Amiga ISO Collection/AmigaDemoCD2.iso/ASCII/TEXTE/BOOKS/Novels/H.Melville/moby.65

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.. < chapter lxv 12  THE WHALE AS A DISH >

     That mortal man should feed upon
the creature that feeds his lamp, and, like Stubb, eat him by his own light,
as you may say; this seems so outlandish a thing that one must needs go a
little into the history and philosophy of it.  It is upon record, that three
centuries ago the tongue of the Right Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in
France, and commanded large prices there.  Also, that in Henry VIIIth's
time, a certain cook of the court obtained a handsome reward for inventing an
admirable sauce to be eaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember,
are a species of whale.  Porpoises, indeed, are to this day considered fine
eating.  The meat is made into balls about the size of billiard balls, and
being well seasoned and spiced might be taken for turtle-balls or veal balls.

     The old monks of Dunfermline were very fond of them.  They had a great
porpoise grant from the crown.  The fact is, that among his hunters at least,
the whale would by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so
much of him; but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one
hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite.  Only the most unprejudiced
of men like Stubb, nowadays partake of

.. <p 298 >
cooked whales; but the Esquimaux are not so fastidious.  We all know how they
live upon whales, and have rare old vintages of prime old train oil.
Zogranda, one of their most famous doctors, recommends strips of blubber for
infants, as being exceedingly juicy and nourishing.  And this reminds me
that certain Englishmen, who long ago were accidentally left in Greenland by
a whaling vessel --that these men actually lived for several months on the
mouldy scraps of whales which had been left ashore after trying out the
blubber.  Among the Dutch whalemen these scraps are called fritters; which,
indeed, they greatly resemble, being brown and crisp, and smelling
something like old Amsterdam housewives' dough-nuts or oly-cooks, when fresh.

     They have such an eatable look that the most self-denying stranger can hardly
keep his hands off.  But what further depreciates the whale as a civilized
dish, is his exceeding richness.  He is the great prize ox of the sea, too
fat to be delicately good.  Look at his hump, which would be as fine eating
as the buffalo's (which is esteemed a rare dish), were it not such a solid
pyramid of fat.  But the spermaceti itself, how bland and creamy that is;
like the transparent, half-jellied, white meat of a cocoanut in the third
month of its growth, yet far too rich to supply a substitute for butter.
Nevertheless, many whalemen have a method of absorbing it into some other
substance, and then partaking of it.  In the long try watches of the night it
is a common thing for the seamen to dip their ship-biscuit into the huge
oil-pots and let them fry there awhile.  Many a good supper have I thus made.
In the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted a fine dish.  The
casket of the skull is broken into with an axe, and the two plump, whitish
lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling two large puddings), they are
then mixed with flour, and cooked into a most delectable mess, in flavor
somewhat resembling calves' head, which is quite a dish among some epicures;
and every one knows that some young bucks among the epicures, by continually
dining upon calves' brains, by and by get to have a little brains of their
own, so as to be able to tell a calf's head from their own heads; which,
indeed, requires uncommon discrimination.  And that is the reason why
.. <p 299 >
a young buck with an intelligent looking calf's head before him, is somehow
one of the saddest sights you can see.  The head looks a sort of reproachfully
at him, with an Et tu Brute!  expression.  It is not, perhaps, entirely
because the whale is so excessively unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the
eating of him with abhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the

     consideration before mentioned: i.  e.  that a man should eat a newly murdered
thing of the sea, and eat it too by its own light.  But no doubt the first
man that ever murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was hung;
and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been;
and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does.  Go to the meat-market of
a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows
of dead quadrupeds.  Does not that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal's
jaw?  Cannibals?  who is not a cannibal?  I tell you it will be more tolerable
for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a
coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in
the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who
nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy
pate-de-foie-gras.  But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he?
and that is adding insult to injury, is it?  Look at your knife-handle,
there, my civilized and enlightened gourmand dining off that roast beef,
what is that handle made of? --what but the bones of the brother of the very ox
you are eating?  And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring that
fat goose?  With a feather of the same fowl.  And with what quill did the
Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to Ganders formally
indite his circulars?  It is only within the last month or two that that
society passed a resolution to patronize nothing but steel pens.
.. <p 300 >