Food And Drink

"A man may eat fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm."

"It is more useful, perhaps, to know my host at the Blue Boar in Picadilly died of eating too many oysters, than how Marshall Turenne was killed in the trenches."

"Bream: ... But he can still be served up as an excellent stew, provided always that he is full-grown, and has swum all his life in clear running water."

"Porpoises are indeed 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 Dumferline were very fond of them. They had a great porpoise grant from the crown."

"Very well. But what sense tells you whether this pike gasping here was caught in the Tiber or in the sea, whether in the eddies between the bridges or just at the mouth of the mouth of the Tuscan river? You foolish fellow, you praise a three-pound mullet, which you must needs cut up into single portions. 'Tis the look, I see, that takes you. When then detest a very long pike? It is, of course, because nature has made the pike large, and the mullet light of weight. Only a stomach that seldom feels hunger scorns things common."

"Across the Bridge began the vegetable and fruit market, where whole Hollands of cabbage and Spains of onions opened on the view, with every other succulent and toothsome growth; and beyond this we entered the glory of Rialto, the fish-market, which is now more lavishly supplied than at any other season. It was picturesque and full of gorgeous color for the fish of Venice seem all to catch the rainbow hues of the lagoon. There is a certain kind of red mullet, called triglia, which is as rich and tender in its dyes as if it had never swam in water less glorious than that which crimsons under October sunsets. But a fish-market, even at Rialto, with fishermen in scarlet caps and triglie in sunset splendors, is only a fish-market after all: it is wet and slimy under foot, and the innumerable gigantic eels, writhing everywhere, set the soul asquirm, and soon-sated curiosity slides willingly away."

"Only eat fresh fish and ripened rice."

"Though a man eats fish till his guts crack, yet if he eat no flesh he fasts."

"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day, Teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."

"How unfavourably this hotch-potch compares with the Marseillese bouillabaisse! But what can be expected, considering its ingredients? Green and golden scales, and dorsal fins embellished with elaborate rococo designs, will satisfy neither a hungry man nor an epicure, and if Neapolitans pay untold sums for the showy Mediterranean sea-spawn, it only proves that they eat with their eyes, like children who prefer tawdry sweets to good ones. They have colour and shape, these fish of the inland sea, but not taste; their flesh is either flabby and slimy and full of bones in unauthorised places, or else they have no flesh at all—heads like Burmese dragons but no bodies attached to them; or bodies of flattened construction on the magnum in parvo principle, allowing of barely room for a sheet of paper between their skin and ribs; or a finless serpentine framework, with long-slit eyes that leer at you while you endeavour to scratch a morsel off the reptilian anatomy.There is not a cod, or turbot, or whiting, or salmon, or herring in the two thousand miles between Gibraltar and Jerusalem; or if there is, it never comes out; its haddocks (haddocks, indeed!) taste as if they had fed on mouldy sea-weed and died from the effects of it; its lobsters have no claws; its oysters are bearded like pards; and as for its soles—I have yet to see one that measures more than five inches round the waist. The fact is, there is hardly a fish in the Mediterranean worth eating and therefore: ex nihilo nihil fit. Bouillabaisse is only good because cooked by the French, who, if they cared to try, could produce an excellent and nutritious substitute out of cigar-stumps and empty matchboxes. But even as a Turk is furious with a tender chicken because it cheats him out of the pleasure of masticating, so the Neapolitan would throw a boneless zuppa di pesce out of the window: the spitting and sputtering is half the fun."

"Fish must swim thrice—once in water, a second time in the sauce, and third time in wine in the stomach."

"The common or harbour Porpoise of the North Atlantic and Pacific was once considered a delicacy in this country, as are other Cetaceans in other lands at the present day. It formed a royal dish even so recently as the time of Henry VIII. The sauce recommended by Dr. Caius for the "fish" was made of crumbs of fine bread, vinegar and sugar. Considered to be a fish, it was allowed to be eaten on fast days."

"With the audacity of true culinary genius, fried fish is always served cold."

"What an idiot is man to believe that abstaining from flesh, and eating fish, which is so much more delicate and delicious, constitutes fasting."

"Among all fishes that are pleasant in taste and not wholesome, the Yeele are most in use, which, as they be engendred of the very earth, dirt and mire, without generation or Spawne, they be of a slimie substance, clammie and greatly stopping, whereby they are noysome to the voice."

"What Cat’s averse to fish?"

"On the third day of his fasting By the lake he sat and pondered, By the still, transparent water; Saw the sturgeon, Nahma, leaping, Scattering drops like beads of wampum, Saw the yellow perch, the Sahwa, Like a sunbeam in the water, Saw the pike, the Maskenozha, And the herring, Okahahwis, And the Shawgashee, the craw-fish! “Master of Life!” he cried, desponding, “Must our lives depend on these things?”"

