Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



in England ; sauer-kraut is detested in France ; 

 many races and gangs of people are quite certain 

 they would die if deprived of meat, others think 

 spirits of some kind a necessity, while to others 

 again both these things are an abomination. 

 Every country district has its local practices in 

 food, and the peasants look with the greatest 

 suspicion on any new dish, and can rarely be 

 induced to adopt it. Though it has been abun- 

 dantly proved that many of the British fungi 

 are excellent eating, such is the force of custom 

 that the mushroom alone is ever publicly recog- 

 nised, while curiously enough it is said that in some 

 other countries where the claims of other agarics 

 are allowed the mushroom itself is not used ! 

 Finally, I feel myself (and the gentle reader probably 

 feels the same) that I would rather die than subsist 

 on insects^ such is the deep-seated disgust we 

 experience towards this class of food. Yet it is 

 notorious that many races of respectable people 

 adopt a diet of this sort, and only lately a book 

 has been published giving details of the excellent 

 provender of the kind that we habitually over- 

 look — tasty morsels of caterpillars and beetles, 

 and so forth 1 And indeed, when one comes to 

 think of it, what can it be but prejudice which 

 causes one to eat the periwinkle and reject the 

 land-snail, or to prize the lively prawn and pro- 

 scribe the cheerful grasshopper } 



It is useless to say that these local and other 

 divergencies are rooted in the necessities of the 

 localities and times in which they occur. They 



208 



