第六十五章。作为菜肴的鲸。
凡人竟要去吃那为他点亮渔灯的生灵，而且像斯塔布那样，可以说，借着那生灵自己的光来吃它；这看来如此荒唐，使人不得不略略考究一番其中的历史与道理。
据记载，三个世纪以前，露脊鲸的舌头在法国被视为珍馐，售价极高。又据载，在亨利八世时代，宫廷中某位厨子因发明了一种佐烤江豚的绝妙酱汁而获厚赏——你当记得，江豚也是鲸的一种。江豚至今仍被认为鲜美可食。其肉被做成台球大小的丸子，佐以好调料和香料，简直会被当成甲鱼丸或小牛肉丸。邓弗姆林的旧日修士极爱此物。他们曾获王室特许，大啖江豚。
事实是，至少在捕鲸人当中，若不是鲸实在太大，人人都会视其为佳肴；可是当你坐到将近一百英尺长的肉饼前，胃口也就没了。如今只有像斯塔布那样毫无偏见的人才会吃烹制的鲸肉；不过爱斯基摩人没这般挑剔。我们都知道他们靠鲸为生，还藏有陈年上好的鲸油佳酿。他们最有名的医生之一佐格兰达，建议给婴孩喂 strips of blubber（译注：生鲸脂条），说其汁水丰盈、营养丰富。这倒叫我记起，早年间有几个英国人随捕鲸船误留在格陵兰，竟靠岸上榨过油后丢下的霉烂鲸肉碎屑活了好几个月。荷兰捕鲸人管这些碎屑叫“油煎饼”；它们也确实形似——棕黄而酥脆，新鲜时闻着有点像老阿姆斯特丹主妇的炸面圈或油煎糕。它们瞧着如此可口，最自持的生客也难不动手。
然而令鲸作为文明菜肴更掉价的，是它极度的肥腻。它是海中头等壮牛，肥得失了细腻的好滋味。看那驼峰，本可如野牛峰（被视为罕有美味）般好吃，无奈是实打实的脂肪金字塔。但鲸脑油本身，何等柔润如奶油；像椰子生长第三个月时透明、半冻、白色的果肉，却又太肥，不堪代黄油。不过许多捕鲸人有法子把它化入别物再食。长夜熬油守更时，水手们常把船饼浸入大油锅稍炸。我便如此吃过不少好宵夜。
若是小抹香鲸，脑髓算一道好菜。用斧劈开颅匣，取出两团胖白叶肉（活像两个大布丁），拌粉烹成极妙一味，风味略似牛头肉——某些老饕视其为佳肴；而谁都知道，某些年轻公子哥儿老吃牛脑，渐渐也长出点自己的脑子，竟能分清牛头与自己头颅；这实在需要不凡的眼力。也正因此，当个聪慧模样的牛头摆在年轻公子哥儿面前，总成了最可哀的景象之一。那牛头神色宛若责怪，一副“还有你，布鲁图！”的表情。
陆上人视吃鲸为嫌恶，或许不全因鲸太油腻；似乎多少出于前述那层考量：即人要吃海里新遭屠戮的生灵，且借它自己的光吃。但无疑，第一个杀牛的人也被看作凶手；或许他被吊死了；若由牛来审他，必死无疑；若说有凶手该死，他也该死。周六夜去肉市，看成排活双足兽仰盯长列死四足兽。这景象岂不锉了食人者的獠牙？食人者？谁不是食人者？我告诉你，囤瘦传教士防饥的斐济人，在审判日比你们这些文明开化的美食家更可原谅——你们把鹅钉在地上，吃那胀肝做的鹅肝酱。
可斯塔布借鲸自己的光吃它，是吧？那是欺人太甚，是吗？看看你刀柄，我文明开化的美食家，吃那烤牛肉的你，刀柄何物所制？——岂非你吃的那牛的兄弟的骨？吃完肥鹅，你拿什么剔牙？同禽之羽。而“反虐待公鹅会”秘书，用何羽笔写通函？不过近一两个月，该会才决议只用钢笔。
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 record, 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 Esquimaux are
not so fastidious. We all know how they live upon whales, and have rare
old vintages of prime old train oil. Zogranda, 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 watches
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 supper 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
bucks 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!” 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.
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 formally indite his circulars? It is only within the last month
or two that that society passed a resolution to patronize nothing but
steel pens.
