Written by Peter Lund Simmonds and originally published in 1859 it is
subtitled: "Dainties and Delicacies of Different Nations Obtained from the
Animal Kingdom."  It has an introduction by Alan Davidson, the author of
"The Oxford Companion to Food."  "Curiosities" was republished as a
facsimile edition by Ten Speed Press in 2001.  This is a unique monograph
about things that walk, crawl, fly, swim, etc - anything of the animal
kingdom and how said foods were consumed in those days.  It is very
interesting, although a dense read because "Ripley's Believe It or Not"
would never run out of material.  Just imagine being an explorer of those
days and you will find out what they ate as well as the details of
preparation, if any.  There are no recipes, as such.  Contained within 372
pages is information that would be extremely difficult to come by, unless
one had this small book in hand.  There are insights to be found within
this book that still hold up today: the most powerful nation on earth
consumes the most meat, is one example.  Or if you are curious about how to
disassemble an elephant and cook it?

This comes from the back cover of the dust jacket:

"If animals could speak, as Aesop and other fabulists make them seem to do,
they would declare man to be the most voracious animal in existence.  There
is scarcely any living thing that flies in the air, swims in the sea, or
moves on the land, that is not made to minister to his appetite in some
region or other.  Other creatures are, generally, restricted to one sort of
provender at most.  They are carnivorous or graminivourous, piscivorous, or
something ivorous; but man is the universal eater.  He pounces with the
tiger upon the kid, with hawk upon the dove, with the cormorant upon the
herring, and with the small bird upon the insect and the grub....Life
itself will not hinder his appetite, nor decay nauseate his palate; for he
will as soon devour a lively young oyster as demolish the fungous produce
of a humid field."

$16.95 list; ISBN 1-58008-297-1.  Warning: this is not for the
squeamish.  About the only thing not covered is cannibalism.