"Sallets in general consist of certain Esculent Plants and Herbs, improv'd by Culture, Industry, and Art of the Gard'ner: Or, as others say, they are a Composition of Edule Plants and Roots of several kinds, to be eaten Raw or Green, Blanch'd or Candied: simple—and per se, or intermingl'd with others according to the Season. The Boil'd, Bak'd, Pickl'd, or otherwise disguis'd, variously accommodated by the skilful Cooks, to render them grateful to the more feminine Palat, or Herbs rather for the Pot, &c. challenge not the name of Sallet so properly here, tho' sometimes mention'd; And therefore,Those who Criticize not so nicely upon the Word, seem to distinguish the Olera (which were never eaten Raw) from Acetaria, which were never Boil'd; ...A great deal more of this Learned Stuff were to be pick'd up from the Cumini Sectores, and impertinently Curious; whilst as it concerns the business in hand, we are by Sallet to understand a particular Composition of certain Crude and fresh Herbs, such as usually are, or may safely be eaten with some Acetous Juice, Oyl, Salt, &c. to give them a grateful Gust and Vehicle; ... But of this enough, and perhaps too much; least whilst I write of Salt and Sallet, I appear my self Insipid: ..."

"Little fish are sweet."

"On twigs of hawthorn he regaled, On pippins’ russet peel; And, when his juicy salads failed, Sliced carrot pleased him well."

"Eloise,—Perhaps you are not aware of the reason why the great majority of people in this country are opposed to, and even accused of not liking, soup; the simple reason is, that every receipt described in most Cookery Books, is so complicated and expensive, that they cannot afford either the money, time, or attention, to prepare it."

"A Sallet without wine is raw, unwholesome, dangerous."

"Nor is it enough to sweep up fish from the expensive stall, not knowing which are better with sauce, and which, if broiled, will tempt the tired guest to raise himself once more upon his elbow."

"The salad, for which, like everybody else I ever met, he had a special receipt of his own."

"... He did odd jobs on the fish docks, and he fed us fish until the bones stuck out of our ears. Comb my hair in the morning, I'd comb out a handful of bones. It got so my stomach rose and fell with the tide. Fish, fish! I was almost grown before I found out people ate anything else."

"In taking soup, it is necessary to avoid lifting too much in the spoon, or filling the mouth so full as almost to stop the breath."

"Earl McGraw: That fuckin' idiot don't know rat shit from Rice Krispies."

"A census taker tried to quantify me once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone."

"Well, Lucy MacLean, it ain't all canned peaches and marmalade left up here, sweetheart. Sometimes a fella's got to eat a fella.... I'll bet your daddy was first in line at the cookout. I bet he had a bib with a drawing of his neighbor's ass on there.... Why the fuck am I doing all the work? Now come on, vaultie. Ass jerky don't make itself."

"I despised him long before I found out about his having young girls butchered and served for his dinner.... Ponse always ate girls. About one a day for his family table, I gathered. Girls about the age and plumpness of [14-year-old] Kitten." "But— But— Hugh, I ate the same thing he did, lots of times. I must have— I must have—" "Sure you did. So did I. But not after I knew. Nor did you." "Honey... you better stop the car. I'm going to be sick."

"The ocean's dying. Plankton's dying. It's people. Soylent Green is made out of people. They're making our food out of people. Next thing, they'll be breeding us like cattle for food. You've gotta tell them. You've gotta tell them!"

"... Now, in my opinion, you can't find a nicer piece of meat, marbled but firm, than a buck [boy] tempered [castrated] not older than six, then hung at twice that age." "No one asked your opinion", Memtok answered. "Their Charity's opinion is the only one that counts. They think that sluts [young women] are more tender."

"Soylent Green is people!"

""But if you eat this chap who's God", said Llewelyn stoutly, "how can it be horrible? If it's all right to eat God why is it horrible to eat Jim Whittle?""Because", said Dymphna reasonably, "if you eat God there's always plenty left. You can't eat God up because God just goes on and on and on and God can't ever be finished. You silly clot", she added and then went on cutting holly leaves."

"In ancient times, as I recollect, people often ate human beings, but I am rather hazy about it. I tried to look this up, but my history has no chronology, and scrawled all over each page are the words: "Virtue and Morality". Since I could not sleep anyway, I read intently half the night, until I began to see words between the lines, the whole book being filled with the two words – "Eat people"."

"A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. [Slurps]"

"The harvest had yielded no grain. Gradually, even tree bark and plant stalks had grown scarce. Soon, markets selling human flesh had begun to appear... The two men were tearing off the little girl's clothes... The girl looked like she was somewhere around ten years of age... It soon became evident that most of the customers were interested in the little girl, because many complained that the older woman's flesh was no longer quite so fresh as the girl's... [Stabbed in the chest with a knife, t]he little girl gasped. Her screams gave way to a lingering sigh... He... rapidly sliced apart her body with the help of the cashier before handing the pieces one by one to the people waiting outside the shed... The little girl had already been completely dismembered, and the proprietor was leading the woman from the corner of the shack over to the stump. Not daring to watch any more, Willow turned and made his way down an alley. But he was pursued by the dull sound of the proprietor's ax cutting into the woman's flesh, by the woman's lacerating shriek. He shook uncontrollably, and it was only when he had rushed out of the alley and into another part of town that the sounds began to recede behind him. But, try as he might, he was unable to expel the scene he had just witnessed from his mind."

