Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-11-17
WHAT CHINAMEN EAT.
Philosophy of the stom ach and Bill of Fare
in the Celebrated Kingdom.

Philosophy of the stom ach and Bill Of Fare
in the Celebrated Kingdom.
The following extract from an interest
ing Pekin letter is published in the Albany
Journal:
To be able to eat we'll means, In the Chi
naman's opinion, to be happy. All his
cares, troubles and desires center in the
same point, namely. good eating They
hold that only the satisfied man can be
wise. and those who CAM OF make them
selves full are surely fools. Their most
sacred philosophical and medical treatises
deal with the stomach as the principal
source of the spiritual, moral and physical
life of man. The head, in their opinion,
is a poor dependent on the bounty of the
stomach. Not the head, but the stomach,
ought to be crowded. They hold as car
dinal axiom that the stomach is the spring
of every thought, feeling and muscular ac-
ton. He who does not eat loses all en-
ergy. Man differs from wood and stone
only because he fills up his stomach.
Excluding beef and dairy products, Chi
namen eat everything that is edible, horse
and ass flesh, snakes, rats, mice, dogs,
grasshoppers, spiders, worms, cocoons, sea
cucumbers, swallows nests, and so on.
Once, while living in villa near Pekin, |
saw very strange scene. There appeared
a cloud of grasshoppers. Suddenly the
field was covered with Cinnamon, who ran
frantically 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 heads of all meats Cinnamon put
pork In their opinion, to the hog belongs
the first place in the list of domestic ami
mails. If you ask Chinaman why, he
will answer you proudly Because it
was the hog from whom the Chinaman de-
scended !" 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 ina
possibility. Are there many hogs in China!
1 should think so. On single holiday, in
memory of their ancestors-not the origi-
nal ancestors, the hogs, but merely human
ancestors-the Celestials ate fully $50, 600
hogs. l must admit that Chinese pork is
superior to any found elsewhere on the
globe, Poor Cinnamon who cannot afford
to buy pork eat meat of dogs, asses, rats,
horses, mice, rabbits, hares, goats and
sheep, but not cats.
OF birds the Chinese eat silver pleas
ants. ducks, geese, chickens, jackdaws,
| crows and many others. Curiously enough
the SO. called Cochin China fowls are very
rarely seen here. Salt eggs are in great use
here.
Among the choice delcacies of the Chi
nese 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 believed that the swallows
who build their nests on the sea rocks cover
their nests and glue them to the rocks with
the juice of sea cane, which, on being
dried, looks like mucilaginous membrane.
| On the market these nests are found In the
shape of hemisphere of the size of a half
orange peel. The nests here are sold at
from SIS to $40 per pound. They are used
principally for making broth. to which they
| give a peculior aroma and taste, much val
ued by gastronomers.
Rice stands, OF course, at the head of
vegetable foods. Without rice Cruel no
meal is served here. Fan" means both
to have meal' and "to eat rice Cruel. "
The brown rice, which is common rice, but
heated and musty, is much liked. There
is also red variety of rice.
Honey is much used here, but chiefly as
a cosmetic After being mixed with -four
! it is used by the women In their hair-dress-
ing. With their hair saturated, sticky
and shining with honey, they must be in
deed sweet.
AS everybody knows, the Chinese are
passionately fond of tea, which they culti
vate 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 are only for ex-
port, while they themselves use exclusively
yellow tea. They take tea in small cups
and without sugar.
The unusually fertile soil of this country
yields products enough to satisfy the sppe-
| tite of all the Celestials, and in view of
| their peculiar philosophy of the stomach,
they ought to be able, all of them, TO reach
the blissful state of safety. Yet how
many of them are lean, hungry, with visit
| full eyes and hollow stomachs? What a
hsartrending tragedy each of these thin
fellows presents, whose all-absorbing idea
is to be thick When l look upon the
| crowd of hollow.cheeked Cinnamon, and
then upon the few who are in the blissful
state of corpulency, l cannot help thinking
of the lean heshed and the fat aeshed kline
of Pharaoh.