Learned Pig
"`I wonder it did not create a rebellion,' said Sallust. 'It very nearly did,' returned Pansa, with his mouth full of wild boar." --Last Days of Pompeii. "The next trifle was a wild boar, which smelled divine. Why, then, did Margaret start away from it with two shrieks of dismay, and pinch so good a friend as Gerard? Because the duke's cuisinier had been too clever, had made this excellent dish too captivating to the sight as well as taste. He had restored to the animal, by elaborate mimiery with burnt sugar and other edible colors, the hair and bristles he had robbed him of by fire and water. To make him still more enticing, the huge tusks were carefully preserved in the brute's jaw, and gave to his mouth the winning smile that comes of tusk in man or beast: and two eyes of colored sugar glowed in his head. St. Argut! what eyes! so bright, so bloodshot, so threatening-they followed a man and every movement of his knife and spoon." --The Cloister and the Hearth. We have only to remark of the above ferocious monster that the tusks he showed were not his own, but were imitations made of tallow hardened with alum; his mouth was made dreadful by being spread all over the inside with red butter colored either with beet juice or with lobster coral; his savage grin was produced by propping up his lips, where the tusks protrude, while the head was warm after cooking, and letting it become very cold before taking the chips away, and his eyes were very likely of glass marbles, or the proper made glass eyes used by taxidermists; as for the bristles, the skin was first brushed over several times with meat glaze and when that was quite dry the confectioner came with some melted sugar taffy and a brush made or iron wires and made sugar hairs stand up all over it and then barbered them to the right heighth. All the brains the boar had in his head was some minced meat of a calf.