This proverb takes
variety of taste in food as a typical illustration of the difference between
man and man in susceptibility to various pleasures. We may first treat the
question collectively and show that one nation’s food is another nation’s
poison. Almost every country on the face of the earth has some peculiar
delicacy, which would be rejected with loathing by the rest of the world. Some
savage nations are or were cannibals, and it is said that, wherever this
horrible custom prevails, human flesh is preferred to all other meat. The
Savages of Australia eat insects and grubs; those of Terra deli Fugue, the
putrid blubber of whales. The Esquire also live upon whale blubber, and
supply themselves with vegetables out of the stomachs of dead reindeer.
Herodotus. The Greek historian, mentions a tribe that subsisted upon lice or
fir cones.
Among the great
varieties of castes and tribes to be found in Pakistan, some are known to eat
serpents, and one low caste devours greedily the flesh of cattle that have died
of disease. The Chinese are said to relish rotten eggs, and they certainly
regard soup made of a particular kind of bird’s nest as a great delicacy. The
ancient Romans were found of edible snails, and highly esteemed fish that were
caught in the Tiber where the main drain of Rome flowed into the river. In
modem Europe the Frenchman’s taste for frogs seems horrible and unnatural to
the ordinary Englishman.
If we now turn from the
consideration of nations to individuals, we find the same diversity of taste in
the matter of food. What is harmless and nutritious to ordinary men act like
poison upon some peculiar constitutions? Thus there are persons who have such a
strong antipathy to butter and eggs, or mushrooms, or milk that when they eat a
dish partly composed of whichever of these is their particular antipathy, they,
become sick, even if they do not know beforehand what they are eating. These
strange antipathies may be regarded as exaggerated forms of the likes and dislikes
that manifest themselves whenever a party of human beings sit down to a social
meal, though they may all being to the same country and the same class. Some
like highly-seasoned dishes, others prefer plain food. It is not every one who
could relish boiled pork and veal pie with plums and sugar, although these were
the dishes that Dr. Johnson was especially fond of. Nearly every man has his
own favourite fruit, vegetable, and drink. Some are too fond of wine, whereas
others regard wine as poison and enjoy a cup of cold water.
There is the same
diversity of tastes in a far more extended sphere than that of eating and
drinking. The hunger delights is spending the whole day in the chase of wild
beasts, and his plea. sure is comprehensible to those who have not natural
inclination for the chase, and cannot understand why a man should go tramping over
hill and dale in the hope of inflicting sever bodily pain on animals that have
never done him any harm Some have a taste for intellectual pleasures, other
prefer active out-door games. Some love public life, others are so constituted
as to prefer to live in seclusion.
Even where there is a
general similarity of tastes there are strongly marked special differences.
What a variety of taste, for instance, we find among the lovers of books! A few
great writers have won the mes of universal admiration; but with regard to
second-rate authors, numberless volumes have been written by critics in support
of their own especial favourites. Much of such controversial writing is wasted.
Difference of taste generally depends upon permanent mental characteristic,
which cannot be altered by reasoning or eloquent pleading, so that there is a
great deal of truth in the adage. De gust bus non EST. Disputant (there is no use in disputing
about tastes).