, 350. Diet of Worms--Cuttle-fish eaten, 352. _Arcas_ and _Monodonta_ eaten--Sea Eggs or Urchins, 353. _Holothuria_--the Sea Slug Soup of the Chinese--_Bêche-de-mer_ or _Tripang_, 354. The _Times’_ Correspondent’s Opinion of this Dish, 355. Extensive Fisheries for the Animal, 356. Details of the Preparation and Statistics of the Trade, 358. Varieties and Prices, 364.

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

Ignorance as to some of our Common Food--Ox Tongues--Polonies--Confidence inspired by the Pie-man eating one of his own Pies, 367. We eat many things which would be refused by others, 368. Bounty and Wisdom of the Creator in providing for Man--Difficulty of determining what are Food Delicacies, 369. New Varieties of Food may be Provided Artificially--Fresh Hides of Cattle a Delicacy in Java--Buffalo Hides and other Skins made into Jellies at Home--Buckskin Breeches, boiled and stuffed with Sea-weed for Food--Resumé of the Dainties of Different People--Verification of the Proverb--‘One half the world does not know how the other half lives.’

THE

CURIOSITIES OF FOOD.

What is the prevailing food of the people? Is it chiefly animal or vegetable, and whence is it derived in the two kingdoms? Do they trust to what the bounty of Nature provides, or have they the means of modifying or controlling production, whether in the cultivation of vegetables, or the rearing of animals? Describe their modes of cooking, and state the kinds of condiments they employ. Have they in use any kind of fermented liquor? What number of meals do they make, and what is their capacity for temporary or sustained exertion?

These are some of the enquiries to which a traveller is directed to pay attention, if he wishes to furnish and diffuse useful information.

I do not intend to go over this wide field of investigation in the systematic and scientific manner shadowed forth by these enquiries, but merely desire to assist the reader to pass a leisure hour, although he may probably glean some useful information at the same time.

I propose bringing under notice some of the Animal food in which people in various countries indulge, not that I wish persons to test these meats, or to live upon them, unless they please. I do not deal in them, and have no interest in their collection or sale, but I merely desire to introduce them to notice that the reader may ascertain the opinions entertained of them, think over them, and know how much better an Englishman is fed than any one else in the world. So that, despite our habit of grumbling, there is at least this undeniable fact before us, that the middle classes are in very easy circumstances; and that English workmen earn good wages, or they could not consume the quantity of animal food they do at the present prices.

According to Vauban, Bossuet, and La Grange, the richest and most comfortable nation is that which eats the most meat. At the present prices of this article here, it certainly must be so, for a poor nation could not indulge in the luxury.

Beef and mutton, and mutton and beef, no matter what their price, John Bull will not dispense with; and although they are 40 or 50 per cent. dearer now than they were ten years ago, and although we import animals largely from abroad, and our cattle-breeders do their best to meet the demand, cattle and sheep will not increase and multiply fast enough to bring down the price for the consumer.

A writer in _Household Words_ thus alludes to our national weakness.--‘Next to the Habeas Corpus and the Freedom of the Press, there are few things that the English people have a greater respect for and a livelier faith in than beef. They bear, year after year, with the same interminable, unvarying series of woodcuts of fat oxen in the columns of the illustrated newspapers; they are never tired of crowding to the Smithfield Club cattle-show; and I am inclined to think that it is their honest reverence for beef that has induced them to support so long the obstruction and endangerment of the thoroughfares of the metropolis by oxen driven to slaughter. Beef is a great connecting link and bond of better feeling between the great classes of the commonwealth. Do not Dukes hob and nob with top-booted farmers over the respective merits of short-horns and Alderneys? Does not the noble Marquis of Argentfork give an ox to be roasted whole on the village green when his son, the noble Viscount Silvercoral, comes of age? Beef makes boys into men. Beef nerves our navvies. The bowmen who won Cressy and Agincourt were beef-fed, and had there been more and better beef in the Crimea a year or two ago, our soldiers would have borne up better under the horrors of a Chersonesean winter. We feast on beef at the great Christian festival. A baron of beef at the same time is enthroned in St. George’s Hall, in Windsor’s ancient castle, and is borne in by lacqueys in scarlet and gold. Charles the Second knighted a loin of beef, and I have a shrewd suspicion that the famous Sir Bevis of Southampton was but an ardent admirer and doughty knight-errant in the cause of beef. And who does not know the tradition that even as the first words of the new-born Gargantua were ‘A boyre, à boyre,’ signifying that he desired a draught of Burgundy wine--so the first intelligible sounds that the infant Guy of Warwick ever spake were ‘Beef, beef!’ When the weary pilgrim reaches the beloved shores of England after a long absence, what first does he remark--after the incivility of the custom-house officers--but the great tankard of stout and the noble round of cold beef in the coffee-room of the hotel? He does not cry ‘Io Bacche! Evöe Bacche!’ because beef is not Bacchus. He does not fall down and kiss his native soil, because the hotel carpet is somewhat dusty, and the action would be, besides, egregious; but he looks at the beef, and his eyes filling with tears, a corresponding humidity takes place in his mouth; he kisses the beef; he is so fond of it that he could eat it all up; and he does ordinarily devour so much of it to his breakfast, that the thoughtful waiter gazes at him, and murmurs to his napkin, ‘This man is either a cannibal or a pilgrim grey who has not seen Albion for many years.’

