And have developed a small obsession with cabbits. I understand they do not actually exist. They say. But for years I've been under the impression that I am the only one who finds their cat distinctly rabbity in both appearance and behavior. (My step-father, a gourmand, calls the poor beast "hasenpfeffer.") Apparently not. There are sites all over the internet. So it must be a real phenomenon. ;)
In Paris in Its Splendor (1900), Eustace Reynolds-Ball gives the menu of a popular restaurant in the Latin Quarter at the beginning of January 1871, "which gives a good idea of the gastronomic straits to which the light-hearted Parisians were reduced": Consommé de Cheval au millet. Brochettes de foie de Chien à la maître d'hôtel. Emincé de rable de Chat. Sauce mayonnaise. Epaules et filets de Chien braisés. Sauce aux tomates. Civet de Chat aux Champignons. Côtelettes de Chien aux petits pois. Salmis de Rats. Sauce Robert. Gigots de chien flanqués de ratons. Sauce poivrade. Begonias au jus. Plum-pudding au rhum et à la Moelle de Cheval.
This happened during the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian war. The novel meat sources are dog (chien), cat (chat), rat (same as in English), rat pups (ratons), and horse (cheval). Begonias, of course, have neither legs nor hair. I don't think I need to translate the rest of the culinary French above. Or do I? You're clearly a dangerous pinko commie pragmatist.
My elementary school afternoon class teacher (who was a real ex-proletarian) told that in the chaos before and after the final days of WWII, she had to buy new clothes, and on the black market in some village, some cheap cloth was peddled to her.
She bought it, went into some house, changed into the new clothes from her rags. Soon after, she felt her skin burn. She walked for a few minutes, but the skin burning would only get worse. Then she examined her clothes more closely: they were made of nettle... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
As the executioner seized her by the hand, to lift her out of the cart, she hastily threw the eleven coats of mail over the swans, and they immediately became eleven handsome princes; but the youngest had a swan's wing, instead of an arm; for she had not been able to finish the last sleeve of the coat.
