by Paul Theroux
Other travellers sing the praises of balut, duck embryo, eaten in the Philippines; Thai duck-tongue soup; and finanziera, cockscomb stew, of the Italian Piedmont. Lutefisk, mocked by W. H. Auden in his travels in Iceland, is beloved there, along with hakuri, the putrefied shark. In Sicily and Sardinia you might be offered “maggot cheese”, known as casu marzu, which you could mistake for squirmy rice. The dusky big-assed ant of the Colombian Amazon (hormigas culonas de Santander) is harvested by the indigenous Guane people and toasted and served as a “nutty snack”. Korea is full of culinary specialties, besides dog: dalk bal is deep-fried chicken anus, and at the raw bar saeng nakji are octopus tentacles, simply prepared: a small, live octopus is knifed apart, each tentacle chopped off and, still wiggling, eaten raw, with a special sauce. Bull’s testicles (criadillas) are standard fare in Spain, and lark pâté (pâté d’alouettes) is a popular spread in France. Caterpillar fungus (yartsa gunbu), an inch-long larva with a two-inch fungoid growth on its head, is a gustatory marvel, with medicinal properties, found in Bhutan, Tibet, and Nepal. Black-ant larvae (escamoles) are a part of the combination plate in parts of Mexico. And last, bear paw, which I was offered in Harbin, in Heilungjiang province. From the Ming Dynasty onward, cooked bear paw has been on the menu all over China. A widely advertised specialty, it is an “imperial tonic food” that supposedly enhances virility, like rhino horn and tiger’s penis, also eaten when poachers are successful.
None of these, and nothing I have eaten in travel, can compare in revolting looks or taste with a meal I attempted one day in Glasgow. I ordered a hamburger and was treated to the sight of a man forming a mass of raw meat and gristle into a billiard-size ball, which he tossed into a wire basket and lowered into a frothy container of boiling yellow fat. After he deep-fried this now smaller and black-crusted ball, he clamped it between two pieces of bread and handed it over. He smiled when I said I couldn’t eat it: “You Yanks.”
The Eating Habits of the Tartars
And they eat hounds, lions, leopards, mares and foals, asses, rats and mice and all manner of beasts, great and small, save only swine and beasts that were defended by the old law. And they eat all the beasts without and within, without casting away of anything, save only the filth. And they eat but little bread, but if it be in courts of great lords. And they have not in many places, neither pease ne beans ne none other pottages but the broth of the flesh. For little eat they anything but flesh and the broth. And when they have eaten, they wipe their hands upon their skirts; for they use no napery ne towels.
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville,
first English translation, early fifteenth century
Strange Fruit of the Asian Kingdom of Caldilhe
And there groweth a manner of fruit, as though it were gourds. And when they be ripe, men cut them a-two, and men find within a little beast, in flesh, in bone, and blood, as though it were a little lamb without wool. And men eat both the fruit and the beast. And that is a great marvel. Of that fruit I have eaten, although it were wonderful, but that I know well that God is marvellous in his works.
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
Tartar Travelling Cuisine
When going on a long expedition, [the Tartars] carry no baggage with them. They each carry two leather flasks to hold the milk they drink and a small pot for cooking meat … In case of need, they will ride a good ten days’ journey without provisions and without making a fire, living only on the blood of their horses; for every rider pierces a vein of his horse and drinks the blood. They also have their dried milk, which is solid like paste; and this is how they dry it. First they bring the milk to the boil. At the appropriate moment they skim off the cream that floats on the surface and put it into another vessel to be made into butter, because so long as it remained the milk could not be dried. Then they stand the milk in the sun and leave it to dry. When they are going on an expedition, they take about ten pounds of this milk; and every morning they take out about half a pound of it and put it in a small leather flask, shaped like a gourd, with as much water as they please. Then, while they ride, the milk in the flask dissolves into a fluid, which they drink. And this is their breakfast.
— The Travels of Marco Polo, translated by Ronald Latham (1958)
A Morning Skalk in the Hebrides
Their fowls are not like those plumped for sale by the poulterers of London, but they are as good as other places commonly afford, except that the geese, by feeding in the sea, have universally a fishy rankness.
Their geese seem to be of a middle race, between the wild and domestick kinds. They are so tame as to own a home, and so wild as sometimes to fly away.
Their native bread is made of oats, or barley. Of oatmeal they spread very thin cakes, coarse and hard, to which unaccustomed palates are not easily reconciled. The barley cakes are thicker and softer; I began to eat them without unwillingness; the blackness of their colour raises some dislike, but the taste is not disagreeable. In most houses there is wheat flower, with which we were sure to be treated, if we staid long enough to have it kneaded and baked. As neither yeast nor leaven are used among them, their bread of every kind is unfermented. They make only cakes, and never mould a loaf.
A man of the Hebrides, for of the women’s diet I can give no account, as soon as he appears in the morning, swallows a glass of whisky; yet they are not a drunken race, at least I never was present at much intemperance; but no man is so abstemious as to refuse the morning dram, which they call a skalk.
