Our viands

We all know Lamb's amusing story of the origin of suck- ing pig, but few of us realise the vast importance of pork and bacon as human food. Pigs have been introduced into every country to which commerce has extended, and now exist in great numbers all over the South Sea Islands, which, when first discovered, had no quadrupeds fit for food ; the inhabitants consequently feasted upon human victims. The vast quantities of bacon and hams which come to us SUNDR Y ME A TS 89 yearly from America and Canada, show how important the pig has become commercially, but from the very earliest times the wild pig seems to have occupied a foremost place as an article of diet, for the bones of the wild boar are found in almost all kitchen-middens of pre-historic times, and the animal plays an important role in Scandinavian legends. All our early poets have drawn inspiration from the noble sport of stag hunting, and certainly in all the menus of ancient times, venison figured prominently; but who can now compound such a venison pasty as that upon which the bold Friar Tuck regaled the Black Knight in Sherwood Forest ? Nothing gave such offence to our ancestors as the turning of waste lands into deer forests by some of the early Norman kings for the sake of sport ; and the preservation of the deer in these forests, required constant watchfulness on the part of the keepers, for the forests were haunted by poachers, some of whom, like Robin Hood and his merry men, were not of the lower orders, but outlawed noblemen, for it seems to be pretty well established that Robin Hood was really the Earl of Huntingdon, who had been banished by Richard I. for misdemeanours. Everyone knows the story of the New Forest, in Hamp- shire, created by William the Conqueror, and the tragic death in it of his son William Rufus. But the New Forest, although the largest, was far from being the only deer forest in England; indeed, even as late as last century, there were no fewer than 68, besides 18 chases and 780 parks'. In all, or in most of these, fallow-deer were allowed to roam freely, and the tenants of forest lands were forbidden 90 OUR VIANDS to plough the land, and were obliged to preserve pasturage for the deer. The number of deer thus kept must have been enormous. In Cranbourne Chase alone we are told 12,000 were pastured, but the constant conflicts between the poachers and keepers, which often ended in loss of life, caused most of the forests to be disafforested, so that now the deer in England are reduced to a comparatively small number, and are mostly kept in gentlemen's parks, to the beauty of which they largely contribute. As a sport, deer-stalking is now quite unknown in England, although carried on in Scotland, where the wild mountains and forests still shelter some of the noble red-deer, which is much fiercer than the beautiful dappled fallow deer of our parks, in some of which a few red deer are also kept.