The curiosities of food

The sustentation of the body, and the repairing of its waste by an adequate supply of wholesome and nutritious daily food, is a subject of general importance, and necessarily oc...

A writer in _Household Words_ thus alludes to our national weakness.--‘Next to the Habeas Corpus and the Freedom of the Press, there are few things that the English people have...

We import about 13 or 14 tons of gelatine a year from France, besides what is made at home, and the greater part of what passes under this name is, I believe, used for food. The...

Dr. Kane, enumerating arctic delicacies, says, ‘Our journeys have taught us the wisdom of the Esquimaux appetite, and there are few among us who do not relish a slice of raw blu...

Eating raw meat, which among the Esquimaux is for the most part an absolute necessity, by the Abyssinians is considered a luxury, or in fact, as a kind of dissipation; for eatin...

The best part of the kangaroo is its tail. Talk of ox-tail soup, ye metropolitan gourmands! Commend us to the superb kangaroo-tail soup of Australia, made from the tail weighing...

Rabbits, which form so large an article of consumption with us, are not much esteemed as an article of food by the negroes in the West Indies, resembling, in their idea, the cat...

‘There is an old adage, ‘Give a dog a bad name, and his ruin is accomplished.’ Such may be true of the canine race; but the noble family of animals of which I am treating, furni...

Similar experiments have been subsequently tried, several times in Paris and in the provinces. They have been tried under three different conditions. First, the guests have know...

Sheep’s milk is a common beverage in Toorkistan, where the sheep are milked regularly three times a day. Goats are very scarce; cows not to be seen; but the sheep’s milk affords...

We have our delicate tit-bits in spitted larks, and as many as four thousand dozen have been known to be taken in the neighbourhood of Dunstable between September and February....

Of all the European birds, the quail (_Coturnix vulgaris_) is the most remarkable, on account of the vast numbers which congregate on the shores of the Mediterranean in the spri...

A correspondent at San Francisco informs me that an important trade is carried on in that city in the eggs of sea birds. He states, that the Farallones de los Frayles, a group o...

Chief Justice Temple, of Honduras, from whose lively and interesting letters to the Society of Arts I have already quoted, says--‘Another article which might be preserved and ex...

There are several varieties of this reptile in Australia, but that which is most common is from four to six feet in length, and from about a foot and a half to two feet across t...

‘After a brief interview, they politely invited me to partake of the supper they had already bespoken, informing me, at the same time, that they considered themselves peculiarly...

Very different is the manner adopted by the Spaniards in Central America in curing the roe of the callipeva. They do it in this wise:--First, they rub the roe well with salt and...

He who has hooked the fish holds tight--like grim Death on his victim; and if you watch his face you will see powerful indication of excitement, mental and muscular; his teeth a...

If a market should be found for this description of fish from North America, they could be furnished to an unlimited extent. My friend and correspondent, Mr. Perley, says, ‘In t...

A very intelligent naturalist and correspondent of mine, Mr. R. Hill, has furnished me with some interesting information respecting the West Indian fishes. One of the best labro...

The capelan (_Mallotus villosus_), the smallest species of the salmon family, possesses like the smelt the cucumber smell, but it differs from the smelt in never entering fresh-...

Another Californian paper, the _Sacramento Union_, remarks:--‘The fishing interest in the Sacramento at this point is increasing and expanding with astonishing rapidity, from ye...

The Goliath beetles are said to be roasted and eaten by the natives of South America and Western Africa, and they often make a _bonne bouche_ of splendid insects which would gra...

Brantz Mayer, in his work on Mexico (_Mexico as it was and as it is_, 1844), says,--‘On the lake of Texcuco I saw men occupied in collecting the eggs of flies from the surface o...

‘Within a few years,’ he adds, ‘one establishment has been set up on Portage Island, at the mouth of the River Miramachi, and another at the mouth of the Kouchibouguac River, fo...

Baltimore is another great seat of the American oyster trade. A single firm there has amassed, during the last ten years, a fortune of £500,000, by simply transporting oysters t...

Palolo is the native name of a species of sea-worm (_Palolo viridis_), which is found in some parts of Samoa, the Navigator’s Islands, in the South Pacific Ocean--and of which t...

‘The outfit for such a voyage is small, but the risk to be incurred is of some moment, as no insurance can be effected on vessels bound to the Feejee Group, and it requires no s...