The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-07-03
SOME PECULIAR DISHES.
A TALK WITH AN INsEcrIvoEoUs
EPICUHE.
Eating Fried LOcusts-An Effort i'm
America and England TO Get
People TO Eat insects.

America and England TO Get
People TO Eat insects.
Professor Riley, of Washington, in
vited some friends to breakfast with him
recently. lie placed before them a dish
of fried cicada, or seventeen-year locusts.
The professor is in the habit of eating
locusts and grasshoppers, and evidently
relishes them. His guests were little
doubtful at first, but after eating them
agreed that there was no exception to be
taken to them, either in flavor or deli
cacy of taste.
Mr.. John Sutherland said: 81 read
the report of Professor Riley's breakfast,
and agree with him that cicada are de-
licious. They eat the tenderest of veg
etables, the choicest and youngest ten
drills, and are the essence of pure vege-
table matter. Prejudice against certain
kinds of food is the work of the imagin-
alton, and founded almost entirely on
the looks of things. There are crabs and
lobsters which are infinitely more I'M
clean than either the cicada or the grass
hopper, and yet few food fish
are priced more highly. Snails are
the scavengers of the sea, and
are never so fat and juicy as
when caught in proximity to a dead
horse or human body Then there are
snails There is nothing | enjoy more.
They are perfectly clean People will eat
periwinkles, and like them. They are
Just the same things as periwinkles.
Often l make salad of them. People
ask what they are, l say pcriwinkles,
and they are perfectly satisfied. If l
should say snails, as they are, they
would perhaps become sick. They
should be caught and put in clean sand,
and then allowed to wriggle around.
This process takes away all the slime and
leaves them neat and clean. They should
then be parboiled.
people are prcdjudiced against lam
preys. They are very good and equal
to an ordinary eel. There are many
other kinds of fish that persons object to.
This seems unreasonable to me. They
all come from the same water, and vir-
tually live on the same kinds of food.
OF course there are some sorts of fish far
superior to others, but all fish is good. l
know persons who will not touch frogs,
yet they live on just the same things as
trout, and are equally as tender and
toothsome. Of birds, too, there is much
discrimination. A hawk is good, so is
the crow. A young blue heron is as
good as the most favored birds, but very
few people can one find who will eat
them. Not long ago some gentlemen
came here and asked me to get them up
something that couldn't be gotten
anywhere else. All right said
/. 1 went and got some OK
pallets and fixed them up. They were
corrugated and looked like snakes.
twisted them up and served them with
Italian sauce. They ate them and were
much pleased. When about half through,
Mr.. Peyton, one of the party, wanted to
know what the dish was. | said, rattle
snakes. Tom Placide, the old actor,
sent me some the other day and as you
wanted something you couldn't get any
where else, l gave them to you.
The knives and forks dropped with a
CHATTER on the floor. Two of the party
were frightfully sick. Now, see here,
eating rattlesnakes. I'll never be able
to eat again When | saw they were
about as sick as they well could be,
told them them they were beef pallets.
Immediately every man got well, re-
sumed eating, and all were wonderfully
happy. Tom Placidc and l were great
friends. lie was really very fond of
rattle snakes. One day he brought me
one; we skinned it nicely, fried it and
ate it. Tom smacked his mouth, but
must confess | didn't fancy it as much as
l do other things. Rattlesnake eggs are,
however, very nice. They have a faint
musky flavor, and are delicious. There
are many other things that people will
not cat now, but the day will come when
all these things will be regarded along
with white bait, trout and other things
Of this class.
"In the east, locusts the insects as
we'll as the vcgetab!e-are highly es-
teemed as food. Fried in butter, these
destructive creatures form a popular dish
and this is the only good point about the
'locusts migratoria. Dried lucosts are
exported in quantities, and are staple
food in Arabia, Syria, and other Orien-
tai countries. 1t is, unfortunately, an
indisputablc fact that human beings
have in various ages and different parts
of the world been far from dainty in
their domestic dietary. They have sup
ped-and breakfasted, too-on horrors.
There is an African race for example,
which consumes ants and pretends to
like them. The Andaman islanders
habitually live on rats, guanas, lizards
and snakes, adding few shell fish when
they can get them. People who do not
object to consuming caterpillars would
probably soon pass on to serpents. Mrs
Colin Mackenzie, the wife of ar Indian
missionary, has related how she was
cured of an intermittent fever by eating
cobwebs. In some parts of Hindostan
the natives prescribe cobweb pills as a
sure antdote to fever; and the lady
whose case we have mentioned found
them far more effective than quinine.
The pills, she tells us, are made of com
mon cobwebs and taken in doses of ten
grains three times day If, however,
cobwebs can be eaten, why not spiders
The fact is that man in his civil
lied state has forgotten thousand arti-
Giles of food which are known to the saw
age. He has no faith in 'simples,
though half the best medicines are made