Part 24

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 of plants, and cloths arranged in long rows as places of resort for the insects. These eggs, called _agayacath_’ (Qy. _axayacat_), ‘formed a favourite food of the Indians long before the conquest: and when made into cakes, resembles the roe of a fish, having a similar taste and appearance. After the use of frogs in France, and birdsnests in China, I think these eggs may be considered a delicacy, and I found that they are not rejected from the tables of the fashionable inhabitants of the capital.’

The more recent observations of Messrs. Saussure, Sallé, Virlet D’Aoust, &c., have confirmed the facts already stated, at least, in the most essential particulars.

‘The insects which principally produce this animal farinha of Mexico, are two species of the genus _Corixa_ of Geoffroy, hemipterous insects of the family of water-bugs. One of the species has been described by M. Guerin Méneville as new, and has been named by him _Corixa fermorata_: the other, identified in 1831 by Thomas Say as one of those sold in the market at Mexico, bears the name of _Corixa mercenaria_. The eggs of these two species are attached in innumerable quantities to the triangular leaves of the carex forming the bundles which are deposited in the waters. They are of an oval form with a protuberance at one end and a pedicle at the other extremity, by means of which they are fixed to a small round disc, which the mother cements to the leaf. Among these eggs, which are grouped closely together, and sometimes fixed one over another, there are found others, which are larger, of a long and cylindrical form, and which are fixed to the same leaves. These belong to another larger insect, a species of _Notonecta_, which M. Guerin Méneville has named _Notonecta unifasciata_.’[32]

It appears from M. Virlet d’Aoust, that in October the lakes Chalco and Texcuco, which border on the city of Mexico, are haunted by millions of small flies, which, after dancing in the air, plunge down into the shallowest parts of the water, to the depth of several feet, and deposit their eggs at the bottom.

‘The eggs of these insects are called hautle (haoutle), by the Mexican Indians, who collect them in great numbers, and with whom they appear to be a favourite article of food.

‘They are prepared in various ways, but usually made into cakes, which are eaten with a sauce flavoured with chillies. To collect the eggs the Indians prepare bundles of rushes, which they place vertically in the lake at some distance from the shore. In about a fortnight, every rush in these bundles is completely covered with eggs. The bundles are then drawn out and dried in the sun upon a cloth for not more than an hour, when the eggs are easily detached. The bundles of rushes are then placed in the water again for another crop.’[33]

Mr. Ruschenberger, the surgeon to the American expedition to Siam, in describing a state feast given to the officers, states that the dinner was remarkable for the variety and exquisite flavour of the curries. Among them was one consisting of ants’ eggs, a costly and much esteemed luxury of Siam. They are not larger than grains of sand, and to a palate unaccustomed to them, are not particularly savory. They are almost tasteless. Besides being curried, they are brought to the table rolled in green leaves, mingled with shreds or very fine slices of fat pork. Here was seen an ever-to-be-remembered luxury of the East.

HYMENOPTERA.

It would hardly be suspected that bees serve for food in Ceylon and some other places,--an ungrateful return for their honey and wax.

The African Bushmen eat the caterpillars of the butterflies.

The Chinese, who waste nothing, after they have unwound the silk from the cocoons of the silk-worm, send the chrysalis to table. They also eat the larvæ of a hawk-moth, some of which tribe, Dr. Darwin tells us, are, in his opinion, very delicious. The natives of New Holland eat the caterpillars of a species of moth, and also a kind of butterfly, which they call _bugong_, which congregate in certain districts, at particular seasons, in countless myriads. On these occasions, the native blacks assemble from far and near to collect them; and after removing the wings and down, by stirring them on the ground, previously heated by a large fire, winnowing them, eat the bodies, or store them up for use, by pounding and smoking them. The bodies of these butterflies abound in an oil, with the taste of nuts; when first eaten, they produce violent vomitings and other debilitating effects; but these go off after a few days, and the natives then thrive and fatten exceedingly on this diet, for which they have to contend with a black crow, which is also attracted by the butterflies, and which they dispatch with their clubs, and use as food.

Two insects, a kind of butterfly, and a thick, white grub, found chiefly in dead timber, are much esteemed by the aborigines of Australia as articles of food. The former is eaten at certain seasons by whole tribes of natives in the northern districts. Their practice is to follow up the flight of the insects, and to light fires at night-fall beneath the trees in which they have roosted. The smoke brings the butterflies down, and their bodies are pounded together into a sort of fleshy loaf. Upon this delicacy the natives not only feed, but fatten. The white grub is swallowed whole in his living state, and is much sought for by sable epicures.

