The Father and Son Who Ate Every Animal Possible
William and Francis Buckland saw Noah's Ark as a dinner menu.
By Craig Donofrio JANUARY 19, 2017
The year is 1813. You’re an undergraduate at the University of Oxford, enrolled in a course on the science of geology. The teacher, a man clad in long black robes and grasping a large hyena skull, rushes toward you and bellows, “What rules the world?” You have no clue what this man wants you to say. You draw back in your chair, eyes wide, and squeak out, “Haven’t an idea.” The lecturer rears back and shouts: “The stomach rules the world! The great ones eat the less, and the less the lesser still.”
The teacher is William Buckland, a man whose passion for geology and paleontology was matched only by the voracity of his stomach. As eccentric as his character was—complemented by a blue pouch at his side stuffed with mammoth teeth and skin, petrified feces and that hyena skull—what passed his lips was much more bizarre.
William entertained guests at his home and the college with exotic meals of things like hedgehogs, roast ostrich, porpoise, crocodile steaks and even cooked puppies. His son, Francis, had an equally egalitarian palate. Together, they viewed Noah’s Ark as a dinner menu....
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-father-and-son-who-ate-every-animal-possible
