(6) horse radish, cayenne pepper, and soy sauce
(7) 4 glasses of vodka
(8) 7 bottles of beer
—from “Alarm-clock’s Calendar,” c. 1880
FRANCES CALDERÓN DE LA BARCA ON PULQUE
In Mexico, pulque is infamous. The sour, milky liquid—fermented but undistilled cactus juice—is low in alcohol. It is almost exclusively a drink of indigenous Mexicans and they manage to get seriously inebriated on it, though most people of European origin are more likely to get an upset stomach, which might have to do with the fact that the fermentation process is begun with spit.
—M.K.
At La Ventilla, however, we descended with a good appetite, and found several authorities waiting to give C—n a welcome. Here they gave us delicious chirimoyas, a natural custard, which we liked even upon a first trial, also granaditas, bananas, sapotes, etc. Here also I first tasted pulque; and on a first impression it appears to me, that as nectar was the drink in Olympus, we may fairly conjecture that Pluto cultivated the maguey in his dominions. The taste and smell combined took me so completely by surprise, that I am afraid my look of horror must have given mortal offence to the worthy alcalde who considers it the most delicious beverage in the world; and in fact, it is said, that when one gets over the first shock, it is very agreeable. The difficulty must consist in getting over it.
—from Life in Mexico, 1840
MALCOLM LOWRY ON MESCAL
Malcolm Lowry’s novel Under the Volcano is the story of a former British consul in Mexico and his wife’s attempt to rescue him and their marriage from a debilitating alcoholism.
—M.K.
“Mescal,” said the consul.
The main barroom of the Farolito was deserted. From a mirror behind the bar, that also reflected the door open to the square, his face silently glared at him, with stern, familiar foreboding.
Yet the place was not silent. It was filled by that ticking: the ticking of his watch, his heart, his conscience, a clock somewhere. There was a remote sound too, from far below, of rushing water, of subterranean collapse; and moreover he could still hear them, the bitter wounding accusations he had flung at his own misery, the voices as in argument, his own louder than the rest, mingling now with those other voices that seemed to be wailing from a distance distressfully: “Borracho, Borrachón, Borraaaacho!”
But one of these voices was like Yvonne’s, pleading. He still felt her look, their look in the Salón Ofélia, behind him. Deliberately he shut out all thought of Yvonne. He drank two swift mescals: the voices ceased.
Sucking a lemon he took stock of his surroundings. The mescal, while it assuaged, slowed his mind; each object demanded some moments to impinge upon him. In one corner of the room sat a white rabbit eating an ear of Indian corn. It nibbled at the purple and black stops with an air of detachment, as though playing a musical instrument. Behind the bar hung, by a clamped swivel, a beautiful Oaxaqueñan gourd of mescal de olla, from which his drink had been measured. Ranged on either side stood bottles of Tenampa, Berreteaga, Tequila Añejo, Anís doble de Mallorca, a violet decanter of Henry Mallet’s “delicioso licor,” a flask of peppermint cordial, a tall voluted bottle of Anís del Mono, on the label of which a devil brandished a pitchfork. On the wide counter before him were saucers of toothpicks, chiles, lemons, a tumblerful of straws, crossed long spoons in a glass tankard. At one end large bulbous jars of many-colored aguardiente were set, raw alcohol with different flavours, in which citrus fruit rinds floated. An advertisement tacked by the mirror for last night’s ball in Quauhnahuac caught his eye: Hotel Bella Vista Gran Baile a Beneficio de la Cruz Roja. Los Mejores Artistas del radio en acción. No falte Vd. A scorpion clung to the advertisement. The Consul noted all these things carefully. Drawing long signs of icy relief, he even counted the toothpicks. He was safe here; this was the place he loved—sanctuary, the paradise of his despair.
—from Under the Volcano, 1947
ROBERT ROSE-ROSETTE ON MARTINIQUE PUNCH
In 1987, I had the good fortune of having a Ti punch with Robert Rose-Rosette, Martinique’s then octogenarian scholar, folklorist, and guardian of local culture. In the French Caribbean, the drink known as Ti punch in Creole, or in French, Le punch, not to be confused with various fruit drinks in the region such as planter’s punch, is always made at the table. An empty glass, a spoon or stirrer known in Creole as a lélé, a wedge of lime, a carafe of cane syrup, and a bottle of “agricole” rum, local white rum distilled directly from cane juice and not from molasses, are served. As we mixed our drinks, an act Rose-Rosette considered an essential social function of his culture, my host waxed Martiniquaise in both French and Creole. “It is something voluptuous to drink a punch, a good punch,” he said. These are some of his writings on the subject.
