Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1876 — A Gastronomic Curiosity. [ARTICLE]

A Gastronomic Curiosity.

We dare say that there are a great many people who, if asked whether they could or would partake of so toothsome a dish as a broiled quail on toast once a day for a month would stare at the questioner in astonishment and express an earnest desire to be afforded the opportunity. And yet we can positively venture the assertion that not one person out of a thousand would continue the diet for a fortnight. This is not because of the quantity of meat, because anyone's ordinary dinner aggregates an immensely larger amount, nos is it due to a surfeit of one particular kind of food, for roast beef might be eaten everyday for a year with relish. The difficulty lies In, the flavor of the meat. Delicious as it is as an occasional delicacy, it it be eaten daily for ten days or thereabouts it becomes excessively nauseating. The flesh seems to acquire a rank and bitter flavor; and if the diet be persisted in the stomach revolts and rejects the food. Whw. this should be so we have never heard scientifically explained; but it is probably due to some medicinal effect of the meat which shows its results, through regular dosing, just as do some kinds of physic, which, if taken once or twice in smalt quantities, are imperceptible to the system, but which, if administered regularly in the same amounts for lengthy periods, act powerfully. on the constitution. Be this as it may, an individual named O’Donnell, who lives in 31adison, Ind., has brought himself into notice by accomplishing the hitherto unparalleled feat ton a wager) of eating thirty quails in as many consecutive days, and this without any inconvenience or disgust. The case has attracted some attention from the medical fraternity, and sundry individuals are making Mr. O’Donnell’s marvelous stomach the subject of extensive bets. It is now reported that he is to undertake the delectable task of repeated and prolonged meals of raw oysters and brown sugar;’,a process which might fitlv terminate iff a gastric malady which would annihilate the much-abused stomach and its owner at the same time.— Scientific American.