Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1859-05-26
nlisfellanp.
Uncommon Good Eating.

VuCVMmon UO0O EaClng.
Nothing is more variable than national diet
except it be national appetite. An Italian il
content with handful of bread and grapes,
but an Esquimaux will devour twenty pounds oil
flesh IN day; Hindoo picks up few spoon
fuls OF rice between sunrise and sunset; and q
Russian Tartar will cat, in the twenty-four
hours, forty pounds of meat. Nay, Tartar
mentioned by Captain Cochrane in his Travels,
consumed in that time, the hind quarters of a
large OK, twenty pounds of fat, and proper
tionate quantity of melted butter for drink and
three of the same tribe-the Yakuti-think
nothing of polishing of reindeer at a NEAL
In London and New York the average consump
tion Of meat is half pound to each person
daily: in Paris it is one-sixth of pound, with
lower fraction still for the villages and coun
try; yet the Irishman's bone and muscle are
elaborated from potatoes, not from flesh and
the brawny Highlander builds up his huge mem
bers from porridge, kali and whiskey. So that
meat is not absolutely essential even to North
men when, by little unconscious chemistry
they supply efficient substitutes, failing off by
units the various properties concentrated in
honest beef and mutton.
Food is very unequally distributed among us.
There is the poor man, who can never give his
children hearty meal; and there is the rich
man, gerged with unimaginable luxuries on
the other Dives, who, between the ages of ten
aud twenty, consumes forty wagon-loads Of su-
perAuous meat and drink, at the cost of seven
thousand pounds, according to the calculations
of Sidney Smith.
But even more varied than amount is kind
There is no limit to the odd dainties affected by
different people. The New Brunswckers find
q special charm In the mouae, or loose nose of
the moose deer. Sharks fms and fsh-maws,
unmatched ducks and chickens, sea slugs and
birds nests, are all priced by the omnivorous
Chinese. The Esquimaux revels in the foreign
luxury of pursur's candle; and the Abyssinian
intoxicates himself with raw meat and warm
blood which are as Intoxicating in their way
as ardent spirits. Paris has lately gone mad
about horse-aesh; !; and in tho Exhibition Of
eighteen hundred and ifty-one, a Monsieur
Broecheri showed and sold delicious cakes, pat
ties, and bon-bons of bullocks' blood rivaling
the famed marrons glaces, or baptismal dlagees,
of the confsaries Of the Boulevards. Thisseems
to us almost the triumph of the art.
Meat biscuits, made in Texas for the use OF
the American navy, were also exhibited. They
are like light-colored sugar-cakes in appearance.
One pound of meat biscuit contains rather
more nutrment than five pounds of ordinary
meat. Portable soup is another matter of Gu
linary condensation, wherein nutritive power is
out Of all proportion to bulk; and pemmican,
80 we'll known to Arctic voyagers, is again a
condensation of solid meat finely ground; then
mixed with sugar, fat, and currants. The 81
amesc dry elephants flesh, as Germany hangs
her beef and pork: Cuba feeds her slaves on
dried meat imported in enormous quantities
from Buenos A. yres and the United States; and,
all through America, the trade in this article is
brisk and lucrative, extending even to Europe,
which imports and consumes goodly quantity
to her share.
The extreme north presents, perhaps, the
oldest specimens of luxdres in food. Blubber
the unrumlnated food of reindeer serving as on
accompanying salad; whales skin. cut into
cubes, black as ebony, and tasting like cocoa
nut whales gum, with the bone adhering, not
unlike cream cheese in flavor, and called Tusk
sugar-these were some of the chief dishes at Q
Tuski banquet while at feast given by some
respectable Greenlanders, were half-raw and pu
trld whales tail, preserved crowberries mixec
with reindeer's chyle, and preserved crowberrie'
mixed with train.oil. Walrus is good eating
1t is like coarse beef, and walrus liver raw, is q
dish on which to grow poetical. Frozen seal ii
excellent as q standby in travelling and putrit
seal, which has been buried under the grass oil
the Summer, is Winters special charm. Th'
reindcers NAV is made into dish called
nerukak, or the eatahle, and sent about, 81
presents of game or fruit might be with us
The entrails Of the rypeu, mixed with fresl
train-oil and berries, make another favorit
dish and the Greenlandsr's winter preserve
are crake-berries, angelica. and eggs in ever
stage of incubatory progress, flung oil togethe
into sack of seal-skin, which is then filed II
with train-oil An Esquimaux will eat hi
sledge-when it is made of dried salmon sew
between two skins, the cross-pieces being reir
deer bones. This is not so marvellous as it seen
to be: 1T is not quite like feeding off a ON
horse chaise or clarence with G springs but
must be curious sight to sec party turn OF
and make meal of their carriage Reinde'
is the great delight of the Esquimaux-whe
he can get it and frozen reindeer, eaten raw
is better to his taste, than all the royal venisc
ever cooked for royal feasts.
Keeping for awhile among the cetacea,
find that the menatus, or sea-caf, gives viii
delicate flesh. like young pork a lean or fbro
part like very red beef, and fat which is III
hogs lard, with an exceptional portion lyi'
between the entrals and the skin. like amo'
nil in taste. and an excellent substitute for bt
ter. The tail is the tit-bit, and is covered wi
fat of frmer consistence and more dellca
favor than the body. But the menatus is t
human to be pleasant. :" 1t appears horrible
saws Mr.. Lund Simmons, in his Curiosltlcs
Food ." to chew and swallow the flesh OF
animal which holds lis young tit has never me
than one at litter) to its breast-whlch
formed exactly like that of woman--wl
paws resembling human hands" The tong
of the sea. lion (phoca jubata) is preferred
some to OK tongue, and the heart is SAID to
equal 10 rnast calls heart Tho walrus has