In India, and in South America, these grubs are also eaten as a dainty.

The trunk of the grass-tree, or black-boy (_Xanthorea arborea_), when beginning to decay, furnishes large quantities of marrow-like grubs, which are considered a delicacy by the aborigines in Western Australia. They have a fragrant, aromatic flavour, and form a favourite food among the natives, either raw or roasted. They call them _bardi_--and they are also found in the wattle tree, or mimosa. The presence of these grubs in a _xanthorea_ is thus ascertained: if the top of one of these trees is observed to be dead, and it contain any bardi, a few sharp kicks given to it with the foot will cause it to crack and shake, when it is pushed over and the grub extracted, by breaking the tree to pieces with a hammer. The bardi of the _xanthorea_ are small, and found together in great numbers; those of the wattle are cream coloured, as long and thick as a man’s finger, and are found singly. The excrement of the latter oozes from under the bark, of the appearance and consistence of clear gum. The galls formed on several species of sage by gall flies, in the Levant, are highly prized for their aromatic and acid flavour, especially when prepared with sugar. They constitute, in fact, a considerable article of commerce from Scio to Constantinople, where they are regularly sold in the market. They are known as sage apples, and in Greece are made into a kind of conserve, which is highly esteemed.

HEMIPTERA.

Coming to another order of insects, the cicada, or chirping flies, we find that these were eaten by the polished Greeks, and accounted very delicious. They were caught, strung, sold, and greedily devoured; and especially the females were relished on account of their white eggs. One species, a very long-lived one, which, if spared, lives to the age of 17 years, is still eaten by the Indians of America, who pluck off the wings and boil them. The aborigines of Australia eat them raw, after stripping off the wings.

The 17-year locusts, while in an underground grub state, are a favourite food of various species of animals. Immense numbers are destroyed by hogs before they emerge from the ground; they are also, when in their perfect state, eagerly devoured by chickens, squirrels, and many of the larger birds. The Indians likewise consider them a delicate food when fried; and in New Jersey they have been turned to a profitable account in making soap.

No insects are more numerous with us than caterpillars, and sad havoc they occasionally commit among our cabbages and cauliflowers. Now we generally make wry faces, when a stray one is served up with our greens, and the cook is severely taken to task; but these are reckoned among the chief delicacies of an African Bushman’s meal.

The Hottentots eat them boiled and raw, and soon get into good condition on this food. They bring large calabashes full of them to their habitations, and parch them in iron pots over a gentle fire, stirring them about as is done in roasting coffee. In that state, without sauce or other addition, they serve them up as delicious food, and eat them by handfuls, as we do sugar-plums.

One traveller tells us he has eaten them dressed in this way several times, and thought them delicate, nourishing, and wholesome, being sweeter than the grub of the weevil of the palm, and resembling in taste sugared cream or sweet almond paste.

ARACHNIDA.

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.[34]

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.

CRUSTACEA.

The flesh of all crustaceous animals, although in great request, is rather difficult of digestion; and much of it cannot be eaten with impunity. There are classes of persons who are as averse to use shell-fish for food, as a Mahommedan or Mussulman are to partake of pork. It is therefore curious to reflect how, and where, the thousands of tons of crustacea and shell-fish taken to Billingsgate and Hungerford markets are disposed of. Lobsters, cray-fish, prawns, shrimps, oysters, mussels, periwinkles, and whelks, are there every morning in great abundance, and the high retail prices they fetch, show that this description of food must be well relished by the Londoners.

The land crabs of the West Indies are an esteemed delicacy, and the ravenous pigs feed on them with equal avidity to the great danger of their health.

I need not here advert to the migratory habits of the crabs, to their uniting at certain periods in vast numbers, and moving in the most direct course to the sea, marching in squadrons and lines, and halting twice a-day for feeding and repose. These movements may often be seen in Jamaica, and other West Indian islands, where millions on millions string themselves along the coast on progresses from the hills to the sea, and from the sea to the hills.

The reader of Bishop Heber’s _Indian Journal_ will remember his account of the land crabs at Poonah. ‘All the grass land generally through the Deckan swarms with a small land crab, which burrows in the ground, and runs with considerable swiftness, even when encumbered with a bundle of food almost as big as itself. This food is grass or the green stalks of rice; and it is amusing to see them sitting as it were upright, to cut their hay with their sharp pincers, then waddling off with the sheaf to their holes as quietly as their side-long pace will carry them.’

