65 The Whale as a Dish
CHAPTER 65
THE WHALE AS A DISH.
That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds his lamp, and, like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say; this seems so outlandish a thing that one must needs go a little into the history and philosophy of it.
It is upon recordIt is upon record: Mansfield and Vincent (757) show that in this paragraph the record for France is William Scoresby's An Account of the Arctic Regions, while the information about Henry VIII (1491-1547), who reigned as King of England from 1502 to 1547, and Dunfermline (a Benedictine abbey founded in 1072 near Edinburgh, Scotland) comes from Sir Robert Sibbald, The History of Fife and Kinross, also cited in “Extracts.”, that three centuries ago the tongue of the Right Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded large prices there. Also, that in Henry VIIIth’s time, a certain cook of the court obtained a handsome reward for inventing an admirable sauce to be eaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember, are a species of whale. Porpoises, indeed, are 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 Dunfermline were very fond of them. They had a great porpoise grant from the crown.
The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him; but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite. Only the most unprejudiced of men like Stubb, nowadays partake of cooked whales; but the EsquimauxEsquimaux: French for various circumpolar peoples such as the Inuit, Yupik/Yuit, and Aleut, popularly known as Eskimo. are not so fastidious. We all know how they live upon whales, and have rare old vintages of prime old train oil. ZograndaZogranda: A corruption of Dr. Sangrado in Alain Le Sage’s novel Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (1715–1735), suggesting “So grand” for the pompous William Scoresby, whom Melville elsewhere mocks as “Snoghead,” “Fogo von Slack,” and “Captain Sleet.”, one of their most famous doctors, recommends strips of blubber for infants, as being exceedingly juicy and nourishing. And this reminds me that certain Englishmen, who long ago were accidentally left in Greenland by a whaling vessel—that these men actually lived for several months on the mouldy scraps of whales which had been left ashore after trying out the blubber. Among the Dutch whalemen these scraps are called “fritters;” which, indeed, they greatly resemble, being brown and crisp, and smelling something like old Amsterdam housewives’ dough-nuts or oly-cooks, when fresh. They have such an eatable look that the most self-denying stranger can hardly keep his hands off.
But what further depreciates the whale as a civilized dish, is his exceeding richness. He is the great prize ox of the sea, too fat to be delicately good. Look at his hump, which would be as fine eating as the buffalo’s (which is esteemed a rare dish), were it not such a solid pyramid of fat. But the spermaceti itself, how bland and creamy that is; like the transparent, half-jellied, white meat of a cocoanut in the third month of its growth, yet far too rich to supply a substitute for butter. Nevertheless, many whalemen have a method of absorbing it into some other substance, and then partaking of it. In the long try watchestry watches: turns of duty at the tryworks. A watch at sea was usually four hours; the try watches were six. of the night it is a common thing for the seamen to dip their ship-biscuit into the huge oil-pots
and let them fry there awhile. Many a good supperdip their ship-biscuit: According to Mansfield and Vincent (757), the source for the description of frying ship biscuit and whale brains is J. Ross Browne, Etchings of a Whaling Cruise. have I thus made.
In the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted a fine dish. The casket of the skull is broken into with an axe, and the two plump, whitish lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling two large puddings), they are then mixed with flour, and cooked into a most delectable mess, in flavor somewhat resembling calves’ head, which is quite a dish among some epicures; and every one knows that some young bucksbucks: stylish fellows, dandies. among the epicures, by continually dining upon calves’ brains, by and by get to have a little brains of their own, so as to be able to tell a calf’s head from their own heads; which, indeed, requires uncommon discrimination. And that is the reason why a young buck with an intelligent looking calf’s head before him, is somehow one of the saddest sights you can see. The head looks a sort of reproachfully at him, with an “Et tu Brute!”“Et tu Brute!”: Caesar’s dying words to his friend and assassin, meaning “And you too, Brutus!” in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (3.1.77). expression.
It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessively unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with abhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the consideration before mentioned: i. e. that a man should eat a newly murdered thing of the sea, and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first man that ever murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was hung; and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been; and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the meat-market of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal’s jaw? Cannibals? who is not a cannibal?
I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy paté-de-foie-gras.REVISION NARRATIVE: Providence and Pâté de Foie Gras // In “The Whale as a Dish,” Ishmael considers the “history and philosophy” of eating whale meat and extends his pantheism, or belief that divinity resides in all things, to the comic but not necessarily absurd conclusion that eating whale is a form of cannibalism. The preceding question “who is not a cannibal?” echoes the query “Who aint a slave?” in “Loomings” (Ch. 1) and recalls the image of “the universal cannibalism of the sea” in “Brit” (Ch. 58); it also anticipates the more frightful scene of “The Shark Massacre” in the following chapter. Here, however, Ishmael brings cannibalism to the dinner table and does so with a religious zeal that prompted his British editor to expurgate. To be sure, Melville initially plays upon the Fiji islander's reputation for ferocity and cannibalism, but he pushes beyond the stereotype, calling the Fejee “provident” (i.e. providing for future needs), and pushes further when he finds the “provident Fejee” in better standing at “the day of judgment” than the “civilized and enlightened gourmand” who feasts on pâté de foie gras, a delicacy made from the livers of geese who are force fed until their livers nearly burst. Though Ishmael is merely satirizing improvident meat-eaters, Melville's British editor expurgated this entire sentence. To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin.
But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle, there, my civilized and enlightened gourmand dining off that roast beef, what is that handle made of?—what but the bones of the brother of the very ox you are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring that fat goose? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what quill did the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to Ganders formallyformally: The NN editors speculate that “formally” should be “formerly,” and they emended their text accordingly. Their argument—which is not based on a British variant—is that “formerly” better fits the context of the following sentence in which we learn that the Anti-Cruelty society has, “within the last month or two,” switched from goose quill pens to steel. The point made clear by “formerly” is that the society once used goose quills to write circulars against the abuse of geese but now has stopped. The editors also argue that, given Melville’s handwriting, “formerly” could have been misread as “formally” (NN Moby-Dick 792), an error that Melville could have corrected in the corrected pages he sent to England, though, in fact, he did not. Nevertheless, the American and British word “formally” fits the context equally well, if not better, as the implied writing of “formal” circulars underscores the solemn pretension of the ludicrously hypocritical society that has only recently discovered its hypocrisy. Indeed, the use of “formerly” undercuts this concluding joke by anticipating and stepping on the punch line in the last sentence. MEL makes no change. indite his circulars? It is only within the last month or two that that society passed a resolution to patronize nothing but steel pens.