Part 3

As the chicken issues naturally from the egg, so dining upon the one is the regular sequence to breakfasting on the other. The younger your pullet, says Belon, the easier it is of digestion, though he allows you occasionally to eat an elderly male bird, when prescribed medicinally (hormis le coq, qui est souvêt pris pour medicine). “Roasted or grilled fowls are generally the most savoury; those which are boiled furnish more humid nourishment to the body. The first are eaten hot, the last cold.” This rule, however, does not, he tells us, always hold good: “Because, if any one writing on the quality of the flesh of birds, happened to be in a country where the people fed on a particular kind not eaten elsewhere, and a male bird already old and tough were offered him (avenait qu’on luy presentast de quelque oyseau des-ia viel et endurcy), he ought not to conclude that its flesh is necessarily fibrous and hard.” With all respect for the opinion of honest Peter Belon, I should be inclined to think that a tough old cock, whatever his nation, was somewhat difficult of digestion. I have a very vivid recollection of a fowl of this sort at a certain hotel in Abbeville, where nothing else was to be had for dinner, which the waiter assured me was not to be surpassed in tenderness; a quality he might have displayed towards his family when alive, but which certainly did not belong to him after he was roasted. It is, perhaps, on the tolerant principle of respecting other people’s prejudices (I can account for Belon’s conclusion no other way), that he does not exclude even birds of prey from good men’s feasts. “We know by experience,” he observes (not his own experience, I hope), “what has taken place in Crete, where the young ones of the vulture which have fallen from their rocky nests near Voulèsmeni, have been proved at least as good eating as a fine capon. And although some of the inhabitants (the greater part, I should imagine) think that the old birds are not good to eat, because they feed on carrion, the fact is otherwise; for good falconers say that the hawk, vulture, and falcon are excellent meat, and being roasted or boiled, like poultry, are found to be well-tasted and tender. (Fancy a tender vulture!) We constantly see, if any of these birds kill themselves, or break a limb in hunting game, that the falconers do not hesitate to dress them for the table.” In Auvergne, he adds, the peasants of the Limagne, and in the mountains, too, eat the flesh of the goivan, a species of eagle; so that it may be concluded that birds of prey, whether old or young, are tender,--an inference which I presume to doubt. One saving clause Peter Belon has, which has at all times done good service. If people generally are not in the habit of eating kites, owls, and so forth, there are some who do: “tastes merely differ”--(les appetits des hommes ne se ressemblent en aucune manière).

The transition is easy from these delicacies to other less questionable birds, and the manner of preparing them for the pot or spit; and brings Peter Belon to what he evidently likes--a good dinner in a general way. “You may talk,” he says, “of Spaniards, Portuguese, English, Flemings, Italians, Hungarians, or Germans, but none of them, in dinner-giving, come up to the French. The latter begin with meats disguised a thousand ways (mille petits desguisements de chair); and this first entry, as it is called, consists of what is soft and liquid, and ought to be sent in hot, such as soups, fricassees, hashes, and salads”! (Hot salads are a rarity now-a-days). The second course is roast and boiled, of different kinds of meat, as well of birds as of terrestrial animals, “it being well understood that no fish is eaten except on fast-days.” The dinner ends with “cold things, such as fruits, preparations of milk and sweets.” This is the outline of a dinner only; but when Peter Belon enters into a detailed bill of fare, the newspaper report of a Lord Mayor’s dinner pales beside it. A few of the names of these dishes--as well as they can be translated--are worth preserving. What do you think of pilgrim capons--lions--made of the white meat of pullets; wild boar venison with chestnuts; diamond-pointed jelly; goslings dressed with malvoisie; feet (whose feet?) with infernal sauce (pieds à la saulce d’enfer); counterfeit sea-hog; laurelled quails; partridges with capers; veal sausages; hop salad; chestnut butterflies; golden-backed woodcock pasties; ox-heel pasties; plumed peacocks; tipsy cake (gasteaux joyeux); little cabbages all hot (petits chouy tous chaulds); and, amongst other varieties, pomegranate salad?