This is not the same land crab of which we are speaking, but it is a graphic picture of the _Gecarcina ruricola_, in its habit of feeding.

They cut up roots and leaves, and feed on the fallen fruit of trees; but we have little more than conjecture for the cause of their occasional deleterious qualities. Impressed with the notion that the crabs owe their hurtful qualities to the fruit of the manchineel tree, Sloane imagined that he had explained the fatal accidents which have occurred to some persons after eating them, from neglect, or inattentiveness to precaution in cleaning their interior and removing the half digested particles of the fruit. It has been ascertained that they feed on such dangerous vegetables of the morass as the _Anona palustris_, a fruit exceedingly narcotic. It is well enough known that the morass crab is always to be suspected. The land crabs, however, collect leaves less for food than to envelop themselves in, when they moult. After concealment for a time within their burrows, they come forth in those thin teguments forming a red tense pellicle, similar to wet parchment, and are more delicate in that condition, and more prized for the table. The white crabs are the most bulky of the tribe, and are the least esteemed, and the most mistrusted.

Land-crabs, says a Jamaica paper, of March last, are to be seen on the highways between this, Montego Bay, and Gum Island, just like bands of soldiers, marching to a battle-point of concentration. This bids fair to supply the epicure, at an easy rate, with this class of crustacea. It is one of the most remarkable, for it is composed of animals breathing by means of branchiæ or gills, and yet essentially terrestrial; so much so, indeed, that they would perish from asphyxia if submerged for any length of time.

I select Browne’s account of the habits of the black or mountain crab, because he resided many years in Jamaica, and seems to have lost no opportunity of making personal observations; and his remarks tally with my own experience, from three years’ residence in Jamaica.

‘These creatures are very numerous in some parts of Jamaica, as well as in the neighbouring islands, and on the coast of the main continent; they are generally of a dark purple colour, but this often varies, and you frequently find them spotted, or entirely of another hue. They live chiefly on dry land, and at a considerable distance from the sea, which, however, they visit once a year to wash off their spawn, and afterwards return to the woods and higher lands, where they continue for the remaining part of the season; nor do the young ones ever fail to follow them, as soon as they are able to crawl. The old crabs generally regain their habitations in the mountains, which are seldom within less than a mile, and not often above three from the shore, by the latter end of June, and then provide themselves with convenient burrows, in which they pass the greatest part of the day, going out only at night to feed. In December and January they begin to be in spawn, and are then very fat and delicate, but continue to grow richer until the month of May, which is the season for them to wash off their eggs. They begin to move down in February, and are very much abroad in March and April, which seems to be the time for the impregnation of their eggs, being then frequently found fixed together; but the males, about this time, begin to lose their flavour and richness of their juices. The eggs are discharged from the body through two small round holes situated at the sides, and about the middle of the under shell; these are only large enough to admit one at a time, and as they pass they are entangled in the branched capillaments, with which the under side of the apron is copiously supplied, to which they stick by the means of their proper gluten, until the creatures reach the surf, where they wash them all off, and then they begin to return back again to the mountains. It is remarkable that the bag or stomach of this creature changes its juices with the state of the body; and while poor is full of a black, bitter, disagreeable fluid, which diminishes as it fattens, and at length acquires a delicate, rich flavour. About the month of July or August, the crabs fatten again and prepare for moulting, filling up their burrows with dry grass, leaves, and abundance of other materials: when the proper period comes, each retires to his hole, shuts up the passage, and remains quite inactive until he gets rid of his old shell, and is fully provided with a new one. How long they continue in this state is uncertain, but the shell is observed to burst, both at the back and sides, to give a passage to the body, and it extracts its limbs from all the other parts gradually afterwards. At this time, the fish is in the richest state, and covered only with a tender membraneous skin, variegated with a multitude of reddish veins; but this hardens gradually after, and becomes soon a perfect shell like the former; it is, however, remarkable, that during this change, there are some stony concretions always formed in the bag, which waste and dissolve gradually, as the creature forms and perfects its new crust. A wonderful mechanism! This crab runs very fast, and always endeavours to get into some hole or crevice on the approach of danger; nor does it wholly depend on its art and swiftness, for while it retreats it keeps both claws expanded, ready to catch the offender if he should come within its reach; and if it succeeds on these occasions, it commonly throws off the claw, which continues to squeeze with incredible force for near a minute after; while he, regardless of the loss, endeavours to make his escape, and to gain a more secure or a more lonely covert, contented to renew his limb with his coat at the ensuing change; nor would it grudge to lose many of the others to preserve the trunk entire, though each comes off with more labour and reluctance, as their numbers lessen.’

