Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1885 — Eskimo Candy. [ARTICLE]

Eskimo Candy.

It would seem very strange, and perhaps not very pleasant, to my young readers to hear a tallow candle or the shin-bone of a reindeer called candy. And yet these things may really be considered as Eskimo candy, because they would delight the children of the cold in precisely the way that a box of bonbons would delight you. There is a certain kind of water-fowl in arctic countries known as the dovekie. It is about the size of a duck, is quite black, has a prominent white stripe on its wings, and its webbed feet are of a brilliant red. When sitting in rows on the edge of greenish rock, these little red feet are very conspicuous. Sometimes, when the men have killed a number of dovekies, the Eskimo women cut off the bright red feet, draw out the bones, and, blowing into the skins, distend them as much as possible so as to form pouches. When these pouches are thoroughly dried they are filled with reindeer tallow, and the bright red packages, which I assure you look much nicer than they taste, are little Boreas’ candy. In very cold weather the Eskimo children eat great quantities of fat and blubber; and th s fatty food, which seems to us so uninviting, helps to keep them warm and well. The only other kind of candy that the Eskimo children have is the marrow from the long leg or shin-bone of the slaughtered reindeer. Of this, also, they are very fond. Whenever a reindeer is killed and the meat has been stripped from the bones of the legs, these hones are placed on the ffbor of the igloo and cracked with a hatchet until the marrow is exposed. The bonei are then forced apart with the liauds, and the marrow is dug out ! of the ends with a long, sharp, and i narrow spoon made from a walrus’ tusk. I have eaten this reindeer marrow frozed and cooked; and after one i becomes accustomed to eating frozen meat raw, it is really an acceptable tidbit; while cooked and nicely served, it would be a delica-’y anywhere.— Lieut. Frederick Scliwatka, in St. Nicholas. A New Y’ork lawyer says he would ! have no trouble in getting 1,000 men in that city to swear falsely in a case. An old priest in Brittany offers for sale the bath in which Murat was asj sassinated by Charlotte Corday.