—M.K.
The word “punch” is English. According to the dictionary, it came from the Hindustani or Sanskrit word “panch,” which means five—the number of ingredients in a drink said to be Indian: tea, lime, cinnamon, sugar, and alcohol. A French version of punch has three ingredients—a slice of lemon, sugar, and cognac or rum. No doubt this is the origin of Martinique punch.
Punch is mentioned in the second half of the seventeenth century. Père Labat, chronicler of the period, listing numerous common island drinks, mentioned ponche, a favorite English drink made up of two parts alcohol for one part water. He said it was the same ingredients as sangris except that egg yolks were used and not lemons.
The terms “guildive” and “tafia,” synonyms, appeared at the same period as did the word “rum.” Tafia is a Creole word that even Père Labat used. There is also the expression ratafia, from tafia, which means “to your health,” and one could guess the occasion [for toasts]. It comes from the two-word expression in Latin “rata fiat,” which meant that a bargain had been reached.
Here the expressions tafia and rum were interchangeable for a long time. Not so long ago a drinker was called a tafiateur.
Rum, according to le Petit Robert [dictionary], comes from English. It is an abbreviation of a word that has vanished from the language, the word “rumbullion,” a variation of rumbustion, meaning the condition of being muddled by alcohol, which led to the name for the alcohol that caused the condition.
Paul Baudot, the Guadeloupean lyric poet, captured the subtle beauty of punch in a memorable stanza:
Quand moin valé la bête,
Moin ka senti dans tête
Ion joli le tempête,
Ou sé dit ion jou fête.
Quand moin prend ion bon dose
Moin ka vouê tout en rose
Cé ion bien belle chose.
[Translation from the Creole: When I swallow the beast, I feel in my head, a nice little storm, on holidays. If I take a stiff shot, everything seems beautiful, it is the effect of the cause and a very nice thing.]
—from “Le Punch Martiniquais,” 1986,
translated from the French and Creole by Mark Kurlansky
MARTIAL ON DRINKING MATES
Last night, after five pints of wine,
I said, ’Procillus, come and dine
Tomorrow.’ You assumed I meant
What I said (a dangerous precedent)
And slyly jotted down a note
Of my drunk offer. Let me quote
A proverb from the Greek: ’I hate
An unforgetful drinking mate.’
—from Epigrams, first century A.D.,
translated from the Latin by James Michie
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Bugs
When I was living in Mexico City, I befriended an affable man in the bug trade. His tiny, dark, stand-up restaurant in the downtown area near the Zocalo served almost nothing but bugs. The grill in the front always had two kinds of hot fresh crunchy worms. He would invite me in for a plate or hand me a few as I walked by. Though both worms were found on the same cactus, they looked and tasted considerably different. The small reddish ones had a much stronger, almost a
gamey, flavor in comparison to the large white one. He also had crunchy grasshoppers, and ant eggs, and feathery little grass fleas.
Once I couldn’t finish my bugs and he offered me what Americans call “a doggie bag,” though that may be inappropriate for this, especially the fleas. But this bag contained mostly grilled worms and I took them to the British embassy, where I had friends, and convinced them that the worms were a local delicacy and they all had to try them. My plan was that after they ate a few I would say that it was just a joke and nobody really eats grilled worms. But they all munched on them with such poetic resolve, such earnest faces, something in British genes from all those generations trudging across battlefields, that I did not have the heart to do it.
—M.K.
FRANCES CALDERÓN DE LA BARCA ON MOSQUITO EGGS
Count C——a has promised to send me to-morrow a box of mosquitoes’ eggs, of which tortillas are made, which are considered a great delicacy. Considering mosquitoes as small winged cannibals, I was rather shocked at the idea, but they pretend that these which are from the Laguna, are a superior race of creatures, which do not sting. In fact the Spanish historians mention that the Indians used to eat bread made of the eggs which the fly called agayacatl laid on the rushes of the lakes, and which they (the Spaniards) found very palatable.
