FOOD FROM THE SEA

The diet of man has been the subject for many dissertations, more or less profound, from that early day when the delectable Eve bit into the delectable apple, and found it good. It is a rule established in civilized countries that horses eat oats, men eat bread, and the barnyard fowl eat anything they can get. However, this rule does not hold in the less highly cultured parts of Africa, where, it is rumored, polite society is fond of serpent and other things, nicely browned.

We have the assurance that man may not live by bread alone; and on diverse occasions men have resorted to the food of the barns and fowl. Not to mention the immortal Nebuchadnezzar, late of Babylon-on-the-Euphrates, at the pinch of fashion or necessity even civilized man has been forced to follow the example of his less epicurean brother, and subsist on other than the staff of life.

Paris in 1870 found that lots of things it had thought rather nasty could become quite edible. And according to rumors floating through the key-hole of Germany's barred door, the standards of what go to make a square meal have become much rounded in that nation of full living.

Now we, the nation of the inexhaustible soil, are threatened with a change of our table d'hote. The Government, which is occasionally paternal, in growing anxiety that its fledglings will not be fed, has combed the deep and traditionally seven seas for new foods. In result we are advised to eat dogfish, shark, whale, and other "meats." By eating the dogfish, shark, whale and marine monsters which are neither fish nor flesh, it is expected that no one will starve.

The new national diet offers abundant opportunity for the one-column a day wit of newspaper paragraphs. But we feel quite serious about it. The new menu sounds interesting, and would perhaps taste even more so. Most of us, however, prefer to stick to the plain, old-fashioned tenderloin steak.

And, if the worst come to the worst, it wouldn't be such bad fun to starve.