The bee., 1883-11-17
FOOD OF THE CELEsTIALS.
Pork and Rice Mt the Head or the Chinese
Bill OF Fare-Other DeIicacies.

Excluding beef and dairy products,
writes Pekin correspondent, China
men eat everything that is edible
horse and ass flesh, snakes, rats, mice,
dogs, grasshoppers, spiders, worms,
cocoons, sea cucumbers, swallows
nests, etc. Once, while living in a
villa near Pekin, saw a very strange
scene. There appeared a cloud of
grasshoppers. Suddenly the field was
covered with Cinnamon, who ran fran
tically hither and thither gathering
them in. They filled large sacks and
bags with the insects. They carried
portable stoves, on which they roasted
their curious game. Other Cinnamon
greedily devoured the grasshoppers.
paying penny for ten.
AT the head of all meats Cinnamon
put, of course, pork. In their opinion,
to the hog belongs the first place in the
list of domestic animals. If you ask a
Chinaman why, he will answer you
proudly: Because it was the hog from
whom the Chinanan descended"
Don't you see the Celestials have beaten
Darwin on the theory of the descent OF
man. 1t is only natural, then, that
among Cinnamon hogs should enjoy
full rights of citizenship. Like dogs,
they wander wherever they please. A
Chinese street without a number of
hogs is an impossibility. Are there
many hogs in China? | should think
SO. On single holiday in memory of
their ancestors not the original ances-
tors, the hogs, but merely human an
cestors-the CelestiaIs eat fully $4,000
hogs. l must admit that Chinese pork
is superior to any found elsewhere on
the globe. Poor Cinnamon, who can
not afford to buy pork, eat meat OF
dogs, asses, horses, rats, mice, rabbits,
hares, goats and sheep. But l never
saw them eating cats.
OF birds the Chinese eat silver
pheaSants, ducks, geese, chickens. Jack
DAVIS, crows and many others. Curious
ly enough, the sO-called Cochin China
fowls are very rarely seen here.
Among the choice delicacies Of the
Chinese must be mentioned the fins of
sharks and the nests of sea-swallows.
Under the latter is understood not the
whole nest, but only the mucilaginous
inner coating of the nests 1t is be-
lieved that the swallows who build
their nests on the sca-rOcks cover their
nests and glue them to the rocks with
the Juice Of sea-cane, which on being
dried looks like mucilaginous mem
brane. On the market these nests are
found in the shape of hemisphere OF
the size of half orange peel. The
nests are sold here ut from SIS to So
per pound. They are used principally
for making broth, to which they give
peculiar aroma and taste, much
valued by astronomers.
Rice, stands, of course, at the head of
vegetable foods. Without rice-gruel
no meal is served here Fan" means
both "to eat a meal aud Ito eat rice
Cruel" The brown rice, which is com
mon rice, but heated and musty, is
much liked. There is also red va
riety of rice.
Honey is much used here, but chiefly
as a cosmetic. After being mixed with
flour it is used by the women in their
hair-dressing. With their hair sat.
urated, sticky and shining with honey.
they must be, indeed, sweet.
AS everybody knows, the Chinese are
passionately fond of tea, which they
cultivate for the rest of the world.
They drink it at every meal, at home
and out, when idle and at work, in shops
and in offices in short, everywhere
and at any time Of day or night. The
red, black and green sorts of tea they
prepare only for export. while they
themselves use exclusively yellow tea
They take tea in small cups, and with
out sugar.
Though in China there are excellent
sort of grapes, yet no wine is prepared
there. The Chinese make two kinds of
whisky-of sago and of rice and
drink and smoke here A tin gill of
the shape of an hour-gIass is used for
whisky drinking. They had no glass
works here until recently, when an
American gentleman taught some
Celestials to make glass. During my
thirty years residence here l have
never seen a single drunken Chinaman
on the street. No coffee or chocolate
is used here.
The unusually fertile soil of this
country yields products enough to sat
isfy the appetite of all the Ceiestials,
and in view of their peculiar philosophy
of the stomach they ought to he able,
all of them, to reach the blissful state
of safety. Yet how many of them are
lean, hungry, with wistful eyes and
hollow stomarhS? What a heartrend-