The Tao of Travel

Travelers to the World of the Desert Arabs

(1987)

Garlic, Food of the Fellah

Those skilled in simples [medicinal plants], Eastern as well as Western, praise garlic highly, declaring that it "strengthens the body, prepares the constitution for fatigue, brightens the sight, and, by increasing the digestive power, obviates the ill-effects arising from sudden change of air and water." The traveler inserts it into his dietary in some pleasant form, as "Provence butter," because he observes that, wherever fever and ague abound, the people ignorant of cause but observant of effect, make it a common article of food. The old Egyptians highly esteemed this vegetable, which, with onions and leeks, enters into the list of articles so much regretted by the Hebrews ... In Arabia, however, the stranger must use this vegetable sparingly. The city people despise it as the food of a Fellah—a boor. The Wahhabis have a prejudice against onions, leeks and garlic, because the Prophet disliked their strong smell.

—Sir Richard Burton,

Personal Narrative of a

Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah (1853)

A Slave in Gabon for His Evening Meal

Then [Remandji, king of the Apingi] said, "Be glad, oh spirit! And eat of the things we give thee."

Whereupon, to my astonishment, a slave was handed over to me bound, and Remandji said, "Kill him for your evening meal; he is tender and fat, and you must be hungry." It took me a moment to recover from my astonishment. Then I shook my head, spat violently on the ground, and made Minsho tell them that I abhorred the people who ate human flesh, and that I and my people never did so.

To which Remandji replied, "We always heard that you white people eat men. Why do you buy our people [as slaves]? Why do you come from nobody knows where, and carry off our men, and women, and children? Do you not fatten them in your far country and eat them? Therefore I give you this slave, that you might kill him and make your heart glad."

It was a difficult matter to explain to the king that he was much mistaken.

—Paul Du Chaillu,

Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa

(1861)

Many Eat the Hedgehog

S

COLDED BY

B

EDOUINS

at the Teyma oasis for eating "swine's flesh,"

C. M. Doughty lost his temper, and raged:

If God have commanded you anything, keep it; I see you eat crows and kites, and the lesser carrion eagle. Some of you eat owls, some eat serpents. The great lizard you all eat, and locusts, and the spring-rat; Many eat the hedgehog; in certain (Hejaz) villages they eat rats, you cannot deny it! You eat the wolf, too, and the fox and the foul hyena. In a word, there is nothing so vile that some of you will not eat it.

 —

Travels in Arabia Deserta

(1888)

Cats, Camels, Foxes, Owls, and Others

Andalusians do not eat cats and dogs even when they are very hungry, but in Estremadura they're regarded as delicacies. A woman from Alcantara who is fond of cats and would never kill one herself, tells me that she has eaten cat stew and that it is tastier than either rabbit or hare. The Estremadurans also eat martens and weasels and foxes, and declare, though I do not believe it, that a fried leg of fox is the best thing imaginable. But then they are a race of cattlemen and hunters, ancestors of the Argentine gauchos, and put in a pot whatever the gun brings down. The only animal they bar is the wolf. Gypsies eat frogs, snakes and lizards as well as farmyard animals that have died a natural death, while there is a whole village nearJerez which till a few years ago spent its night hunting the camels that ran wild in the marshes at the mouth of the Guadalquivir. As for birds, they are all eaten in the south of Spain and the list includes eagles, owls and hawks. The only ones rejected are seagulls, crows and vultures, and the sacred swallow and stork.

—Gerald Brenan,

South from Granada

(1957)

Mr. Black, the Blood Drinker in Tangier