Page:Ports of the world - Canton (1920).djvu/52

CANTON

The reader has already learned that cockroaches in honey and snakes in broth are favorite foods with some classes of people in Canton, but these strange dishes are not the only ones of their kind enjoyed by the Cantonese. Rats, cats, and young dogs are highly prized by epicureans of one class or another in Canton; and so the old jingle about "Rats, cats, and puppy-dog tails" is not very much amiss when applied to Canton.

In recent years rat eating has been forbidden in Canton, since the authorities have come to realize that the creatures spread several dangerous diseases, the most dread among them being the bubonic plague; but even now, many of the people in the lower classes find it impossible to resist the temptation offered by the sight of fat, gray rats, and go ahead and eat them despite all laws and regulations to the contrary.

The upper classes never favored the common gray rat particularly, but ate a species of field rat—quite different from the other kind and declared to be most appetizing. However, the practice of rat eating is not so general in China as formerly. As a rule, it is indulged in only by people who can not afford other kinds of meat.