Immortal Meals #26: The Professors and the Cave Bone Broth September 12, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern, Prehistoric , trackback
The immortal meals series has included prehistoric food and it has included an unlikely Victorian dinner in a dinosaur but this reference, thanks to Chris from Haunted Ohio Books is on a whole different level.
Some of the bones of extinct animals found beneath the stalagmite floor of caves in England and elsewhere, presumably of about the same age as the Siberian mammoths, still contain enough animal matter to produce a good strong stock for antediluvian broth, which has been scientifically described by a high authority as pre-Adamite jelly. The congress of naturalists at Tubingen a few years since had a smoking tureen of this cave-bone soup placed upon the dinner table at their hotel one evening, and pronounced it with geological enthusiasm ‘scarcely inferior to prime oxtail.’ Daily Illinois State Journal [Springfield, IL] 4 September 1885, p. 6
This is a mangled extract from Grant Allen, the famous Victorian populariser of science: the passage appears in his 1890 book Falling in Love. The essay from which it comes, ‘Fossil Foods’ was presumably published at an earlier date: the bulk of the essay concerns the one true fossil food, salt, though Allen also goes into some detail with defrosting mammoth flesh that must have been occasionally eaten by Siberians in the nineteenth century. Beach has had no luck tracing the Congress in Tubingen, c. 1880 (Grant includes an umlaut Beach, like the Illinois journalist, can’t be bothered). Indeed, he has been unable to follow the reference any further back towards source. Pre-Adamite refers to the heretical view that human beings had existed before Adam, which, of course, begs all kinds of questions.
As a consolation prize Beach did, however, come across contemporary dinosaur cooks. On a ModernistFood blog, memory of the Futurists, there is a fascinating post on Dinosaur Bone Broth by ‘Caren’. The author reminds us that: ‘There are no blueprints or rules to working with dinosaur fossils in the kitchen – it’s uncharted territory.’ She also notes that unlike Grant Allen’s friends with their meaty bones: ‘With no soft tissue, marrow-based dishes were out of the question.’ So they decide to boil the flavor out of fossils to give their broth a meaty flavor. ‘It tastes like chicken, but it has a riverbed, river-stone vibe. There’s a citrus quality that’s really nice and appealing.’ It is well worth reading the post but do read to the very end (and weep)…
Beach is always on the look out for immortal meals: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
19 Sept 2015: Chris S writes ‘In the past couple of years dinosaur bones with soft tissue have been unearthed. Your recent post jogged that memory and how if I was one of those paleontologists, I’d be the first to dig out a morsel, heat it over a lighter and be the first known human to eat dinosaur. Food poisoning be damned! Link for 75 million year old soft tissue. Thanks, Chris!