The word whisky signifies water, and is applied by way of eminence to “strong water”, or distilled liquor. The spirit drunk in the North is drawn from barley. I never tasted it, except once for experiment at the inn in Inverary, when I thought it preferable to any English malt brandy. It was strong, but not pungent, and was free from the empyreumatick [burnt] taste or smell. What was the process I had no opportunity of inquiring, nor do I wish to improve the art of making poison pleasant.
Not long after the dram, may be expected the breakfast, a meal in which the Scots, whether of the Lowlands or mountains, must be confessed to excel us. The tea and coffee are accompanied not only with butter, but with honey, conserves, and marmalades. If an epicure could remove by a wish, in quest of sensual gratifications, wherever he had supped he would breakfast in Scotland.
In the islands however, they do what I found it not very easy to endure. They pollute the tea-table by plates piled with large slices of cheshire cheese, which mingles its less grateful odours with the fragrance of the tea.
— Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)
The Raw Meat of the Druze
The Druze custom of eating raw meat fascinated [Lady Hester Stanhope, in 1812]. She recounted later, “I purchased of a Druze an immense sheep, the tail weighing eleven pounds, and desired it to be taken to a village, where I ordered the people assembled to eat. When I arrived, the sheep was alive; the moment it was killed it was skinned, and brought in raw upon a sort of dish made of matting, and in less than half an hour it was all devoured. The women ate of it as well as the men: the pieces of raw fat they swallowed were really frightful.”
— James C. Simmons, Passionate Pilgrims: English Travelers to the World of the Desert Arabs (1987)
Garlic, Food of the Fellah
Those skilled in simples [medicinal plants], Eastern as well as Western, praise garlic highly, declaring that it “strengthens the body, prepares the constitution for fatigue, brightens the sight, and, by increasing the digestive power, obviates the ill-effects arising from sudden change of air and water”. The traveller inserts it into his dietary in some pleasant form, as “Provence butter”, because he observes that, wherever fever and ague abound, the people ignorant of cause but observant of effect, make it a common article of food. The old Egyptians highly esteemed this vegetable, which, with onions and leeks, enters into the list of art
icles so much regretted by the Hebrews … In Arabia, however, the stranger must use this vegetable sparingly. The city people despise it as the food of a Fellah — a boor. The Wahhabis have a prejudice against onions, leeks and garlic, because the Prophet disliked their strong smell.
— Sir Richard Burton, Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah (1855–56)
A Slave in Gabon for His Evening Meal
Then [Remandji, king of the Apingi] said, “Be glad, oh spirit! And eat of the things we give thee.”
Whereupon, to my astonishment, a slave was handed over to me bound, and Remandji said, “Kill him for your evening meal; he is tender and fat, and you must be hungry.” It took me a moment to recover from my astonishment. Then I shook my head, spat violently on the ground, and made Minsho tell them that I abhorred the people who ate human flesh, and that I and my people never did so.
To which Remandji replied, “We always heard that you white people eat men. Why do you buy our people [as slaves]? Why do you come from nobody knows where, and carry off our men, and women, and children? Do you not fatten them in your far country and eat them? Therefore I give you this slave, that you might kill him and make your heart glad.”
It was a difficult matter to explain to the king that he was much mistaken.
— Paul Du Chaillu, Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa (1861)
“Many Eat the Hedgehog”
SCOLDED BY BEDOUINS at the Teyma oasis for eating “swine’s flesh”, C. M. Doughty lost his temper, and raged:
If God have commanded you anything, keep it; I see you eat crows and kites, and the lesser carrion eagle. Some of you eat owls, some eat serpents. The great lizard you all eat, and locusts, and the spring-rat; Many eat the hedgehog; in certain (Hejaz) villages they eat rats, you cannot deny it! You eat the wolf, too, and the fox and the foul hyena. In a word, there is nothing so vile that some of you will not eat it.
—Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888)
Cats, Camels, Foxes, Owls, and Others
Andalusians do not eat cats and dogs even when they are very hungry, but in Estremadura they’re regarded as delicacies. A woman from Alcantara who is fond of cats and would never kill one herself, tells me that she has eaten cat stew and that it is tastier than either rabbit or hare. The Estremadurans also eat martens and weasels and foxes, and declare, though I do not believe it, that a fried leg of fox is the best thing imaginable. But then they are a race of cattlemen and hunters, ancestors of the Argentine gauchos, and put in a pot whatever the gun brings down. The only animal they bar is the wolf. Gypsies eat frogs, snakes and lizards as well as farmyard animals that have died a natural death, while there is a whole village near Jerez which till a few years ago spent its night hunting the camels that ran wild in the marshes at the mouth of the Guadalquivir. As for birds, they are all eaten in the south of Spain and the list includes eagles, owls and hawks. The only ones rejected are seagulls, crows and vultures, and the sacred swallow and stork.