It has been well observed, that there are few things in which the public have so great and general an interest, and concerning which they possess so little real knowledge, as of the provision trade and the wholesale traffic in animals live and dead, in their own and other countries. When, where, and how raised, and what processes meat passes through before it reaches their tables, are questions which, though highly important, are very seldom asked by the consumers--all that they usually trouble themselves with is, the current retail price, and the nature of the supply.

Few of us think as we sit down to our rump steak or pork chop, our sirloin or leg of mutton, of the awful havoc of quadrupeds necessary to furnish the daily meals of the millions. I will not weary the reader with statistics, although I have a long array of figures before me, bearing upon the slaughter of animals for food in different countries. It will be sufficient to generalize.

If the hecatomb of animals we have each consumed in the years we have lived, were marshalled in array before us, we should stand aghast at the possibility of our ever having devoured the quantity of animal food, and sacrificed for our daily meals the goodly number of well-fed quadrupeds of the ovine, bovine, and porcine races, or the fish, fowl, reptiles, and insects, which would be thus re-embodied.

The average quantity of animal food of all kinds consumed in France is stated on good authority--that of M. Payen--to be as low as one-sixth of a pound per diem to each person. Even in the cities and large towns, especially Paris, the amount of food upon which a Frenchman lives is astonishingly small. An Englishman or an American would starve upon such fare.

In proportion to its population, New York consumes as nearly as possible the same quantity of meat as London, about half-a-pound a day to each person; more beef, however, is consumed there and less mutton, and the latter fact may be accounted for by the comparative inferiority of quality.

It is curious to notice the various parts of animals that are eaten, or selected as choice morsels by different persons or classes. Sheep’s head, pig’s head, calf’s head and brains, ox head, the heads of ducks and geese, ox tongue, reindeer tongue, walrus tongue, crane’s tongue, &c. Fowls and ducks’ tongues are esteemed an exquisite Chinese dainty. The pettitoes of the sucking pig, or the mature feet and hocks of the elder hog, sheep’s trotters, calf’s feet, cow heel, bear’s paws, elephant’s feet, the feet of ducks and geese, and their giblets; ox tail, pig’s tail, sheep’s tail, kangaroo tail, beaver’s tail. And the entrails again are not despised, whether it be bullock’s heart or sheep’s heart, liver and lights, lamb’s fry or pig’s fry, tripe and chitterlings, goose liver and gizzard, the cleaned gut for our sausages, the fish maws, cod liver, and so on. The moufle, or loose covering of the nose, of the great moose deer or elk is considered by New Brunswick epicures a great dainty. The hump of the buffalo, the trunk of the elephant, are other delicacies. Deer’s sinews, and the muscle of the ox, the buffalo, and the wild hog, jerked or dried in the sun, and then termed, ‘dendeng,’ is a delicacy of the Chinese, imported at a high price from Siam and the eastern islands.

The eggs of different animals, again, form choice articles of food, whether they be those of the ordinary domestic poultry, the eggs of sea fowl, of the plover, and of game birds, of the ostrich and emu, of the tortoises and other reptilia, as alligator’s eggs, snake’s eggs, and those of the iguana, or the eggs of insects, and of fishes.

