Our viands

Then there were dormouse sausages, of which a quaint writer remarks : — ' Petronius delivers us an odd receipt for dressing 'em and serving 'em up with Poppies and Honey, which must be a very Soporiferous Dainty, and as good as Owl Pye to such as want a Nap after Dinner.' * After such an account of the dainties indulged in by the highly civilised masters of the world, we need not feel any disgust at the taste of the Chinese and Red Indians for dog's flesh, or of the poor Australian savages, who regale themselves upon the larvae of beetles found in decaying timber, that from the acacia tree being, says Lumholtz, of excellent flavour, in size the thickness of a finger, and glittering white, the taste resembling nuts. The natives roast these larvae, and also the beetles and wood-lice, but will sometimes eat the larvae alive, f It would seem that nothing in the way of food comes amiss to savages ; but they do not, as a rule, eat their meat raw. The iguana and its eggs are considered delicacies by the Australians, and so are snakes, which they will hunt fearlessly. Some tribes eat even the poisonous kinds, * ' The Art of Cookery,' by the author of ' A Journey to London.' + The aurelias of the silk- worm, as well as the white earth -grub and the larva of the sphynx-moth, are esteemed delicacies in China. 154 OUR VIANDS but others content themselves with the non-poisonous, of which the python, being often twenty feet long, makes a splendid meal. The mode of cooking this dainty we have given elsewhere. Lumholtz says of snakes that the meat is white, but dry and almost tasteless, but that the liver is excellent, resembling ptarmigan in flavour. The natives first eat the fat, which is considered the best part, then the heart, liver, and lungs, and finally the body is divided, after which the backbone is crushed between stones and eaten, every morsel being consumed, and every drop of grease licked up, which reminds one of many European and Asiatic folk-lore stories, in which serpents are cooked and eaten for the purpose of acquiring the language of animals, which in many cases is imparted accidentally to the cook, in the act of sucking a finger which has been burnt by touching the roasted snake, or dipped in the broth in which it has been boiled. Most savages revel in grease, which they use both externally and internally. We can understand this taste in cold regions, so that the fondness of the Eskimo for whale's blubber and train oil seems justified by the necessity for nitrogenous food ; but it seems strange that dwellers in hot climates should also relish oily compounds. Yet, as we have seen, the Australians revel in the fat of snakes, and imagine that when a man is ill, it is because some enemy has stolen his kidney fat ; and of the Bushmen in South Africa we are told : — * Occasionally we had an opportunity of presenting our Bushmen friends with an ample supply of grease, and then would follow a scene. The elder person- ages first helped themselves, smearing their bodies to their heart's content; the children were next treated, until all UNAPPRECIATED TRIFLES 155