Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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These Cakes Called Tanaampo, Were Cakes Of Clay, Slightly
Baked, Which The Natives Eat With Relish.
The attention of
physiologists, since my return from the Orinoco, having been
powerfully directed to these phenomena of geophagy,
M. Leschenault
(one of the naturalists of the expedition to the Antarctic regions
under the command of captain Baudin) has published some curious
details on the tanaampo, or ampo, of the Javanese. "The reddish and
somewhat ferruginous clay," he says "which the inhabitants of Java are
fond of eating occasionally, is spread on a plate of iron, and baked,
after having been rolled into little cylinders in the form of the bark
of cinnamon. In this state it takes the name of ampo, and is sold in
the public markets. This clay has a peculiar taste, which is owing to
the baking: it is very absorbent, and adheres to the tongue, which it
dries. In general it is only the Javanese women who eat the ampo,
either in the time of pregnancy, or in order to grow thin; the absence
of plumpness being there regarded as a kind of beauty. The use of this
earth is fatal to health; the women lose their appetite imperceptibly,
and take only with relish a very small quantity of food; but the
desire of becoming thin, and of preserving a slender shape, induces
them to brave these dangers, and maintains the credit of the ampo."
The savage inhabitants of New Caledonia also, to appease their hunger
in times of scarcity, eat great pieces of a friable Lapis ollaris.
Vauquelin analysed this stone, and found in it, beside magnesia and
silex in equal portions, a small quantity of oxide of copper.
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