Amid all the multiplicity of special dainties, appreciated by different peoples, the prejudices of the stomach are, perhaps, more unconquerable than any other that tyrannize over the human mind. It is almost impossible to get people to adventure, or experimentalize upon a _new_ kind of food. There is a great want of courage and enterprise on this head among Englishmen. John Bull is resolved to eat, drink, and do only what he has been accustomed to. He wants none of your foreign kickshaws, frogs, and snails in fricassées, or sea slug, or bird’s nest soup, or horse flesh steak. It is true he has gradually adventured upon, and now appreciates, a few select foreign delicacies. Real lively turtle and caviar, reindeer tongue, an imitation Indian curry, and such like, have become luxuries; and, probably, under the mysterious manipulations of Gunter, Soyer, and other distinguished _chefs de cuisine_, some other foreign delicacies have found, or may yet find, their way upon English tables.

They will probably displace ere long the four standard Scotch dishes, a haggis, a sheep’s head, tripe, and black puddings, or the common dishes of the Devonshire peasant and Cornish fisherman, parsley and squab pies, in which fish, apples, onions, and pork are incongruously blended.

Queen Elizabeth and her ladies breakfasted on meat, bread, and strong ale. Our modern ladies take tea or coffee, and thin slices of toast or bread. The Esquimaux drink train oil, and the Cossacks koumis, an ardent spirit made from mares’ milk. The inhabitants of France and Germany eat much more largely than we do of vegetable diet; and drink, at all times of the day, their acid wines. In Devonshire and Herefordshire, cyder is the common beverage, and in the Highlands of Scotland, oatmeal porridge is, in a great measure, the food, and whiskey the drink of the inhabitants. The Irish peasant lives, or used to do, chiefly on potatoes, and most of the Hindoos of the maritime provinces on rice.

Yet all this variety, and much more, is digested, yields nutriment, and promotes growth; affording undeniable evidence that man is really omnivorous, that he can be supported by great varieties of food.

A recent writer speaking of human diet says, ‘it is a remarkable circumstance, that man alone is provided with a case of instruments adapted to the mastication of all substances,--teeth to cut, and pierce, and champ, and grind; a gastric solvent too, capable of contending with any thing and every thing, raw substances and cooked, ripe and rotten,--nothing comes amiss to him.’

If animals could speak, as Æsop and other fabulists make them seem to do, they would declare man to be the most voracious animal in existence. There is scarcely any living thing that flies in the air, swims in the sea, or moves on the land, that is not made to minister to his appetite in some region or other.

Other creatures are, generally, restricted to one sort of provender at most. They are carnivorous or graminivorous, piscivorous, or something ivorous; but man is the universal eater. He pounces with the tiger upon the kid, with the hawk upon the dove, with the cormorant upon the herring, and with the small bird upon the insect and grub. He goes halves with the bee in the honey cell, but turns upon his partner and cheats him out of his share of the produce. He grubs up the root with the sow, devours the fruit with the earwig, and demolishes the leaves with the caterpillar; for all these several parts of different vegetables furnish him with food.

Life itself will not hinder his appetite, nor decay nauseate his palate; for he will as soon devour a lively young oyster as demolish the fungous produce of a humid field. This propensity is, indeed, easily abused. Viands of such incongruous nature and heterogeneous substance, are sometimes collected, as to make an outrageous amalgamation, so that an alderman at a city feast might make one shudder; but this is too curious an investigation, it is the abuse of abundance too, and we know that abuse is the origin of all evil. The fact should lead us to another point of appreciation of goodness and beneficence. The adaptation of external nature to man has often been insisted on; the adaptation of man to all circumstances, states, and conditions, is carrying out the idea. The inferior animals are tied down, even by the narrowness of their animal necessities, to a small range of existence; but man can seldom be placed in any circumstance in which his universal appetite cannot be appeased. From the naked savage snatching a berry from the thorn, to the well-clad, highly civilized denizen of the court, surrounded by every comfort, every luxury; from the tired traveller, who opens his wallet and produces his oaten cake beside the welling lymph which is to slake his thirst, to the pursy justice, ‘in fair round belly with capon lined,’ who spreads the damask napkin on his knees, tucks his toes under the table, and revels in calapash and calapee,--what an infinite diversity of circumstances!

