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He eats every chimp he sees, from Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Z...
Dining Like Darwin: When Scientists Swallow Their Subjects
August 12, 201512:44 PM ET
JESSIE RACK
[...]
We can't start any discussion of eating strange plants and animals without invoking that epicure of evolution: Charles Darwin himself. You see, Darwin was quite the adventurous eater, even before he became a naturalist. At Cambridge, Darwin was a member of the Glutton Club, a group of students devoted to devouring "birds and beasts which were before unknown to human palate," according to a college friend. They tasted hawk and a heron-like wading bird called a bittern, but the club dissolved after trying to eat a brown owl, "which was indescribable," Darwin reported.
Once he embarked on The Beagle, Darwin's penchant for bold food choices continued to evolve. He ate puma ("remarkably like veal in taste"), iguanas, armadillos. He not only ate giant tortoises, but tried drinking their bladder contents: "The fluid was quite limpid, and had only a very slightly bitter taste." He ate a 20-pound rodent (usually assumed to be an agouti) that provided "the very best meat I ever tasted." He even accidentally ate part of an ostrich-like bird called a lesser rhea, after spending months trying to catch it so that he could describe the species. (Don't worry: Once he realized what they were dining on, Darwin made everyone stop eating and sent a package of leftover bones, skin and feathers back to England.)
Full article (with wonderful cartoon) on the wider subject of scientific consumption:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...darwin-when-scientists-swallow-their-subjects
Dining Like Darwin: When Scientists Swallow Their Subjects
August 12, 201512:44 PM ET
JESSIE RACK
[...]
We can't start any discussion of eating strange plants and animals without invoking that epicure of evolution: Charles Darwin himself. You see, Darwin was quite the adventurous eater, even before he became a naturalist. At Cambridge, Darwin was a member of the Glutton Club, a group of students devoted to devouring "birds and beasts which were before unknown to human palate," according to a college friend. They tasted hawk and a heron-like wading bird called a bittern, but the club dissolved after trying to eat a brown owl, "which was indescribable," Darwin reported.
Once he embarked on The Beagle, Darwin's penchant for bold food choices continued to evolve. He ate puma ("remarkably like veal in taste"), iguanas, armadillos. He not only ate giant tortoises, but tried drinking their bladder contents: "The fluid was quite limpid, and had only a very slightly bitter taste." He ate a 20-pound rodent (usually assumed to be an agouti) that provided "the very best meat I ever tasted." He even accidentally ate part of an ostrich-like bird called a lesser rhea, after spending months trying to catch it so that he could describe the species. (Don't worry: Once he realized what they were dining on, Darwin made everyone stop eating and sent a package of leftover bones, skin and feathers back to England.)
Full article (with wonderful cartoon) on the wider subject of scientific consumption:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...darwin-when-scientists-swallow-their-subjects