Moby Dick

where your tongs are pointing.  But, perhaps you expect to get
into heaven by crawling through the lubber's hole, cook; but, no,
no, cook, you don't get there, except you go the regular way,
round by the rigging.  It's a ticklish business, but must be done,
or else it's no go.  But none of us are in heaven yet.
Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders.  Do ye hear?
Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t'other a'top of your heart,
when I'm giving my orders, cook.  What! that your heart, there?--
that's your gizzard!  Aloft! aloft!--that's it--now you have it.
Hold it there now, and pay attention."

"All 'dention," said the old black, with both hands placed as desired,
vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front
at one and the same time.

"Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad,
that I have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that,
don't you?  Well, for the future, when you cook another whale-steak
for my private table here, the capstan, I'll tell you what to do
so as not to spoil it by overdoing.  Hold the steak in one hand,
and show a live coal to it with the other; that done, dish it; d'ye hear?
And now to-morrow, cook, when we are cutting in the fish, be sure
you stand by to get the tips of his fins; have them put in pickle.
As for the ends of the flukes, have them soused, cook.  There, now
ye may go."

But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled.

"Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch. D'ye
hear? away you sail then.--Halloa! stop! make a bow before you go.--
Avast heaving again!  Whale-balls for breakfast--don't forget."

"Wish, by gor! whale eat him, 'stead of him eat whale.
I'm bressed if he ain't more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself,"
muttered the old man, limping away; with which sage ejaculation
he went to his hammock.




CHAPTER 65

The Whale as a Dish




That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds
his lamp, and, like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say;
this seems so outlandish a thing that one must needs go a little
into the history and philosophy of it.

It is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the Right Whale
was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded large
prices there.  Also, that in Henry VIIIth's time, a certain cook of
the court obtained a handsome reward for inventing an admirable sauce
to be eaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember, are a species
of whale.  Porpoises, indeed, are to this day considered fine eating.
The meat is made into balls about the size of billiard balls,
and being well seasoned and spiced might be taken for turtle-balls
or veal balls.  The old monks of Dunfermline were very fond of them.
They had a great porpoise grant from the crown.

The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would
by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much
of him; but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie
nearly one hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite.
Only the most unprejudiced of men like Stubb, nowadays partake
of cooked whales; but the Esquimaux are not so fastidious.
We all know how they live upon whales, and have rare old vintages
of prime old train oil.  Zogranda, one of their most famous doctors,
recommends strips of blubber for infants, as being exceedingly
juicy and nourishing.  And this reminds me that certain Englishmen,
who long ago were accidentally left in Greenland by a whaling vessel--
that these men actually lived for several months on the mouldy
scraps of whales which had been left ashore after trying
out the blubber.  Among the Dutch whalemen these scraps
are called "fritters"; which, indeed, they greatly resemble,
being brown and crisp, and smelling something like old
Amsterdam housewives' dough-nuts or oly-cooks, when fresh.
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,