The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1891-09-16
QUEER FOREIGN TIDBITS.
REPULsIvB FOODS THAT TICKLE
UNCIVILIzED PALATES.

Drinking Bumpers of Train OIL
Curried Ants Bggs--TurtIe Butter
Roast Monkey, With Chestnuts.
At dinner once of the Acclamation
Society in London were offered all the
strange and new dishes, even horse. A
roast monkey filed with chestnuts was
declared to be delicious; the fawn of
fallow deer was described as good.
Buffalo meat was not so highly COM
mended. A red deer ham was not very
succulent. A sirloin of bear was
"tough, glutinous, and had besides a
dreadful, half aromatic, half putrescent
flavor, as though it had just been rubbed
with asafetida and then hung for
month in a musk shop"
The host fish of the Adirondacks is
seldom tasted except by those who have
spent a winter IN the North Woods.
They are delicious fried. There is O
European fish rs little known as this, the
marena, caught in Lake Morris in the
province of Pomerania, also in one lake
in Southern Italy, very good.
There are two birds known in Prussia
as the bustard and the kammel, the
former species of small ostrich, once
considered very fine eating, the latter
very tough, except under exceptional
conditions.
The eating of the past included, under
the Romans, the ass, the dog, the snail,
lea hedge hogs, oysters, asparagus, veni-
son, wild boar, sea nettles. In England,
in 1912, the hostess offered strange
dishes: Mallards, herons, swans, crane
and peacock. But the peacock was of
old right royal bird which figured
splendidly at the banquets of the great.
Our Saxton ancestors were very fond,
like the Spaniards, of putting everything
into the same pot; and we read of stews
that made the blood boil. Travellers
tell us of dining with the Esquimaux on
a field of ice, when tallow candles were
considered delicious, or they will find
their plates loaded with liver of the
walrus. They will vary their dinners
by helping themselves to a lump Of
whale meat, red aud coarse and rancid,
but very toothsome to an Esqulmau, not
withstanding.
If they would sit down to a Green
lander's table they would find it groan-
ing under dish of half putrid whales
tail which has been leuded as a savory
matter, not unlike cream cheese, and
the liver of porpoise makes the mouth
water. They may finish their repast
with a slice of reindeer, or roast rat, and
drink to their host in bumper of train
oil.
In South America the tongue OF sea
lion is esteemed a great delicacy.
Fashion in siam p-escribes curry of
ants eggs as necessary to every well
ordered banquet. They are not larger,
the eggs, than grains of pepper, and to
an unaccustomed palate have no particu-
lar flavor. Besides being curried, they
are brought to table rolled in green
leaves mingled with shreds or very fine
slices of pork.
The Mexicans make a species Of bread
of the eggs Of insects which frequent the
fresh water of the lagoons. The natives
cultivate in the lagoon of Chalco a sort
of carex, called tonte, on which the in
sects deposit their eggs very freely.
This carex is made into bundles and is
soon covered. The eggs are disengaged,
beaten, dried and pounded into -four.
Penguins' eggs, cormorants' eggs, gulls'
eggs, the eggs of the albatross, turtles
eggs are all subservient to the table.
The mother turtle deposits her eggs
about 100 at time in the dry sand, and
leaves .hem to be hatched by the genial
sun. The Indian tribes who live on the
banks of the orinoco procure from them
a sweet and limpid oil, which is their
substitute for butter. Lizard eggs are
regarded as a bonne bouche in the South
Sea islands, and the eggs of the guiana,
species of lizard, are much favored by
West Indians. Alligators' eggs are eaten
in the Antilles, and resemble hens eggs
in size and shape.-Ne'O York Press.