Man, with all his natural and artificial necessities, all his social and domestic dependencies,--more dependent, indeed, upon his fellows than the fowls of the air, from the grand exuberance of nature, and his remarkable adaptation to it in the point alluded to, finds subsistence under circumstances in which other animals might starve.

Perhaps we might properly urge the advice of a recent writer.--‘Make use of every material possible for food, remembering that there are chemical affinities and properties by which nutriment may be extracted from almost every organic substance, the greatest art being in proper cooking. Make soup of every kind of flesh, fish, and leguminosæ.--Every thing adds to its strength and flavour.’

Man eats to satisfy his hunger, and to supply warmth to the body; but the lover of good things, who finds a pleasure in eating, may also be told that there is a beautiful structure of nerve work spread out on the tongue, which carries upwards to the brain messages from the nice things in the mouth.

Moderation in food is, however, one of the great essentials to health. Sydney Smith, in a letter to Lord Murray, tells him that, having ascertained the weight of food that he could live upon, so as to preserve health and strength, and what he had lived upon, he found that between ten and seventy years of age, he had eaten and drunk forty-four one-horse wagon loads of meat and drink more than would have preserved him in life and health, and that the value of this mass of nourishment was about £7,000.

Sir John Ross tells us that an Esquimaux will eat twenty pounds of flesh and oil daily. But the most marvellous account of gormandizing powers is that published by Captain Cochrane, who in his _Narrative of a Pedestrian Journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary_, says, that the Russian Admiral, Saritcheff, was told that one of the Yakuti consumed in twenty-four hours, ‘the hind quarter of a large ox, twenty pounds of fat, and a proportionate quantity of melted butter for his drink.’ The Admiral, to test the truth of the statement, gave him ‘a thick porridge of rice, boiled down with three pounds of butter, weighing together twenty-eight pounds; and although the glutton had already breakfasted, yet did he sit down to it with great eagerness, and consumed the whole without stirring from the spot; and, except that his stomach betrayed more than ordinary fulness, he showed no sign of inconvenience or injury!’ The traveller I have just quoted also states, that he has repeatedly seen a Yakut, or Tongouse, devour forty pounds of meat a day; and he adds, ‘I have seen three of these gluttons consume a reindeer at one meal.’

It has been well remarked by Dr. Dieffenbach, in the _Transactions of the Ethnological Society_, that the labours of modern chemistry have thrown a new and most interesting light on the food of the various races of men, or inhabitants of parts of the globe which are widely different from each other in their geographical and climatological relations. The substances which serve as food, or the quantity which is taken, appear to the superficial observer often of a most extraordinary nature, because they are apparently so heterogeneous from what we are accustomed to; so that travellers relating such facts, do not withhold their astonishment or reprobation.

But it has been demonstrated, that the general use of certain articles, for instance, tea and coffee, betel-nut, tobacco, and wine, depends upon the presence in those substances of elements which are often identical, and which are necessary to the maintenance of the animal economy, more or less, according to the presence or absence of other elements in the food, the different occupation, mode of living, and so on. These points have been well illustrated and explained in the _Chemistry of Common Life_, of the late Professor Johnston. The fact of the Esquimaux consuming large quantities of train oil and blubber ceases to be astonishing, when we reflect that these highly carbonized substances serve to furnish fuel for his increased respiration.

In one word, it is necessary in the present state of chemical and physiological science, to collect analyses of all the substances which are consumed by a particular race, either as food or drink, or by an habitual custom, as so called matters of luxury, or as medicine. The ethnologist has the great merit of working here hand in hand with chemists and physiologists, and fills up in this manner a most important chapter in the natural history of man; as it shows how instinct and necessity have led him to adopt different customs, and to make use of different articles of consumption in different climates.

Among the ordinary domestic animals, there is little of novelty in the food they supply to man. But I may notice in passing, before proceeding to an investigation of unusual or extraordinary articles of consumption, a few things that may not be generally known.

Jerked beef, or _tasajo_, as it is termed in Cuba, is imported to the extent of 200 to 350 thousand quintals a year into that island, for feeding the slaves on the plantations.