In treating of the uses to which birds have been applied, Peter Belon does not omit divination. It is pretty clear, however, that he has no faith in the auruspices, though he lets them down gently. “These soothsayers exercised their mystery in the contemplation of the inward parts as well of birds as of other animals, when offered up for sacrifice. The question must then be asked, whether, by this inspection, they really could foretell the things that were to come, and if there were any probability, what they promised turning out true? There can be little doubt that this system of divination had a very simple origin, beginning by cajoling private persons, and promising them what they desired (which is the greatest pleasure men can receive), and afterwards, by investing it with a religious character, and turning the same to their own profit.” The French soldiers, in Belon’s time, imitated the Romans so far as to carry the sacred cock with their baggage when they took the field; but it was for a very intelligible species of augury,--to know, by his crowing, when the day was about to break. Belon had much too good sense to credit either the superstitions of the Romans or those of his own day, and was probably only restrained by his fear of the Church, from expressing his opinions too plainly. Passing from divination to sorcery, he says: “Every contemplative man must have had reason to despise the ignorant people who believe that sorcerers have the power attributed to them. We have seen many condemned to death; but all have been either poor idiots or madmen. Now, of two things, one must happen: that if they do mischief, it must either be by the employment of some venomous drug put into the mouth, or otherwise applied, or by invocations. It is not often that one hears of people of quality being accused of sorcery--only the poorer sort; and to tell the truth, no man of judgment would apply his mind to such absurdities. To prevent the common people from doing so, it is the custom once a-week to prohibit them formally. It may easily happen that one of this sort, troubled in his wits, should fancy incredible things, and even acknowledge to having committed them; but we must set this down to the nature of their disease.” In this way sensible Peter Belon disposes of the lycanthropists and other self-created wizards. On the subject of antipathies, however, he entertains a belief that it is reasonable; as in the case of the fox and the stork, which are sworn foes, ever since the practical jokes, I suppose, which we all know they played on each other.

Being himself a physician, Peter Belon enlarges upon the maladies of birds; but he tells us that, with the exception of falcons, which are more especially under the care of man, they are their own doctors. “The pelican, which builds its nest on the ground, finding its young stung by a serpent, weeps bitterly, and piercing its own breast, gives its own blood to cure them.” (This is a new reading of the old story). “Quails, when they are indisposed, swallow the seeds of hellebore; and starlings take hemlock. The herb chélidoine (celandine, from the Greek kelidon, a swallow) derives its name from the fact that the swallow administers the juice of the plant to her young. The stork physics himself with marjoram. Wood pigeons, ravens, blackbirds, jays and partridges take laurel; while turtle-doves, pigeons, and cocks prescribe bird-weed. Ducks and geese eat sage.” (Sage enters largely into the affair, in combination with onions, when ducks and geese are eaten). “Cranes and herons employ marsh rushes. Thrushes and many smaller birds swallow the seeds of the ivy--which would be hurtful diet for man (qui seroit viande mauvaise à l’homme).” Not much worse, however, than hellebore or hemlock! But it would seem that the eagle family are exempt from the ordinary ailments of birds; for, in speaking of the Chrysaëtos, or great royal eagle, Belon tells us: “Eagles never change their place of abode, but always return to the same nest. It has thus been observed that they are long-lived. But becoming old, the beak grows so long that it becomes bent, and prevents the bird from eating, so that it dies, not of any malady, or extreme old age, but simply because it cannot make use of its beak.” I fear this is not one of the facts derived from Belon’s own observation.

Our fashionable ladies have passion for eider-down; but did they ever hear that the vulture can supply them with an article quite as soft? “Their skin,” says our author, “is almost as thick as that of a kid, and under the throat is a spot about the breadth of a palm, where the feathers are reddish, like the hair of a calf; and these feathers have no quills, any more than those on both sides of the neck and under the wings, where the down is so white that it shines like silk. The furriers, after removing the large feathers, leave the down, and curry the skins for mantles, which are worth a sum of money. In France they use them chiefly to place on the stomach (what we call bosom-friends). It would scarcely be believed that the vulture’s skin is so stout, if one had not seen it. Being in Egypt and on the plains of Arabia Deserta, we have noticed that the vultures are large and numerous, and the down from a couple of dozen of these would quite suffice for a large robe. At Cairo, on the Bezestein, where merchandise is exposed for sale, the traveller may obtain silken dresses lined with the skins of vultures, both black and white.”

Belon was a great observer of all the birds of prey, and appears to have taken many notes of their habits while living near the Monts d’Or, in Auvergne, under the protection of M. Duprat, the Bishop of Clermont. It was there he learnt the fact about the peasantry eating the goivan, called also the boudrée, which he thus describes: “There is not a peasant in the Limagne (a great plain) of Auvergne who does not know the goivan, and how to capture him with traps baited with frogs, or with lime, but more commonly with snares. He is taken principally in the winter, when he is very good to eat, for he is so fat that no other bird comes near him in that respect. The peasants lard or boil him, and find his flesh quite as good as that of a hen. This eagle eats rats, mice, frogs, lizards, snails, caterpillars, and sometimes serpents.”

