FOOD IN EAST AFKICA. 



281 



slaves, and to the poor. Meat is the diet most prized ; 

 it is, however, a luxury beyond the reach of peasantry, 

 except when they can pick up the orts of the chiefs. 

 The Arabs assert that in these latitudes vegetables cause 

 heartburn and acidity, and that animal food is the most 

 digestible. The Africans seem to have made the same 

 discovery: a man who can afford it almost confines 

 himself to flesh, and he considers fat the essential element 

 of good living. The crave for meat is satisfied by eat- 

 ing almost every description of living thing, clean or 

 unclean ; as a rule, however, the East African prefers 

 beef, which strangers find flatulent and heating. Like 

 most people, they reject game when they can command 

 the flesh of tame beasts. Next to the bullock the goat 

 is preferred in the interior ; as indeed it is by the Arabs 

 of Zanzibar Island ; whereas those of Oman and of 

 Western Arabia abandon it to the Bedouins. In this part 

 of Africa the cheapest and vilest meat is mutton, and 

 its appearance — pale, soft, and braxy — justifies the 

 prejudice against it. Of late years it has become the 

 fashion to eat poultry and pigeons ; eggs, however, are 

 still avoided. In the absence of history and tradition, 

 it is difficult to decide whether this aversion to eggs 

 arises from an imported or an indigenous prejudice. 

 The mundane egg of Hindoo mythology probably typified 

 the physiological dogma "orane vivum ex ovo," and the 

 mystic disciples would avoid it as representing the prin- 

 ciple of life. In remote ages the prejudice may have ex- 

 tended to Africa, although the idea which gave birth to 

 it was not familiar to the African mind. Of wild flesh, the 

 favourite is that of the zebra; it is smoked or jerked, 

 despite which it retains a most savoury flavour. Of the 

 antelopes a few are deliciously tender and succulent ; 

 the greater part are black, coarse, and indigestible. 



