The Republican journal., 1915-08-12
SEA GULLS AS FOOD.
A Renaissance by Capt. George L. No,
ton, editor of the Marine Journal.


No sailor-man ever supposed that a
sea gull was any good on land or sea and
time spent in wondering what they were
created for was misspent. proved this
to my own satisfaction when on the
blockade off Charleston, S. c., during
the Civil War. While lying idly off that
harbor entrance. day after day, gray
gulls IN large numbers would gather
around the steamer to pick up anything
that might be thrown overheard by the
cooks. We caught and boiled one half a
day as an experiment and it's meat was
just as tough as before it was plated in
the kettle, while its fishy odor was very
offensive. That settled the gull ques-
ton when considered as an article of
food, or its use for any other purpose in
eur minds.
A short time ago | had occasion to visit
my physician and while waiting my turn
L picked up magazine, entitled the
American Missionary. An article head
ed "Sea Gulls at Utah." attracted at
tentlon, after reading which we regret
ted all the ugly epithets we had uttered
against the sea gull and in proof of our
sincerity herewith publish the fact of
the great good these isolated waits of
/
country, where they were attracted
doubtless by its great lake of salt wa
ter which they seem to like to fly over
and float on. In substance the article
referred to says:
The visitor to Salt Lake will find a
S40, 600 monument composed of gran
lite shaft fifteen feet high with great
ball on the top on which two guls in
81,
memorial was erected in honor of the
gulls that in l84S when the first settlers
IN Salt Lake Valley were threatened
with starvation by an invasion Of grass
hoppers and locusts which rapidly ate up
their prospective crops, saved them as
II sent by Providence, from that unhap-
ply fate. The gulls from Great Salt
Lake suddenly appeared in the valley by
the thousands and entirely annihilated
the pests with the result that the pio-
neers who had been almost panic-strick-
en- by the unlooked-for calamity were
saved from seeing their fertile valley
again made one with the desert around
them. AS the imperial city of Rome was
saved in its infancy by geese, so was
Utah in the days of its pioneers rescued
by sea gulls.'
A year ago last spring, if we remember
right, Capt. Johnson of the derelict de-
stroyer revenue cutter Seneca, then in
service on the Grand Banks as an ice
patrol vessel, made a statement which
was published in the New York Herald,
telling how to cook and make palatable
sea gull. This gist of this receipt was
largely made up of sauces and other con
dlments of the hottest character, while
unlimited time in stewing the bird was
enJolned upon the ''undertaker. Know
ing Captain johnson to be a truthful
man, we didn't discredit his discovery,
but there was SO much added to the
makeup of his stew that wasn't sea
gull, we still failed to see the value of it
as palatabe nourishing diet, believing
that Worcestershire, Maunsel White and
other sauces used so frequently to dis
guise the staleness of fish, fowl or meat
had better be worked into ''stock" to
make more appetizing tame duck, filet
OF beef, saute- chicken, or some other
substantial and popular food than vast
ed IN trying to make a sea gull eatable.
In the early SOS the writer, with two
other kids "-one was the late Col. A.
W. Bradbury-was cruising in the Bay
of Fundy in the schooner yacht Cloud,
with Capt. Claridge of Eastport, pilot
in the revenue service, then on leave, as
skipper. One day we sailed into flock
of sea gulls and killed several, which
were picked and dressed. We had a
mutton stew left over from the day be-
fore and added the gulls and cooked
them together. The gulls were eaten in
preference to the mutton, so that they
could not have been unpalatable, and prob
ably were young birds. C. A.P.