A common species in Egypt, the Blaps sulcata, is made into a preparation which the Egyptian women eat with the view of acquiring what they esteem a proper degree of plumpness! The beetle they broil and mash up in clarified butter; then add honey, oil of sesame, and a variety of aromatics and spices pounded together. Fabricius reports that the Turkish women also eat this insect, cooked with butter, to make them fat. He also tells us that they use it in Egypt and the Levant, as a remedy for pains and maladies in the ears, and against the bite of scorpions. Carsten Niebuhr also mentions this curious practice of the women of Turkey, and adds, the women of Arabia likewise make use of these insects for the same purpose, taking three of them, every morning and evening, fried in butter.
The Blatta mentioned by Pliny is evidently, from his description, the Church-yard beetle, Blaps mortisaga, instead of the insect we now call by that name — the Cockroach: and may very properly be here introduced. "There is kind of fattinesse," says this author in the words of his translator, Philemon Holland, "to bee found in the Flie or insect called Blatta, when the head is plucked off, which, if it be punned and mixed with Oile of Roses, is (as they say) wonderful good for the ears: but the wooll wherein this medicine is enwrapped, and which is put into the ears, must not long tarrie there, but within a little while drawne forth againe; for the said fat will very soone get life and prove a grub or little worme. Some writers there be who affirme, that two or three of these flies called Blattae sodden in oile, make a soveraigne medicine to cure the eares, and if they be stamped and spread upon a linen rag and so applied, they will heale the eares, if they be hurt by any bruise or contusion: Certes this is but a nastie and ill-favoured vermine, howbeit in regard of the manifold and admirable properties which naturally it hath, as also of the Industrie of our auncestours in searching out the nature of it, I am moved to write thereof at large and to the full in this place. For they have described many kinds of them. In the first place, some of them be soft and tender, which being sodden in oile, they have proved by experience to be of great efficacie in fetching off werts, if they be annointed therewith. A second sort there is, which they call Myloecon, because ordinarily it haunteth about mils and bakehouses, and there breedeth: these by the report of Muna and Picton, two famous Physicians, being bruised (after their heads were gone) and applied to a bodie infected with the leprosie, cured the same perfectly. They of a third kind, besides that they bee otherwise ill-favoured ynough, Carrie a loathsome and odious smell with them: they are sharp rumped and pin buttockt also; howbeit, being incorporat with the oile of pitch called Pisselason, they have healed those ulcers which were thought nunquam sana, and incurable. Also within one and twenty daies after this piastre laid too, it hath been knowne to cure the swelling wens called the King's evil: the botches or biles named Pani, wounds, contusions, bruises, morimals, scabs, and fellons but then their feet and wings were plucked off and cast away. I make no doubt or question, but that some of us are so daintie and fine-eared, that our stomacke riseth at the hearing onely of such medicines: and yet I assure you, Diodorus, a renowned Physician, reporteth, that he has given these foure flies inwardly with rozin and honey, for the jaundise, and to those that were so streight-winded that they could not draw their breath but sitting upright. See what libertie and power over us have these Physicians, who to practise and trie conclusions upon our bodies, may exhibit unto their patients, what they list, be it never so homely, so it goe under the name of a medicine."
The following extraordinary case of insects introduced into the human stomach, which is of rare occurrence, has been completely authenticated, both by medical men and competent naturalists. It was first published by Dr. Pickells, of Cork, in the Dublin Transactions.
Mary Riordan, aged 28, had been much affected by the death of her mother, and at one of her many visits to the grave seems to have partially lost her senses, having been found lying there on the morning of a winter's day, and having been exposed to heavy rain during the night. It appears that when she was about fifteen, two popular Catholic priests had died, and she was told by some old woman, that if she would drink daily, for a certain time, a quantity of water, mixed with clay taken from their graves, she would be forever secure from disease and sin. So following this absurd and disgusting prescription, she took from time to time large quantities of the draught; and, some time afterward, being affected with a burning pain in the stomach (cardialgia), she began to eat large pieces of chalk, which she sometimes also mixed with water and drank. In all these draughts, it is most probable, she swallowed the eggs of the enormous progenies of apterous, dipterous, and coleopterous insects, which she for several years continued to throw up alive and moving. Dr. Pickells asserts that altogether he himself saw nearly 2000 of these larvae, and that there were many he did not see, for, to avoid publicity, she herself destroyed a great number, and many, too, escaped immediately by running into holes in the floor. Of this incredible number, the greatest proportion were larvae of the Church-yard beetle, Blaps mortisaga, and of a dipterous insect, an Ascarides; and two were specimens of the Meal-worm — the larvae of the Darkling Tenebrio molitor. It may be interesting to learn that, by means of turpentine in large doses, this unfortunate woman was at length entirely rid of her pests.
Curculionidae — Weevils.
