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whitish lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling two large puddings),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.
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