—from Life in Mexico, 1840
PETER LUND SIMMONDS ON EDIBLE SPIDERS
What will be said to spiders as food? But these form an article in the list of the Bushman’s dainties in South Africa, according to Sparrman; and the inhabitants of New Caledonia, Labillardiere tells us, seek for, and eat with avidity, large quantities of a spider nearly an inch long, which they roast over the fire. Even individuals amongst the more polished nations of Europe are recorded as having a similar taste; so that if you could rise above vulgar prejudices, you would in all probability find them a most delicate morsel. If you require precedents, Reaumur tells us of a young lady, who, when she walked in her grounds, never saw a spider that she did not take and crunch upon the spot. Another female, the celebrated Anna Maria Schurman, used to eat them like nuts, which she affirmed they much resembled in taste, excusing her propensity by saying that she was born under the sign Scorpio.
If you wish for the authority of the learned: Lalande, the celebrated French astronomer, was equally fond of these delicacies, according to Latreille. And if, not content with eating spiders seriatim, you should feel desirous of eating them by handfuls, you may shelter yourself under the authority of the German immortalized by Rosel, who used to spread them upon bread like butter, observing that he found them very useful.
These edible spiders, and such like, are all sufficiently disgusting, but we feel our nausea quite turned into horror when we read in Humboldt, that he has seen the Indian children drag out of the earth centipedes 18 inches long, and more than half an inch broad, and devour them.
—from The Curiosities of Food: Or the Dainties and Delicacies
of Different Nations Obtained from the Animal Kingdom, 1859
VINCENT M. HOLT ON EATING INSECTS
Why not eat insects? This is the kind of question that doesn’t seem to require an answer. But in 1885 the question was the title of a small book by Vincent M. Holt with an introduction by Laurence Mound, the keeper of entomology at the British Museum of Natural History. Holt began by pleading, “In entering upon this work, I am fully conscious of the difficulty of battling against a long-existing and deep-rooted public prejudice.”
—M.K.
FRENCH
MENU
Potage aux Limaces à la Chinoise.
Morue bouillie à l’Anglaise, Sauce aux Limaçons.
Larves de Guêpes frites au Rayon.
Phalènes à l’Hottentot.
Bœuf aux Chenilles.
Petites Carottes, Sauce blanche aux Rougets.
Crême de Groseilles aux Nemates.
Larves de Hanneton Grillées.
Cerfs Volants à la Gru Gru.
ENGLISH
MENU
Slug Soup.
Boiled Cod with Snail Sauce.
Wasp Grubs fried in the Comb.
Moths sautéd in Butter.
Braized Beef with Caterpillars.
New Carrots with Wireworm Sauce.
Gooseberry Cream with Sawflies.
Devilled Chafer Grubs.
Stag Beetle Larvæ on Toast.
“These ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.”
–LEV. xi. 22.
Why not eat insects? Why not, indeed! What are the objections that can be brought forward to insects as food? In the word “insects” I here include other creatures such as some small mollusks and crustaceans which, though not technically coming under the head of insects, still may be so called for the sake of brevity and convenience. “Ugh! I would not touch the loathsome things, much less eat one!” is the reply. But why on earth should these creatures be called loathsome, which, as a matter of fact, are not loathsome in any way, and, indeed, are in every way more fitted for human food than many of the so-called delicacies now highly prized? From chemical analysis it appears that the flesh of insects is composed of the same substances as are found in that of the higher animals. Again, if we look at the food they themselves live upon, which is one of the commonest criterions as to whether an animal is, or is not, fit for human food, we find that the great majority of insects live entirely upon vegetable matter in one form or another; and, in fact, all those I shall hereafter propose to my readers as food are strict vegetarians. Carnivorous animals, such as the dog, cat, fox, etc., are held unworthy of the questionable dignity of being edible by civilized man. In the same manner I shall not ask my readers to consider for a moment the propriety or advisability of tasting such unclean-feeding insects as the common fly, the carrion beetle, or Blaps mortisaga (the churchyard beetle). But how can any one who has ever gulped down the luscious oyster alive at three-and-six-pence per dozen, turn up his nose and shudder at the clean-feeding and less repulsive-looking snail? The lobster, a creature consumed in incredible quantities at all the highest tables in the land, is such a foul feeder that, for its sure capture, the experienced fisherman will bait his lobster-pot with putrid flesh or fish which is too far gone even to attract a crab. And yet, if at one of those tables there appeared a well-cooked dish of clean-feeding slugs, the hardiest of the guests would shrink from tasting it. Again, the eel is universally eaten, fried, stewed, or in pies, though it is the very scavenger of the water—there being no filth it will not swallow—like its equally relished fellow-scavenger the pig, the “unclean animal” of Scripture. There was once an equally strong objection to the pig, as there is at present against insects. What would the poor do without the bacon-pig now?
