Food
GROTESQUE GOURMAND Olivier Woodes-Farquharson discovers that there is a happy medium between saving and eating every animal possible – at least, there was if you were Francis Buckland, a scientist whose confusing legacy hid a greater contribution to ecological thinking than was first apparent
S
ir David Attenborough is on screen, informing us of the charming quirks and perilous life challenges of the animal beside him, which happens to be, say, a shrew. In his inimitable tone, he lovingly discusses its reproductive cycle, its mating habits, and more. And then, without pausing from his monologue, he picks up the creature, gently throttles it, pops it into a frying pan for a few minutes, before casually telling us in detail how it tastes. It is a scene that is unlikely to play out anytime soon. But incongruous as these two behaviours of naturalist and omnivore seem to us now, they were two halves of the same walnut to Victorian oddball Francis Buckland. Much as he would love to have been remembered as a fisheries expert and
“While other young children would ride a hobbyhorse, Francis instead happily made do with riding the corpses of dead crocodiles. His first forays into proper natural history – at least as he saw it – was by sampling different animal urines and gradually being able to distinguish each one at blind tastings”
110
