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Table of Contents
Chapter 65
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 ..
2 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 ..
3 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. ..
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