It is hard, very hard, to overcome the feelings that have been instilled into us from our youth upwards; but still I foresee the day when the slug will be as popular in England as its luscious namesake the Trepang, or sea-slug, is in China, and a dish of grasshoppers fried in butter as much relished by the English peasant as a similarly treated dish of locusts is by an Arab or Hottentot. There are many reasons why this is to be hoped for. Firstly, philosophy bids us neglect no wholesome source of food. Secondly, what a pleasant change from the labourer’s unvarying meal of bread, lard, and bacon, or bread and lard without bacon, or bread without lard or bacon, would be a good dish of fried cockchafers or grasshoppers. “How the poor live!” Badly, I know; but they neglect wholesome foods, from a foolish prejudice which it should be the task of their betters, by their example, to overcome. One of the constant questions of the day is, How can the farmer most successfully battle with the insect devourers of his crops? I suggest that these insect devourers should be collected by the poor as food. Why not? I do not mean to pretend that the poor could live upon insects; but I do say that they might thus pleasantly and wholesomely vary their present diet while, at the same time, conferri
ng a great benefit upon the agricultural world. Not only would their children then be rewarded by the farmers for hand-picking the destructive insects, but they would be doubly rewarded by partaking of toothsome and nourishing insect dishes at home.
After all, there is not such a very strong prejudice among the poorer classes against the swallowing of insects, as is shown by the survival in some districts of such old-fashioned medicines as wood-lice pills, and snails and slugs as a cure for consumption. I myself also knew a labourer, some years ago, in the west of England, who was regularly in the habit of picking up and eating any small white slugs which he happened to see, as tidbits, just as he would have picked wild strawberries.
It may require a strong effort of will to reason ourselves out of the stupid prejudices that have stood in our way for ages; but what is the good of the advanced state of the times if we cannot thus cast aside these prejudices, just as we have caused to vanish before the ever-advancing tide of knowledge the worn-out theories of spontaneous generation and barnacle geese?
Cheese-mites, the grubs of a small fly, are freely eaten by many persons, whom I have often heard say “they are only cheese.” There is certainly some ground for this assertion; as these grubs live entirely upon cheese; but what would one of these epicures say if I served up to him a cabbage boiled with its own grubs? Yet my argument that “they are only cabbage” would be fully as good as his. As a matter of fact, I see every reason why cabbages should be thus served up, surrounded with a delicately flavoured fringe of the caterpillars which feed upon them. As things are now, the chance caterpillar which, having escaped the careful eye of the scullery-maid, is boiled among the close folds of the cabbage, quite spoils the dinner appetite of the person who happens to receive it with his helping of vegetable, and its loathsome (?) form is carefully hidden at the side of his plate or sent straight out of the room, so that its unwonted presence may no further nauseate the diners. Yet probably these same diners have, at the commencement of the meal, hailed with inward satisfaction the presence on the board of dozens of much more loathsome-looking oysters, and have actually swallowed perhaps a dozen of them raw and living as quite an appetizer for their dinner! At a table of gourmands, he who by chance thus gets the well-boiled larva served up in its own natural, clean food should, instead of being pitied for having his dinner spoilt, be, on the contrary, almost an object of envy, as he who gets the liver-wing. I am quite aware of the horror with which this opinion will be read by many at first sight, but when it is carefully thought over I fail to see that any one capable of correct reasoning can deny its practical truth, even if he himself, though a frequent swallower of the raw oyster and a relisher of the scavenging lobster, continues to turn up his delicate nose at my suggestion to put it to a practical proof.
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