There are several varieties of land crabs, such as the large white, the mulatto, the black, and the red. The black and red crabs are most excellent eating: when in season, the females are full of a rich glutinous substance, called the eggs, which is perfectly delicious. Epicurean planters, in some of the West Indian Islands, have crab pens, (after the manner of fowl coops,) for fattening these luxuries. The best manner of dressing them is to pick out all the flesh from the shell, making it into a stew, with plenty of cayenne pepper, dishing it up in the shell; in this way they are little inferior to turtle. They are usually simply boiled, or roasted in the embers, by which they are deprived of their luscious flavour, and become not only insipid in taste but disgusting to look at.

In Dominica, they form an ingredient in the well-known ‘pepper-pot.’ The black crabs are also picked from their shell, stewed with Indian kale and pods of chilhies, and eaten with a pudding made of maize flour or rice; this dish is greatly esteemed by most of the inhabitants.

In the islands and cays of the Bahamas group, land crabs literally swarm, and afford food for the inhabitants the greatest part of the year: even the hogs are fed upon them. It is the grey or white kind of crab, common to Cuba and the Bahamas. In the autumn they are very fat, and equal in flavour to the black species of Jamaica. They are found in myriads in all parts, and thought a great delicacy; but a stranger tires of them in a few weeks.

The black crab is very fat and delicious; but the white and the mulatto crabs are sometimes dangerous, from feeding upon poisonous leaves and berries. To prevent any evil consequences, the flesh is washed with lime-juice and water.

Land crabs were probably plentiful in Italy, in the time of Virgil, for in his _Fourth Georgic_ he forbids the roasting of red crabs near an apiary, the smell of them being disagreeable to the bees.

There is a species of fresh-water crab, the mason (_Cancer cementarius_), met with in Chile, the flesh of which is very white, and represented to be preferable to that of any other species of fluvial or marine crab. It is about eight inches long, of a brown colour, striped with red. They are found in abundance in almost all the rivers and brooks, on whose shores they build themselves, with clay, a small cylindrical tenement which rises six inches above the surface of the ground, but admits the water, by means of a subterranean canal extending to the bed of the river. They are easily caught, by letting down into the water a basket, or osier-pot, with a piece of meat in it.

That well-known crustacean, or ‘shell-fish’ as it is popularly termed,--the lobster (_Astacus gammarus_), although it is no fish at all, is found in great plenty about most of the European and American shores, and greatly esteemed as a very rich and nourishing aliment. In this country lobsters are considered in season from November till the end of April. They are not allowed to be caught on the coasts of Scotland between the 1st of June and the 1st of September, under a penalty of £5. Lobsters must not be offered for sale in this country under eight inches in length. Like the crab, the lobster casts its shell annually. It begins to breed in the spring, and continues breeding during the greater part of the summer. Lobsters are occasionally caught on the shores and in the neighbourhood of rocks, which they frequent, by the hand; but they are usually trapped in baskets, or pots made of osier-twigs, which are baited with garbage, and thrown into the sea, the situation being marked by a buoy of cork.

Lobsters are very abundant about Scilly and the Land’s End, and near Montrose in Scotland. In the Orkney and Shetland Islands, the value of the lobsters caught in 1833 was £1,800, which gave employment to 216 boats, and about 500 men. They are sent principally to Leith. Those caught near Heligoland are esteemed the most delicate. The largest fishery for these crustaceans is on the coasts of Norway, from whence we import more than a million a year. Upwards of half-a-million are caught on the shores of Scotland and Ireland. Lobsters are found almost everywhere on the North American coasts, and in the Bay of Chaleur, in such extraordinary numbers, that they are used by thousands to manure the land.

Mr. Perley, in his _Report on the Sea and River Fisheries of New Brunswick_, states, ‘That at Shippagan and Caraquette, carts are sometimes driven down to the beaches at low water, and readily filled with lobsters left in the shallow pools by the recession of the tide. Every potato field near the places mentioned is strewn with lobster shells, each potato hill being furnished with two or three lobsters.