That imported from Buenos Ayres and Monte Video is preferred for consumption on the sugar estates, to that which is received from Rio Grande, Venezuela, Campeachy, and the United States, it being more substantial, coming in larger and thicker pieces, better cured and salted, and also of handsomer appearance. The class imported from Venezuela and Campeachy, comes in thin pieces called _rebenque_, which is not generally liked, and only bought in small parcels, for consumption in the city of Havana. The beef which is cured in the River Plate, from December to May, or in summer, is preferred in Cuba, by reason of its being more nutritive than that which is cured in the other or winter months; the colour is yellowish, and it keeps a longer time.

In South America, the jerked beef is called _charqui_, and when salted, and smoked or dried in the sun, _sesina_. The commerce is very large in this species of provision.

The mode of preparing it in Chili is as follows:--When the horned cattle are sufficiently fat, or rather at the killing season, which is about the months of February and March, from 500 to 1000, according to the size of the farm, are slaughtered. The whole of the fat is separated from the meat and melted, forming a kind of lard, called _grasa_, which is employed for domestic purposes. The tallow is also kept separate, and the meat is jerked. This process is performed by cutting the fleshy substance into slices of about a quarter-of-an-inch thick, leaving out all the bones. The natives are so dexterous at this work that they will cut the whole of a leg, or any other large part of a bullock, into one uniformly thin piece.

The meat thus cut is either dipped into a very strong solution of salt and water, or rubbed over with a small quantity of fine salt. Whichever mode is adopted, the whole of the jerked meat is put on the hide, and rolled up for ten or twelve hours, or until the following morning. It is then hung on lines or poles to dry in the sun, which being accomplished, it is made into bundles, lashed with thongs of fresh hide, forming a kind of network, and is ready for market. In this operation it loses about one-third of its original weight. The dried meat, or _charqui_, finds immediate sale at Lima, Arica, Guayaquil, Panama, and other places. About 6000 quintals of _charqui_, with a proportionate quantity of tallow and fat (_grasa_) are shipped from Talcahuana to Lima alone. Besides the large quantity consumed in Chili, it furnishes a great part of the food of the slaves in Brazil, the negroes in some of the West India Islands, and seamen, being the general substitute for salt beef and pork. The _grasa_ and tallow are also readily sold throughout South America, and are of more value than the meat.

The slaughtering season is as much a time of diversion for the inhabitants of that country as a sheep shearing is in England. The females too are all busied cutting up the fat, frying it for _grasa_, and selecting some of the finer meat for presents and home consumption. The tongue is the only part of the head that is eaten, the remainder being left to rot.[1] Dried meat enters largely into consumption in several other countries.

In the Cape Colony dried meat is called _biltonge_. In the East, especially in Siam, the dried sinews of animals are considered a great delicacy; and dried elephant’s flesh we shall find is stored up for food, under the name of _pastoormah_. Beef is preserved in Asia Minor with garlic and pepper, and dried in the sun for winter food. It is prepared in Wallachia and Moldavia, and largely shipped from Varna in the Black Sea. Besides providing all Anatolia, Aleppo, and Damascus, 6000 cwt. or more is yearly sent from Kaissariah to Constantinople. Hung beef from Germany is well known at our tables.

Portable and concentrated animal food is of great consequence to explorers and travellers, and therefore it may be well to allude here to the article _pemmican_, which is so much used by arctic travellers and the Hudson’s Bay Company’s traders. This is meat of any kind dried and pounded, and saturated with fat. There is as much nourishment in one pound of pemmican as in four pounds of ordinary meat. It may be eaten as it is, or partially cooked, and has a pleasant taste. Sometimes it is mixed with a sufficient quantity of Indian meal and water to cause it to adhere, and then fried or stewed.

The North American Indians dry their venison by exposing thin slices to the heat of the sun, on a stage, under which a small fire is kept, more for the purpose of driving away the flies than for promoting exsiccation; and then they pound it between two stones on a bison hide. In this process the pounded meat is contaminated by a greater or smaller admixture of hair and other impurities.