— Gerald Brenan, South from Granada (1957)
Mr. Black, the Blood Drinker in Tangier
There was the somewhat sinister Mr. Black, whom I never met, but who, I am told, kept an outsize electric refrigerator in his sitting room, in which there was a collection of half-pint glass jars. Occasionally he would open the refrigerator door, inspect the labels on the bottles and select one. Then in front of his guests he would pour its contents into a glass and drink. A lady I know, who was present one day when he did this, innocently inquired if what he had in the glass were a combination of beet and tomato juice. “This is blood,” he said. “Will you have some? It’s delicious chilled, you know.” The lady, who had lived in Tangier for many years, was thus determined to show no astonishment at anything, replied, “I don’t think I will right now, thank you. But may I see the jar?” Mr. Black handed it to her. The label read Mohammed. “He’s a Riffian boy,” explained Mr. Black. “I see,” she said, “and the other jars?” “Each one is from a different boy,” her host explained. “I never take more than a half pint at a time from any one of them. That wouldn’t do. Too debilitating for them.”
— Paul Bowles, “Tangier”, Gentleman’s Quarterly (1963) (Note: Bowles based his 1985 short story “Hugh Harper” on this man’s tastes.)
Evelyn Waugh on Tasso in British Guiana
Tasso is prepared in this way. The killing of a beast [pig in this case] is an event of some importance in the immediate neighbourhood. Indians get news of it and appear mysteriously like gulls round a trawler when the catch is cleaned. A few choice morsels are cut away and cooked and eaten fresh. The Indians carry off the head and the entrails. The rest is sliced into thin slabs, rolled in salt and hung up to dry. A few days of sun and savannah wind reduce it to a black, leathery condition in which it will remain uncorrupt indefinitely. Even the normally omnivorous ants will not touch it. It is carried under the saddle above the blanket to keep it tender and protect the horse from galling. When the time comes to eat it, it is scrubbed fairly clean of dust and salt and boiled in water. It emerges softened but fibrous and tasteless.
I can conceive it might be possible for a newcomer to stomach a little farine with a rich and aromatic stew; or a little tasso with plenty of fresh vegetables and bread. The food of the savannah is farine and tasso and nothing else.
— Ninety-two Days (1934) (In A Handful of Dust, Waugh’s captive hero Tony is given “tasso at noon … farine and tasso and sometimes some fruit for supper.”)
For a Sharecropper in Alabama, Hardly a Crumb
“Sometimes it don’t seem possible that we’re living at all, especially when I wake up in the morning and see the children getting up and dressing and walking around in the kitchen where there’s hardly a crumb of food. They make a fire in the cook-stove and I scrape together a little corn meal, when there’s any to scrape, and I cook it with salt and water. Once in a while we have some molasses, or maybe just some sugar-water to eat with it. When noontime comes, they start another fire, and I cook some more cornbread. A lot of times lately I’ve just sat and wondered if there’s anything else in the world to eat. I know there must be other things in the world to eat, because the rich wouldn’t eat cornbread, and I wouldn’t if I could help it. Not just cornbread and nothing else. Once in a while we have some store-bought canned beans, just one or two cans among us, and that don’t go far when there’s nine hungry children besides me. The two oldest boys manage to earn a little money somehow, and they bring home all they make. Altogether, what money there is comes to two or three dollars a week. We eat on that, except for the twenty-five cents a week house rent I pay the landlord. We’ve been getting along somehow for three years since my husband died. Every time it rains hard all of us have to crawl under the house to keep from getting wet, because I don’t reckon there’s a landlord in the country who would patch a roof for only twenty-five cents a week rent.”
— quoted in Erskine Caldwell and Margaret Bourke-White, You Have Seen Their Faces (1937)
In Tibetan Cuisine, Meat Is a Rarity
The staple food in this region is tsampa. This is how they prepare it. You heat sand to a high temperature in an iron pan and then pour barley corns onto it. They burst with a slight pop, whereupon you put the corns and the sand in a fine meshed sieve through which the sand runs: after this you grind the corn very small. The resulting meal is stirred up into a paste with butter tea or milk or beer and then eaten. The Tibetans make a special cult of tsampa and have many ways of preparing it. We soon got accustomed to it, but never cared much for butter tea, which is usually made with rancid butter and is generally repugnant to Europeans. It is, however, universally drunk and appreciated by the Tibetans, who often drink as many as sixty cups in a day. The Tibetans of Kyirong, besides butter tea and tsampa, eat rice, buckwheat, maize, potatoes, turnips, onions, beans, and radishes. Meat is a rarity, for as Kyirong is a particula
rly holy place no animal is ever slaughtered there. Meat appeared on the table only when it had been brought in from another district or, more often, when bears or panthers left part of their prey uneaten.
— Heinrich Harrer, Seven Years in Tibet (1953)
Redmond O’Hanlon’s Jungle Tuck
TURTLE BRAIN
Chimo and Culimacare joined us from Chimo’s house for breakfast and Simon returned, silent, from his walk. We ate turtle (rich, chewy) and manioc (like sawdust). Simon, declining both, opened a tin of Spam and sat apart on a rock of his own. Galvis, intending to cheer up his new friend, went to sit beside him …
Galvis took a severed turtle head out of his mess tin, picked its brains out from the neck with a fork, ate them, and turned to Simon. He held the blackened head in his fingers in front of Simon’s face and moved the jaws open and shut.