At Rio Janeiro, the brilliant Diamond-beetle, Entimus nobilis, is in great request for brooches for gentlemen, and ten piasters are often paid for a single specimen. In this city many owners send their slaves out to catch insects, so that now the rarest and most brilliant species are to be had at a comparatively trifling sum. Each of these slaves, when he has attained to some adroitness in this operation, may, on a fine day, catch in the vicinity of the city as many as five or six hundred beetles. So this trade is considered there very lucrative, since six milreis (four rix dollars, or about fourteen shillings) are paid for the hundred. For these splendid insects there is a general demand; and their wing-cases are now sought for the purpose of adorning the ladies of Europe — a fashion, it is said, which threatens the entire extinction of this beautiful tribe.
Messrs. Kidder and Fletcher tell us that in Brazil "a commerce is carried on in artificial flowers made from beetles' wings, fish-scales, sea-shells, and feathers, which attract the attention of every visitor. These are made," they continue, "by the mulheres (women) of almost every class, and thus they obtain not only pin-money, but some amass wealth in the traffic." Among the beetles referred to by these gentlemen may be placed no doubt the Entimus nobilis.
Among the largest of the species of this family is the Palm-weevil, Calandra palmarum, which is of an uniform black color, and measures more than two inches in length. Its larva, called the Grou-grou, or Cabbage-tree worm, which is very large, white, of an oval shape, resides in the tenderest part of the smaller palm-trees, and is considered, fried or broiled, as one of the greatest dainties in the West Indies. "The tree," says Madame Merian, "grows to the height of a man, and is cut off when it begins to be tender, is cooked like a cauliflower, and tastes better than an artichoke. In the middle of these trees live innumerable quantities of worms, which at first are as small as a maggot in a nut, but afterward grow to a very large size, and feed on the marrow of the tree. These worms are laid on the coals to roast, and are considered as a highly agreeable food." Capt. Stedman tells us these larvae are a delicious treat to many people, and that they are regularly sold at Paramaribo. He mentions, too, the manner of dressing them, which is by frying them in a pan with a very little butter and salt, or spitting them on a wooden skewer; and, that thus prepared, in taste they partake of all the spices of India — mace, cinnamon, cloves, nutmegs, etc. This gentleman also says he once found concealed near the trunk of an old tree a "case-bottle filled with excellent butter," which the rangers told him the natives made by melting and clarifying the fat of this larva. Dr. Winterbottom states this grub is served up at all the luxurious tables of West Indian epicures, particularly of the French, as the greatest dainty of the western world.
Dobrizhoffer doubtless refers to the larva of the Calandra palmarum, when he says: "The Spaniards of Santiago in Tucuman, when they go seeking honey in the woods, cleave certain palm-trees upon their way, and on their return find large grubs in the wounded trees, which they fry as a delicious food." The same is said of the Guaraunos of the Orinoco — "that they find these grubs in great numbers in the palms, which they cut down for the sake of their juice. After all has been drawn out that will flow, these grubs breed in the incisions, and the trunk produces, as it were, a second crop."
The Creoles of the Island of Barbados, says Schomburgk, consider the Grou-grou worm a great delicacy when roasted, and say it resembles in taste the marrow of beef-bones.
Antonio de Ulloa, in his Noticias Americanas, says this grub has the singular property of producing milk in women. The Argentina, the historic poem of Brazil, adds an assertion which is more certainly fabulous, viz., that they first become butterflies, and then mice.
They have a similar dainty in Java in the larva of some large beetle, which the natives call Moutouke. — "A thick, white maggot which lives in wood, and so eats it away, that the backs of chairs, and feet of drawers, although apparently sound, are frequently rotten within, and fall into dust when it is least expected. This creature may sometimes be heard at work. It is as big as a silk-worm, and very white, . . . a mere lump of fat. Thirty are roasted together threaded on a little stick, and are delicate eating."
Julian speaks of an Indian king, who, for a dessert, instead of fruit set before his Grecian guests a roasted worm taken from a plant, probably the larva of the Calandra palmarum, a native of Persia and Mesopotamia as well as of the West Indies, which he says the Indians esteemed very delicious — a character that was confirmed by some of the Greeks who tasted it.
The trunk of the grass-tree, or black-boy, Xanthorea arborea, when beginning to decay, furnishes large quantities of marrow-like grubs, which are considered a delicacy by the aborigines of Western Australia. They have a fragrant, aromatic flavor, and form a favorite food among the natives, either raw or roasted. They call them Bardi. They are also found in the wattle-tree, or mimosa. The presence of these grubs in the Xanthorea is thus ascertained: if the top of one of these trees is observed to be dead, and it contain any bardi, a few sharp kicks given to it with the foot will cause it to crack and shake, when it is pushed over and the grubs taken out, by breaking the tree to pieces with a hammer. The bardi of the Xanthorea are small, and found together in great numbers; those of the wattle are cream-colored, as long and thick as a man's finger, and are found singly.