Queer Foods of the Forest

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 188, 29 October 1927, Page 24 (Supplement)

Queer Foods of the Forest

Boiled Ants’ Eggs . . . Grilled Snake . . . Zebra Cutlet . . . The Crocodile Provides an Omelette

(Written by W. S. CHADWICK in the “Cape Times.”) BWENTY-THREE years ago, as a trooper in the Cape Mounted Police, I was sent to arrest a Bushman for stock - theft. His friends were living in a bush shelter in a wild region of Namaqualand, not far from the coast; but the culprit had vanished. Expecting his return, I pretended to depart; but retired only a mile or two, and then returned in the darkness to watch the bivouac. That night, the protracted feasting round the fire made me envious; for I had no rations. My intended prisoner did not return, and I remained hidden in the bushes. I noted that at dawn his friends went out with an empty sack each, and an iron pointed stick; returning with the sack partly filled about sunset. Boiled White Ants About midnight that night my man returned, and I promptly descended on the camp and arrested him. By that time I was wolfish, and seeing pots on the fire I demanded food—and got it. A greasy mess of boiled larvae of white ants, resembling large grains of very fatty rice! As an accompaniment, I was offered the carcase of a tortoise which had been thrown on the fire alive and unclean: in such fashion these people lived; seeking such food from day to day, in preference to working for an employer. Yet I should not care to pit my very considerable powers of physical endurance against theirs! At various times since then, owing to being “bushed” while hunting, marooned in swamps by natives deserting at night, and other causes, I have sampled many strange foods without ill-effects if without any enjoyment! Between the Quando and Okavango Rivers, for instance. I lived once for three days on roots of a bush—resembling a yam—and fat

green caterpillars, sometimes boiled and sometimes sun-dried. I preferred the roots, but they were not alway; available! Yet these natives who are often short of grain owing to scanty rainfall—eagerly collect these caterpillars as a delicacy, even in seasons of plenty. Roots and wild fruits form their staple diet, and they are a “hefty” type; big-boned and well-muscled! Crocodile Eggs Ostrich eggs are quite a common dish. But on one occasion I sojourned a week among the swamp-dwellers of the Bamaashi country, and lived principally on the roots of a kind of water-lily and crocodile eggs. The roots were about the size of a turnip, pink in colour, something like a cucumber in internal appearance, and slightly sour in flavour. The crocodile eggs had no yolk, but were dead white all through, and when hardboiled went down very well with “hunger sauce.” I should not. think of comparing them with those of the ordinary barn-door fowl, but I found consolation in the thought of the numerous potential young crocodiles I was destroying! The white neophyte in the “silent places” may find little scope for selection in forest foods, and may consider the choice often narrowed down to one between something and nothing. But the African native discovers therein such a wide range of edibles that he can, and does, become fastidious, and evolves gastronomic fashions—both individual and tribal—as distinct and dominant as those of the Eskimo, or the American millionaire. In the matter of cereals, roots, fruits and fish he can do this without any great self-denial or hardship; but that he should place any sort of meat on the prescribed list is very surprising. For meat is always in short supply, and missionaries and others constantly assert their belief that **he will do anything for meat' >

I myself had that impression, uri one day I shot a duiker, and two a: of my six natives' refused to eat ir of the meat. I noticed a cent regret about their refusal, and astK the reason. It seemed they we: half-brothers, and on the authon" of a witch doctor, their father believed that the spirits of his ancestors had all been allotted the dnitshape as their future habitation. Es name, in fact, signified the anim. and all his family were strictly * joined never to kill or eat the tat lest they inadvertently deprive aif ceased relative’s spirit of its gv home!

Later, in Barotseland, I killed sft zebra, and having about 20 hnnr natives working with my wagons, a no meat, I reserved a small joint!*: myself and offered them the re? To my surprise, they all refused i and when I asked the reason, sak "It is horse!”

“Well!” I persisted, “what it? It is young and fat and fresh” “Oh, yes!” one of them answered “but our people never eat horse Eless we are very hungry!” Yet a few days earlier these natitK had caught a lot of barbel in a sia! river, deliberately hung them K wagons in the blazing sun, until tie! were distended to twice their toner size—and emitted a stench which i pregnated the air for a hundft: yards—and had eaten them every appearance of relish This. l ' it seemed, was a fashion. Fish «£•• and should be eaten in an advance stage of decomposition; but reflesh only under the urge of hunger! Grilled Snake! So, too, with snakes. There fnot only natives who never eat the hut who cannot be persuaded handle them, lest —as they scales imprint themselves upon thrown flesh! There are others who *- only certain species. I once » Basuto policemen in the Bechnn- 1 land Protectorate eat a large Pl'-;' though the flesh appeared to 00 only of rolls of fat. «Yet they have been horrified at the suggesvthat they should eat a puff-adder Only once have 1 seen natives one of the latter, and that was Belgian Katanga. My carriers gaied the reptile under the Mee I elected to camp, and I I ) a assumed that they would thro away. Going to the fire to see dinner was progressing—i UEt sundown—l found they had cal V, snake in sections —without a* or cleaning it —and had thro into a pot of water upon the B The top section when I ... happened to be the head, an the influence of heat the ja a opened wide displaying l “f fangs. I was new to Africa 1 t , days, and the sight destroi appetite for dinner! I fo ” n ever, that only four of mv J ■ proposed to eat the gruesom They belonged to a Central tribe. among whom ’ st ® w hjosi !.* adder” happened to be a tas dish: while the others d'd not-^ These are only a few of tne f foods upon which whites ca ’ a pinch, without ill-effects - I vigour. But habit is a master, and I confess that occasion a subsequent dis meat, potatoes and pumps lll , eis jj mealies, struck me as a ■>cr> j: ; sight indeed. To say nothing 1 coffee to follow!