Victorian era eccentric William Buckland served as the Dean of Westminster but spent the majority of his free time trying to systematically eat his way through the entire animal…

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Victorian era eccentric William Buckland served as the Dean of Westminster but spent the majority of his free time trying to systematically eat his way through the entire animal kingdom just to see what everything tasted like. He famously feasted on toasted mice, roasted hedgehogs, panther chops, and even claimed that the taste of a mole was the most disgusting thing he had ever encountered until he tried a bluebottle fly. Legend holds that he was once shown the embalmed heart of King Louis XIV, and instead of admiring the historical artifact, he immediately popped it into his mouth and swallowed it. The early days of science were truly lawless, largely driven by wealthy white guys who funded their own gross culinary adventures and passed it off as empirical biological research. You just cannot find that kind of commitment to indigestion anymore