58 ANIMAL FOOD EESOURCES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 



man. The mole is said to be eaten by some of those 

 who trap them. 



The Greeks devoured the flesh of the hedgehog {Eri- 

 naceus Europmus). When it has been well fed it is said 

 to be sweet and well flavoured, and the flesh is eaten in 

 many places on the Continent. It is during winter in his 

 dormitory that the animal is fat and in good order. A 

 gentleman who tried them stewed, says they reminded 

 him a good deal of quail. 



In the neighbourhood of Oxford I met an old gipsy 

 woman, who, although squalid and dirty, was proud in 

 being able to claim relationship with Black Jemmy, the 

 king of the gipsies. She informed me that there were 

 two ways of cooking a hedgehog, and seemed much sur- 

 prised at my question whether her tribe ever eat them, 

 as if there could exist a doubt on the subject. I ex- 

 pressed a wish to know the process, the receipt for which 

 I subjoin in her own words : — " You cut the bristles off 

 'em with a sharp knife after you kills 'em fust. Sir ; then 

 you sweals them," (Oxfordshire, burn them with straw 

 like a bacon pig,) " and makes the rind brown, like a 

 pig's swealings ; then you cuts 'em down the back, and 

 spits 'em on a bit of stick pointed at both ends, and then 

 you roasts 'em with a strong flare." It appears that 

 hedgehogs are sometimes in season and sometimes out of 

 season. My informant told me that they are nicest at 

 Michaelmas time, when they have been eating the crabs 

 which fall from the hedges. " Some," she added, " have 

 yellow fat, and some white fat, and we calls 'em mutton 

 and beef hedgehogs ; and very nice eating they be. Sir, 

 when the fat is on 'em." The other way of cooking 

 hedgehogs has gone out of fashion. The gipsy's grand- 

 mother used to cook them in the following manner, but 

 it appears they are best roasted : — The exploded fashion 

 is to temper up a bit of common clay, and then cover up 

 the hedgehog, bristles and all, in it — like an apple in 

 paste, when an apple dumpling is contemplated,^ then 

 hedgehog, clay and all, is to be placed in a hole in the 

 ground and a fire lighted over it ; when the clay is found 



