Frank
Buckland (1826-1880) was a free spirit in the World of Victorian Natural
History. He was the eldest son of William Buckland, the Canon of Christ Church
Oxford and later Dean of Westminster, and both his father and mother had a
passion for plants and animals. This was a strong influence on Frank as he grew
up and his love of Natural History did not abate during his career as a surgeon
in The Life Guards. While in the Army, he became a popular lecturer and writer of
articles for the general public, including regular descriptions of recent arrivals
at London Zoo, and, after failing in his bid to become the senior surgeon of
his regiment, resigned his commission to continue a new career as a professional
Natural Historian. 1
Frank
Buckland was certainly unconventional and this is highlighted by his
biographers. The US version of G.H.O.Burgess’ book The Curious World of Frank Buckland is titled The Eccentric Ark 2 to emphasise the nature of Frank’s
home surroundings, and Lynn Barber 3 describes Frank as “The Pioneer
of Zoophagy”. From a child, through adulthood, he was surrounded by a menagerie
of animals and Frank was an enthusiastic sampler of all new types of food put
before him, a trait that he had early in life - having tried crocodile as a
young child and several kinds of native food caught on foraging excursions
during his time at Winchester College. 2 Frank Buckland’s
brother-in-law, George C. Bompas, records: 1
Buckland
emulated [Gilbert] White and [Charles] Waterton in never stating anything as a
fact, of which he had not satisfied himself by actual experiment. I once found
him cooking a piece of a dead kelt [a salmon that has spawned]. “Good
gracious!” I said, “how can you eat anything so abominably nasty?” “No doubt,”
he said, “it is nasty enough, but how can I say so unless I have tried it?”
A
channel for Frank’s interests came in the mid nineteenth century. In 1854, the
Société Impériale Zoologique d’Acclimatation was founded in Paris and thus
began a movement that was close to Frank’s heart. The Acclimatisation Society was
formed in London in 1860 (a full description of the movement in Great Britain
and elsewhere is given in Christopher Lever’s book They Dined On Eland: The Story of the Acclimatisation Societies 4)
and this brought many of Frank’s interests in Natural History together,
especially the collecting and eating of animals and plants, of a range that was
quite unfamiliar to most. He seized on the chance to further “The art of
discovering animals, beasts, birds, fishes, insects, plants and other natural
products, and utilizing them in places where they were unknown before” 2
In Acclimatisation, Frank had found a cause and, together with other Society
members, he suggested a whole new series of immigrations and domestications.
Bompas 1 quotes Frank as saying:
On
January 21, 1859, I had the good fortune to be invited to a dinner, which will,
I trust, hereafter form the date of an epoch in natural history; I mean the now
celebrated eland dinner, when, for the first time, the freshly killed haunch of
this African antelope was placed on the table of the London tavern. The savoury
smell of the roasted beast seemed to have pervaded the naturalist world, for a
goodly company were assembled, all eager for the experiment. At the head of the
table sat Professor Owen himself, his scalpel turned into a carving knife, and
his gustatory apparatus in full working order. It was, indeed, a zoological
dinner to which each of the four points of the compass had sent its
contribution. We had a large pike from the east; American partridges shot but a
few days ago in the dense woods of the Transatlantic West; a wild goose,
probably a young bean goose, from the North; and an eland from the South..
..The gastronomic trial over, we next enjoyed an intellectual treat in hearing
from the professor his satisfaction at having been present at a new epoch in
natural history. He put forth the benefits which would accrue to us by naturalising
animals from foreign parts, animals good for food as well as ornamental to the
parks.
One
of the features of The Acclimatisation Society was their Dinners. For example,
the Society Dinner on 12th July 1862 included bird’s nest soup; tripang (a sea
cucumber that required much cooking as the specimens had been dried); kangaroo;
soup made from the tendons of Axis Deer; Chinese lamb; wild boar; pintail duck;
Canada Duck; Curassow (a South American bird); Guan (a Central and South
American game bird); rabbit; Honduras Turkey; and sweet potatoes. Bompas goes
on to describe the rest of the offerings: Digby herring salad; Botargo (“the
roe of the red mullet, dried and used as caviar by the gourmets of the Ionian islands”); and a series of fruits from
Réunion, Dominica and also from Australia. Opinions were expressed on the
various courses and there was much discussion of the animals and plants likely
to be imported, and reared, in Britain. 1
Frank Buckland
would certainly have also been interested in the Acclimatisation Societies that
were formed in other countries 4 and would not have been daunted by
the size of the Dinner mounted by the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria, Australia, on
6th July 1864. 5 This is a summary of the menu:
- Oysters
- Soups (5 dishes, including Kangaroo Tail Soup)
- Fish (13 dishes, including Yan Yean Eels)
- Entrees (10 dishes, including Fricandeau of Wombat and Curried
Bandicoot)
- Cold (9 dishes, including Galantine of Turkey)
- Boiled (2 dishes, including Boiled Rabbits)
- Roasts (11 dishes, including Saddle of Kangaroo and Wood Duck)
- Game (14 dishes, including Hare and Teal)
- Vegetables (3 dishes, including Jerusalem Artichokes)
- Sweets (20 dishes)
The dinner not only shows the preparedness of those present
to sample a wide range of native foods, but also introduced types. Of course, introductions escape and we are now very familiar
with the problems created, for example, by rabbits in Australia and by Grey
Squirrels and Canada Geese in Great Britain, and in other countries. However,
we could follow the Acclimatisation Societies and regard them as valuable sources of
food. For example, Grey Squirrels and Canada Geese are good to eat and are already being
promoted on a small scale 6,7 It would only require a celebrity chef
to use these animals in a cooking show on TV to ensure wide-scale demand. Many
of us seem reluctant to experiment with unfamiliar foods, unless given a lead
by someone in the media; someone who could take on the mantle of Frank Buckland.
The killing of Grey Squirrels and Canada Geese would certainly
cause an upset, as groups of both animals are fed readily by members of the
public, especially those with young children. Yet, the same people love to see
pigs, sheep, cows, etc., in fields, while trying to forget that they are taken
from farms to markets and from markets to abattoirs. Grey Squirrels and Canada Geese,
in contrast, would be culled in their natural surroundings and that is surely more
acceptable?
1 George C. Bompas (1885) Life of Frank Buckland. London, Smith,
Elder & Co..
2 G.H.O.Burgess (1967) The Eccentric Ark: The Curious World of
Frank Buckland. New York, Horizon Press.
3 Lynn Barber (1980) The Heyday of Natural History 1820-1870.
London, Jonathan Cape.
4 Christopher Lever Bt. (1992) They Dined on Eland: The Story of the
Acclimatisation Societies. London, Quiller Press.
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