"Hugh tried to keep his eyes [off] the contents of the meat storage room. Most of the meat was beef and fowl. But one long row of hooks down the center held what he knew he would find – human carcasses, gutted and cleaned and frozen, hanging head down, save that the heads were missing. Young sluts and bucks, he could see, but whether the bucks were tempered or not was no longer evident.... Memtok paused on the way out and patted the loin of a stripling buck carcass. "That's what I would call a nice piece of meat. Eh, Hugh?""

"It was considered a great triumph among the Marquesans to eat the body of a dead man. They treated their captives with great cruelty. They broke their legs to prevent them from attempting to escape before being eaten, but kept them alive so that they could brood over their impending fate. Their arms were broken so that they could not retaliate in any way against their maltreatment. The Marquesans threw them on the ground and leaped on their chests so that their ribs were broken and pierced their lungs, so that they could not even voice their protests against the cruelty to which they were submitted. Rough poles were thrust up through the natural orifices of their bodies and slowly turned in their intestines. Finally, when the hour had come for them to be prepared for the feast, they were spitted on long poles that entered between their legs and emerged from their mouths, and dragged thus at the stern of the war canoes to the place where the feast was to be held. With this tribe, as with many others, the bodies of women were in great demand."

"One morning very early, the news came that Nyan-ngauera had left the camp, taking a fire-stick and accompanied by her little girl. No one would follow her or help to track her. For twelve miles I followed the track unsuccessfully, but Nyan-ngauera doubled many times and gave birth to a child a mile west of my camp, where she killed and ate the baby, sharing the food with the little daughter. Later, with the help of her sons and grandsons, the spot was found, nothing to be seen there save the ashes of a fire. "The bones are under the fire", the boys told me, and digging with the digging-stick we came upon the broken skull, and one or two charred bones, which I later sent to the Adelaide Museum."

"When the Yumu, Pindupi, Ngali, or Nambutji were hungry, they ate small children with neither ceremonial nor animistic motives. Among the southern tribes, the Matuntara, Mularatara, or Pitjentara, every second child was eaten in the belief that the strength of the first child would be doubled by such a procedure."

"When people do not respect our [traditions], they become enemies, and we don't consider our enemies to be human any more. They become animals in our eyes. And the Dayaks eat animals."

"The smell of barbecue is in the air. They go to the rest area, where the farmhands are roasting a rack of meat on a cross. El Gringo explains to Egmont that they've been preparing it since eight in the morning, "So it melts in your mouth", and that the guys are actually about to eat a kid. "It's the most tender kind of meat, there's only just a little, because a kid doesn't weigh as much as a calf. We're celebrating because one of them became a father", he explains. "Want a sandwich?""

"As recently as 1950, a Belgian administrator was served a meal of "porcupine meat" that he found remarkably delicious. Not until he had finished was he told that the meat came from a young girl."

"In 1961 in Uganda, a man offered to sell me human fingers that had been smoked. When I declined in horror, he offered to return with a smoked slab of a young woman's buttocks, a truly "choice cut", as he put it."

"They'd taken everything with them except whatever black thing was skewered over the coals. He was standing there checking the perimeter when the boy turned and buried his face against him. He looked quickly to see what had happened. What is it? he said. What is it? The boy shook his head. Oh Papa, he said. He turned and looked again. What the boy had seen was a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit. He bent and picked the boy up and started for the road with him, holding him close. I'm sorry, he whispered. I'm sorry."

"Qiaoxian town officials treated me to lunch. On that day, the main course was sautéed pig's liver. I tried very hard not to vomit as I swallowed two pieces. I then quickly turned away from the table.... During the previous few days, I had encountered nothing but stories about the cutting out of human livers, boiling human livers, consuming human livers, and barbecuing human livers. My tolerance had reached its limit."

"He lies down in the hammock and tries to sleep. A commercial plays again and again in his mind. A woman who's beautiful but dressed conservatively is putting dinner on the table for her three children and husband. She looks at the camera and says: "I serve my family special food, it's the same meat as always, but tastier." The whole family smiles and eats their dinner. The government, his government, decided to resignify the product. They gave human meat the name "special meat". Instead of just "meat", now there's "special tenderloin", "special cutlets", "special kidneys". He doesn't call it special meat. He uses technical words to refer to what is a human but will never be a person, to what is always a product. To the number of heads to be processed, to the lot waiting in the unloading yard, to the slaughter line that must run in a constant and orderly manner, to the excrement that needs to be sold for manure, to the offal sector. No one can call them humans because that would mean giving them an identity. They call them product, or meat, or food."

", n. A gastronome of the old school who preserves the simple tastes and adheres to the natural diet of the pre-pork period."

"Man came into being through cannibalism – intelligence can be eaten."