Although Simmonds has produced various useful reference works, this is one time I was too grossed out to continue. Yes, if you want to know about eating insects, reptiles, or putrid fish, it's all here. Don't try to read this while eating.

home. found in solvang before trattoria grappolo.

Egad! What a portrait of humanity as an all-gobbling, endlessly hungry pestilence upon every other thing that moves or breathes!

Mr. Simmonds is a charming wit, and he does seem to play favorites -- roasted iguana, anyone? -- but once you peel back the top layer of self-congratulatory Victorian Anglocentricism, you find two truths.

The first is that, even 100 years ago, everywhere on earth human beings were honing the process of consuming EVERYTHING, always boasting about how much, always certain that they'd never run out. Birds, animals, fish, sure. Snakes, lizards, certainly. Also insects and their larve, also worms, snails, bats, also parchment paper and leather clothing, also dirt. Also each other. This book is a catalogue of all that, and it includes detailed instructions on just how to go about depopulating the world of a hundred once-plentiful species. The descriptions are fascinating, and occasionally they lapse into momentary appreciation of the beauty of life, but never without returning to the fundamental issue of eating, eating, eating.

The second is that, only 100 years ago, the earth was home to mass migrations of land crabs, sea birds, insects of all kinds. There were tremendously more animals back then than there are today. The reports from those who gathered these windfalls of meat are poignant and haunting, because the days of plentiful animal life on earth are well and truly over now. Numerous extinct species are described as delicious and fortifying in this book.

There was probably a moment in human history -- perhaps right around the time this book was first published -- when a strong dose of environmental consciousness would have made a world of difference. My kingdom for a time machine.