That there may be no doubt about the last-named viand being food for eagles, one of Peter Belon’s lively portraitures follows the statement, in which a goivan is depicted in the act of dining on a serpent, twisted into a figure of eight (as, well he might be), and a number of astonished frogs and fishes scurrying away for dear life,--all save one philosophical member of the tadpole family, who, sitting on the tumultuous waves of an adjacent ditch, calmly contemplates the scene. It is observable throughout the plates in Belon’s work that the smaller quadrupeds endure the infliction of being devoured alive with far greater resignation than the Reptilia. I have before me at this moment the portrait of a rabbit, on whose back a buzzard is standing as if in the act of going to sing, while the long-eared animal on which he has pounced seems to apprehend his fate no more than if he were a music-stand. A mouse in the claws of a speckled magpie, puts on, in another plate, an air of equal indifference.

Amongst the birds of prey known to the French villagers--and to their cost--is one called by the singular name of White John (Jan le Blanc), or The Bird of St. Martin,--but why the latter name was bestowed on it, Belon is at a loss to discover. The first is obvious enough, for its belly and part of its tail are of spotless white. This fellow is very daring, and carries off fowls and rabbits from under the eyes of the owners; he feeds largely, too, upon partridges and all the smaller birds, so that he is not a Cheap John, at all events. But Belon has one comfort: White John has a natural antagonist in the Hobby-hawk, and the way they fight in the air till they tumble entangled to the ground and are taken, is quite a pleasant thing to see (moult plaisant à voir). This combat is not depicted; but on the next page there is a striking delineation of the manner in which a falconer lures a bird of prey. He does it in this wise: a hawk having caught a partridge, stands on its back in the air, quietly devouring it, and the cunning fowler takes this opportunity of approaching with the leg of another bird in his hand, which he offers on his knees to the hawk, in the expectation, apparently, that the greedy bird of prey will give up the whole for a part. Of the share which the falconer’s dog has in the transaction, I say nothing; because, though in the foreground of the picture, he is not a quarter the size of the victim partridge. It must be confessed that Belon’s descriptions are more satisfactory than the artist’s illustrations. This remark, however, does not apply to the actual portraits of the birds, which are in most instances very accurate. Nothing, for instance, can be better done than the Royal Kite, which some in France call Huo, and others Escoufle. This bird, being a lover of carrion, is protected; so much so, that “in England a fine is imposed on those who kill him.” Belon records a pleasant piece of pastime which this kite affords the infidels:

“The Turks who live at Constantinople take pleasure in throwing lumps of raw meat into the air, which the kites pounce upon so rapidly that they seize and carry it off before it can fall to the ground.”

The Venetian nobles amuse themselves differently--not with kites, but cormorants. When the weather is calm, they go out on the lagoons in light boots, two or three dozen in company, each boat being rowed by six men, and pulled very swiftly. Having surrounded the cormorant (like French huntsmen with a fox, to prevent him from getting away and giving them a run), he cannot rise in the air (why not?), but dives under the water, and every time he shows his head above the surface, the noblemen let fly at him with their cross-bows, till at last he is thoroughly done up, is half-suffocated, and gives in. “It is a fine sight to behold this sport (c’est un beau spectacle de voir un tel deduit), and also is to see a cormorant having caught a tolerably-sized eel, which he tries to swallow, but has to fight a long time with it before he can get it down.” The cormorants themselves are, oddly enough, not thought good eating by the common people, who say of them that they are “a dish for the devil” (qui voudroit jestoyer le diable, il luy faudroit doñer de tels oyseaux); but Belon does not think them so bad as they say (toute fois ne sont si mauvais qu’on crië).

The stork, unfortunately, did not, when Belon flourished, enjoy the same immunity; for though he admits that the Romans despised them at table, he says, “now they are looked upon as a royal dish.” He moreover tells us that the gizzard of a stork is an antidote to poison, and a remedy against squinting (le gesier de la cigogne est bon contre les venins et qui en aura mangé ne sera lousche en sa vie)! It appears also that even the ostrich, which can digest iron, is itself digested by Libyan gastronomers, who eat the flesh and sell the feathers.

This tendency to discover what birds are most eatable, is manifested throughout the volume of Peter Belon. Arriving at the noble Alectrion or Rooster of the United States, he cites the following recipe, from Dioscorides, for the concoction of cock-broth. “Take a fine strong old bird, and having properly trussed him, stuff him well with roots of fern, the seed of chartamus (whatever that may be), salt of mercury, and soldanella (a purgative sea-weed), and, having sewn him up, boil him well down.” A potage this, which bears some resemblance to “the sillakickaby of the ancients,” described in Peregrine Pickle, and, I should think, nearly as agreeable.

