Our viands

When we come to inquire how these old-world people cooked their venison, the answer is not easy : they probably broiled it over hot coals, or boiled it with hot stones after the method mentioned elsewhere ; but in the old patriarchal days they must have cooked with considerable skill, other- wise Rebecca would not have been able so readily to convert the kid into savoury meat so nearly resembling venison as to be eaten for it by the blind old patriarch, who seems to have been fond of good living, and evidently appreciated venison as much as modern epicures. Goat's flesh is so little appreciated among us at present, that it is not even named in modern English cookery books. Nevertheless, in the East and in southern Europe, even now, it is much eaten and esteemed, as it is also in South Africa where large flocks are kept for the hair, and for food. The many allusions to the goat in Scripture shows that it formed one of the staple articles of food among the Jews, as it did doubtless among the Greeks and Romans ; and the goat is one of the most familiar objects in ancient sculpture, as it is in modern paintings of Italian landscape. The Roman god Pan and his satyrs are depicted with goat's legs, and the modern herdsman of the Campagna, in his hairy goatskin breeches as he sits on a ruined tomb SUNDR Y ME A TS 93 piping to his herd, with the graceful little kids playing around him, is a good representative of the ancient sylvan deity and his attendants. In Italy at the present day, not only is the goat in great request for its flesh and its skin, but the milk is largely used, and a sort of cream cheese made of goat's milk is sold in the streets and highly appreciated, being, in truth, very sweet and palatable. A halfpenny spent on this ricotta, to be eaten with the sour Italian bread, makes an excellent meal for the frugal Roman, who cannot afford many table luxuries. We used often to wonder that the useful goat, so easily reared and fed, was not more commonly kept by cottagers in England ; but we have since found out that his constant activity, and the consequent difficulty of keeping him within due bounds, is a great drawback to his usefulness in a small and over-populated country like Great Britain. Among the mountains of Wales he still thrives, being, as is well known, an emblem of the country. The beautiful Angora goat, now naturalised at the Cape, is a native of Syria, and is not hardy enough for the cold, rough mountains of Europe, but its flesh, I am told, is more palatable, as its coat is more beautiful, than that of the common goat. A solitary goat is often kept in stables or among a herd of cows in England, being supposed to ward off disease ; and in South Africa one is often trained to act as leader to a flock of sheep — a part it enacts with great sagacity. CHAPTER VII GAME AND POULTRY THERE may perhaps have been vegetarians in all ages, but they are certainly rare among the lower races of the present day, and have probably always been so of necessity rather than by choice, for doubtless man is by nature a hunter, and has ever been engaged in trapping and slaying for food the wild animals by which he has been surrounded.