The fat, which is generally the suet of the bison, is added by the traders, who purchase it separately from the natives, and they complete the process by sewing up the pemmican in a bag of undressed hide, with the hairy side outwards. Each of these bags weighs 90 lbs., and obtains from the Canadian voyageurs the designation of ‘un taureau.’ A superior pemmican is produced by mixing finely powdered meat, sifted from impurities, with marrow fat, and the dried fruit of the Amilanchier.

Sir John Richardson having been employed by government to prepare pemmican on a large scale, at the Victualling Yard, Gosport, for the use of the different arctic expeditions, it will be interesting to describe the process he adopted, as given in his _Arctic Searching Expedition, or a Journal of a Boat Voyage, &c._--

‘The round or buttock of beef of the best quality having been cut into thin steaks, from which the fat and membraneous parts were pared away, was dried in a malt kiln, over an oak fire, until its moisture was entirely dissipated, and the fibre of the meat became friable. It was then ground in a malt mill, when it resembled finely grated meat. Being next mixed with nearly an equal weight of melted beef suet or lard, the preparation of plain pemmican was complete; but to render it more agreeable to the unaccustomed palate, a proportion of the best Zante currants was added to part of it, and part of it was sweetened with sugar. Both these kinds were much approved of in the sequel by the consumers, but more especially that to which the sugar had been added. After the ingredients were well incorporated by stirring, they were transferred to tin canisters, capable of containing 85 lbs. each; and having been firmly rammed down and allowed to contract further by cooling, the air was completely expelled and excluded by filling the canister to the brim with melted lard, through a small hole left in the end, which was then covered with a piece of tin and soldered up.

‘As the meat in drying loses more than three-fourths of its original weight, the quantity required was considerable, being 35,651 lbs. (reduced by drying to about 8000 lbs.); and the sudden abstraction of more than one thousand rounds of beef, from Leadenhall Market, occasioned speculation among the dealers, and a rise in the price of a penny per pound, with an equally sudden fall when the extra demand was found to be very temporary.’

We import about 13 or 14 tons of gelatine a year from France, besides what is made at home, and the greater part of what passes under this name is, I believe, used for food. The Americans, some years ago, tried to pass off upon us isinglass made from fish bones, but it would not go down.

Gelatine of all kinds has usually been considered wholesome and nourishing; and while few object to cow-heel or calf’s foot jelly, very many are possibly unaware of the sources of much of the gelatine vended in shapes so beautifully transparent, but which is made from bones and hide clippings, and parchment shavings. It is said that a pair of lady’s gloves have ere now made a ragout; and there is a hiatus in the parchment specifications at the Patent Office, caused by an unlucky boy, who changed them away for tarts, in order that they might be converted into jellies.

The dust of the ivory turner in working up elephants’ tusks forms an excellent material for jellies, and is commonly sold for this purpose, at about 6_d._ per lb.

M. Payen has recently been at pains to disprove the vulgar notion that bones make good soup. The celebrated _Gelatine Commission_, some years ago, declared, as the results of many experiments, that gelatine was not nutritious; and this result has been repeated in almost every text-book of physiology as conclusive, and is adopted by M. Payen, who tests it in another series of experiments. He boiled in one pot a portion of beef completely divested of bone, and in another the bone taken from the beef, with only a little salt. After five hours’ slow boiling, the liquid from the beef was perfectly limpid, and of a light amber colour, leaving that aroma and delicate taste known to belong to good beef tea. The liquid from the bones was whitish-gray, troubled and opaque, having a very slight odour, and a not agreeable taste. Nothing could be more opposed than the two soups thus produced. In another experiment, he repeated this process with the addition of some vegetables, and even some drops of caramel. The beef-soup here maintained its delicious aroma, agreeably combined with that of the vegetables; its limpidity was the same, but its colour of course stronger. The bone-soup had a dominant odour of vegetables, but its troubled and opaque aspect made it very unappetising. From these experiments M. Payen concludes that the prejudice in favour of the addition of bones to the soup is a prejudice, and that, in fact, bones are not at all nutritious.