The majority of the birds in Belon’s book are accurately described and too well-known to afford much opportunity for quoting from what he says of their forms and habits, but now and then we meet with a rara avis. Such, for instance is the “Gellinote de bois” (Gelinotte) which, though still found in the Ardennes, and occasionally a visitor to Monsieurs Chevet’s shop in the Palais Royal, is rare enough to merit description at second-hand. What their price may be I know not, but three hundred years ago they cost two crowns a-piece, and were only seen at the banquets of princes and the wedding-feasts of great lords. “The feathers on the back are like those of the woodcock; the breast and belly white, spotted with black; the neck is like that of a pheasant; the head and beak resemble a partridge; the tail feathers are black with white tips, the large wing-feathers variegated like the owl; down to the feet the legs are feathered like the grouse.” If the gelinotte combines the flavour as well as the plumage of the birds just mentioned (omitting the owl) I should say it is worth the price which Monsieur Chevet puts upon it before he stuffs it with the truffles.

The Vanneau is another bird which, common enough in the marshy districts of France (particularly in Bourbon Vendée) is, I believe, unknown in England. It is a wading-bird, and bears some resemblance to the peacock: hence, its name, corrupted from paonneau to vanneau; but the peasants call it dinhuit, on account of its cry. It is crested with five or six long black feathers, and is of changeable hue: in size it is not much larger than a plover, and is perched on very high red legs. There is no question about the estimation as a delicacy in which the vanneau is still held.

Belon has a good deal to say about quails, and the various modes of catching them. One way is by means of an instrument made of leather and bone, which, set in motion, utters a sound like the voice of the female bird, and is called courcaillet, on hearing which the males run rapidly and are caught in the fowler’s net; but this device is only effectual during the season of courting. Every one has noticed how low the quail’s cages are made. Belon says, it is because they are so given to jumping and excitement that they would destroy themselves were the cages higher. Of the crested lark (in French, cochevis), he tells us, on the authority of several writers of antiquity, that when made into a broth or roasted--like punch--they cure the colic; we all know what capital pâtés are made of the lark uncrested. We learn that the woodcock--how admirable is he, too, in a pâté--though called bécasse, in French, on account of the length of his bill, ought to be designated “vvitcoc,” that being an English word, which signifies “cock of the wood,” and corresponds with the Greek term, “xilomita.” Some people, Belon says, call him Avis cœca (blind bird), because he suffers himself to be so easily caught, and he gives a sufficiently lively description of one mode of effecting his capture. It is as follows:--“He who desires to take the woodcock must put on a cloak and gloves, the colour of the dead leaves, and conceal his head and shoulders beneath a (brown) hat, leaving only two small holes to see through. He must carry in his hands two sticks covered with cloth of the same colour, about an inch of the ends of which must be of red cloth, and leaning upon crutches (rather a lame way of proceeding) must advance leisurely towards the woodcock, stopping when the bird becomes aware of his approach. When the woodcock moves on he must follow until the bird stops again without raising its head. The fowler must then strike the sticks together very quickly (moult bellement) which will so amuse and absorb the woodcock that its pursuer may take from his girdle a rod, to which a horsehair noose is attached, and throw the latter round its neck, for it is one of the stupidest and most foolish birds that are known.” I should think so, if it allowed itself to be caught by this tom-foolery.

Of birds which are not stupid, but knavish rather, even to much theft, Belon relates that the magpie is called Margot (the diminutive of Margaret, as Charles the First called his beautiful sister, the wife of Henry of Navarre); and the jay (Richard), each on account of their cry. Being somewhat skinny, the jay is thought rather a tough morsel by those who desire to dine upon him; but he himself eats everything that comes in his way, and is particularly fond of peas--green peas perhaps--at a guinea a pound. The common people think that the jay is subject to the falling sickness, nevertheless they eat him when they find him on the ground. It is, perhaps, a weakness in human nature which cannot be remedied, the tendency to make a meal of everything that has animal life. But for this, how severely might we not animadvert on the gluttony of those who, not remembering their song in spring, devour thrushes in the autumn: yet, that is the best time to eat them, for they are then perfectly delicious as you would say, with me, if you had made a diligence supper on thrushes travelling through the Ardennes.

But, I fear, if I read any more of Peter Belon’s volume, I shall write an article on Gastronomy, a thing I had no notion of when I began. Let me conclude with something more serious than eating--if anything be more serious: let me lament, with all the world, that so useful a man as Peter Belon should have been cut off sadly in the prime of his life and full vigour of his intellect. He was only forty-five years of age when he was murdered one night as he traversed the Bois de Boulogne on his way to Paris; whether for the sake of plunder or revenge is not known.

RHINE-LAND.

We lean’d beneath the purple vine, In Andernach, the hoary; And at our elbows ran the Rhine In rosy twilight glory.

Athwart the Seven-hills far seen The sun had fail’d to broaden; Above us stream’d in fading sheen The highway he had trodden.