الفصل الفصل 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 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 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

paté-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.