Liebig also, in his _Letters on Chemistry_, pp. 424 and 425, says:--‘It has now been proved by the most convincing experiments, that gelatine, which by itself is tasteless, and when eaten excites nausea, possesses no nutritive value; that even when accompanied by the savoury constituents of flesh, it is not capable of supporting the vital process, and when added to the usual diet as a substitute for plastic matter, does not increase, but on the contrary diminishes the nutritive value of the food, which it renders insufficient in quantity and inferior in quality; and that its use is hurtful rather than beneficial, because it does not, like the non-nitrogenous substances provided by nature for respiration, disappear in the body without leaving a residue, but overloads with nitrogenous products, the presence of which disturbs and impedes the organic processes.’ And he further observes, that ‘the only difference between this and joiner’s glue is its greater price.’ Jellies no doubt were considered most nutritious during the Peninsular war, but we have learned many things since then, of which our poor soldiers ought to have the benefit.

Portable soup is prepared in a very simple manner. The meat is boiled, and the scum taken off as it rises, until the soup possesses the requisite flavour. ‘It is then suffered to cool, in order that the fat may be separated. In the next place it is mixed with the whites of five or six eggs, and slightly boiled--this operation serves to clarify the liquid, by the removal of opaque particles, which unite with the white of egg, at the time it becomes solid by the heat, and are consequently removed along with it. The liquor is then to be strained through flannel, and evaporated on the water bath, to the consistence of a very thick paste, after which it is spread rather thin upon a smooth stone, then cut into cakes, and lastly dried in a stove, until it becomes brittle. These cakes may be kept four or five years, if defended from moisture. When intended to be used, nothing more is required to be done than to dissolve a sufficient quantity in boiling water.’[2]

For some years past there have been imported into the Continent rather large quantities of dried meat from the southern countries of America, where it is known under the name of _assayo_. It gives a soup nearly similar to that of fresh meat. Another sort of food which is prepared in Texas, the _meat-biscuit_, is generally used in the American navy; but, although greatly appreciated at the Great Exhibition of London, it has not yet entered into general use in Europe. It is made of boiled beef free from grease, the liquor of which is evaporated to the consistency of syrup, and this is mixed with wheaten flour in sufficient proportion to form a solid paste. This paste is then spread out by a rolling pin, is pierced with a number of little holes, is cut into the ordinary dimensions of sea biscuits, and then baked and properly dried. The biscuit is eaten dry, or may be broken, boiled in twenty or thirty times its weight in water, for from twenty-five to thirty minutes, and then seasoned with salt or other things.

The following is the process of manufacturing this biscuit:--

There are four wooden caldrons or tubs for boiling the meat and evaporating the liquid or broth--the two for boiling the meat, holding 2,300 gallons, will each boil 7,000 lbs. of meat in twelve to sixteen hours. The other two, for evaporating, will contain some 1,400 gallons each. All the tubs are heated or boiled by steam passing through long coiled iron pipes, supplied at pleasure, either from the escape steam from the engine, or direct from the boiler.

When the meat is so far boiled or macerated, that the liquid or broth contains the entire nutriment, the meaty, or solid portions are separated by a simple process of filtering, so that the broth goes into the evaporator pure and free from fibrous matter. It is then evaporated to a degree of consistency resembling the golden or Stewart’s sugar house syrup, its uniform density being determined by a liquid or syrup gauge. Two pounds of this syrup or extract contains the nutriment of some eleven pounds of meat (including its usual proportion of bone) as first put into the caldron. This is then mixed with the best and finest flour, kneaded and made into biscuit by means of machines. The biscuit is baked upon pans in an oven so constructed as to produce an uniform firmness. The proportion is as two pounds of extract are to three pounds of flour, but by baking, the five pounds of dough is reduced to four pounds of biscuit, and this will make what the inventor claims--the nutriment of over five pounds of meat in one pound of bread, which contains, besides, over ten ounces of flour.

The biscuit resembles in appearance a light coloured sugar-cake. It is packed in air-tight casks or tin canisters of different sizes, part of the biscuit being pulverized by grinding in a mill for the purpose, and then packed with the whole biscuit.

In discussing the extension of our resources of animal food, it is strange to notice that while we eat the blood of pigs and fowls, we throw aside as waste the blood of oxen, sheep, goats, calves, &c. Now blood contains all the principles out of which the tissues are formed, and must, one would therefore imagine, be eminently nutritious. Why prejudice has excluded these, while admitting the blood of pigs, is an anomaly which I cannot understand.