{"id":"01KJNXJR15BMWRAP2YH0YWZ1NN","cid":"bafkreidubysu6foi3pqflfcfwxxrzdlesba3fh6hqimufn6kn2jkmmfx2y","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":676521,"char_start":668552,"chunk_index":94,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1993,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him; but\r\nwhen you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet\r\nlong, it takes away your appetite. Only the most unprejudiced of men\r\nlike Stubb, nowadays partake of cooked whales; but the Esquimaux are\r\nnot so fastidious. We all know how they live upon whales, and have rare\r\nold vintages of prime old train oil. Zogranda, one of their most famous\r\ndoctors, recommends strips of blubber for infants, as being exceedingly\r\njuicy and nourishing. And this reminds me that certain Englishmen, who\r\nlong ago were accidentally left in Greenland by a whaling vessel—that\r\nthese men actually lived for several months on the mouldy scraps of\r\nwhales which had been left ashore after trying out the blubber. Among\r\nthe Dutch whalemen these scraps are called “fritters”; which, indeed,\r\nthey greatly resemble, being brown and crisp, and smelling something\r\nlike old Amsterdam housewives’ dough-nuts or oly-cooks, when fresh.\r\nThey have such an eatable look that the most self-denying stranger can\r\nhardly keep his hands off.\r\n\r\nBut what further depreciates the whale as a civilized dish, is his\r\nexceeding richness. He is the great prize ox of the sea, too fat to be\r\ndelicately good. Look at his hump, which would be as fine eating as the\r\nbuffalo’s (which is esteemed a rare dish), were it not such a solid\r\npyramid of fat. But the spermaceti itself, how bland and creamy that\r\nis; like the transparent, half-jellied, white meat of a cocoanut in the\r\nthird month of its growth, yet far too rich to supply a substitute for\r\nbutter. Nevertheless, many whalemen have a method of absorbing it into\r\nsome other substance, and then partaking of it. In the long try watches\r\nof the night it is a common thing for the seamen to dip their\r\nship-biscuit into the huge oil-pots and let them fry there awhile. Many\r\na good supper have I thus made.\r\n\r\nIn the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted a fine\r\ndish. The casket of the skull is broken into with an axe, and the two\r\nplump, whitish lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling two large\r\npuddings), they are then mixed with flour, and cooked into a most\r\ndelectable mess, in flavor somewhat resembling calves’ head, which is\r\nquite a dish among some epicures; and every one knows that some young\r\nbucks among the epicures, by continually dining upon calves’ brains, by\r\nand by get to have a little brains of their own, so as to be able to\r\ntell a calf’s head from their own heads; which, indeed, requires\r\nuncommon discrimination. And that is the reason why a young buck with\r\nan intelligent looking calf’s head before him, is somehow one of the\r\nsaddest sights you can see. The head looks a sort of reproachfully at\r\nhim, with an “Et tu Brute!” expression.\r\n\r\nIt is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessively\r\nunctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with\r\nabhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the consideration\r\nbefore mentioned: _i.e._ that a man should eat a newly murdered thing\r\nof the sea, and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first man\r\nthat ever murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was\r\nhung; and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would\r\nhave been; and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the\r\nmeat-market of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds\r\nstaring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight\r\ntake a tooth out of the cannibal’s jaw? Cannibals? who is not a\r\ncannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that\r\nsalted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it\r\nwill be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of\r\njudgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who\r\nnailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy\r\npaté-de-foie-gras.\r\n\r\nBut Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is\r\nadding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle, there, my\r\ncivilized and enlightened gourmand dining off that roast beef, what is\r\nthat handle made of?—what but the bones of the brother of the very ox\r\nyou are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring\r\nthat fat goose? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what quill\r\ndid the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to\r\nGanders formally indite his circulars? It is only within the last month\r\nor two that that society passed a resolution to patronize nothing but\r\nsteel pens.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 66. The Shark Massacre.\r\n\r\nWhen in the Southern Fishery, a captured Sperm Whale, after long and\r\nweary toil, is brought alongside late at night, it is not, as a general\r\nthing at least, customary to proceed at once to the business of cutting\r\nhim in. For that business is an exceedingly laborious one; is not very\r\nsoon completed; and requires all hands to set about it. Therefore, the\r\ncommon usage is to take in all sail; lash the helm a’lee; and then send\r\nevery one below to his hammock till daylight, with the reservation\r\nthat, until that time, anchor-watches shall be kept; that is, two and\r\ntwo for an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the deck\r\nto see that all goes well.\r\n\r\nBut sometimes, especially upon the Line in the Pacific, this plan will\r\nnot answer at all; because such incalculable hosts of sharks gather\r\nround the moored carcase, that were he left so for six hours, say, on a\r\nstretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by morning. In\r\nmost other parts of the ocean, however, where these fish do not so\r\nlargely abound, their wondrous voracity can be at times considerably\r\ndiminished, by vigorously stirring them up with sharp whaling-spades, a\r\nprocedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances, only seems to\r\ntickle them into still greater activity. But it was not thus in the\r\npresent case with the Pequod’s sharks; though, to be sure, any man\r\nunaccustomed to such sights, to have looked over her side that night,\r\nwould have almost thought the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and\r\nthose sharks the maggots in it.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, upon Stubb setting the anchor-watch after his supper was\r\nconcluded; and when, accordingly, Queequeg and a forecastle seaman came\r\non deck, no small excitement was created among the sharks; for\r\nimmediately suspending the cutting stages over the side, and lowering\r\nthree lanterns, so that they cast long gleams of light over the turbid\r\nsea, these two mariners, darting their long whaling-spades, kept up an\r\nincessant murdering of the sharks,* by striking the keen steel deep\r\ninto their skulls, seemingly their only vital part. But in the foamy\r\nconfusion of their mixed and struggling hosts, the marksmen could not\r\nalways hit their mark; and this brought about new revelations of the\r\nincredible ferocity of the foe. They viciously snapped, not only at\r\neach other’s disembowelments, but like flexible bows, bent round, and\r\nbit their own; till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again\r\nby the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor was\r\nthis all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses and ghosts of these\r\ncreatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk in\r\ntheir very joints and bones, after what might be called the individual\r\nlife had departed. Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his skin,\r\none of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg’s hand off, when he tried\r\nto shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw.\r\n\r\n*The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best steel;\r\nis about the bigness of a man’s spread hand; and in general shape,\r\ncorresponds to the garden implement after which it is named; only its\r\nsides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than\r\nthe lower. This weapon is always kept as sharp as possible; and when\r\nbeing used is occasionally honed, just like a razor."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.813Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.813Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}