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Dinnerology 
 
 OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET 
 
 From Crankery to Common Sense 
 
 PAN 
 
 CHICAGO, NEW YORK, and SAN FRANCISCO 
 BELFQ RD, CLARK E & CO. 
 
 London : H. J. Drake, Lovell's Court, Paternoster Row. 
 
 The Household Library. N. Y. No. 31. Vol. 4. Nov. 19. 1888. Annual Subscription $30.00. Issued semi-weekly. 
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 CHICAGO, NEW YOKE, and SAW FBAWCISCO. 
 
DINNEROLOGY. 
 
DINNEROLOGY 
 
 Our Experiments in Diet 
 
 FROM 
 
 CRANKERY TO COMMON-SENSE 
 
 A TALE FOR THE TIMES 
 
 BY 
 
 
 CHICAGO, NEW YORK, AND SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & CO. 
 Publishers 
 
 London : J. H. Drane, Paternoster Row 
 
COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & CO. 
 1889 
 
DINNEROLOGY; 
 
 OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 OUR START IN HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 Ten Years of Foolish Feeding. — Wastes and Waists. — Folly, 
 Consequence, Penalty.^ — Origin of Our Society for the 
 Abolition of Slavery to Dyspepsia. 
 
 Our "tin" wedding, indeed ! A miserably mean 
 libel on the ten years of golden bliss we had been cel- 
 ebrating in a cosey little Thanksgiving (dinner) ser- 
 vice in our own domestic ten^ple. In a playful sort 
 of way I asked my venerated High Priestess whether 
 she thought the " tin " was a sly hit at the striking 
 union flinty-hearted sparks used to have with the 
 gentle, but somewhat inflammable tinder — in the dark 
 ages, of course. I only intended a feeble joke, and 
 expected a smile, but it seemed to get lost on the waj", 
 until it swam out of her blue eyes as she called me to 
 order: "No, George, ours is a ^tin' wedding 
 because of 
 
 ' The tin-tin-nabulation that so musically wells ' 
 from the jo^^-bells of our loving hearts,! '' 
 
8 DtNNEnoLOGy ; 
 
 I masked my discomfiture by giving her a ringing 
 kiss. 
 
 Martba and J have always got along splendidly. 
 We began with a resolve never to drive tandem. She 
 is anything but a blue-stocking, yet she is never so 
 happy as when exchanging sensible talk with a 
 sensible person. T consequently give her as much of 
 my society as possible. We are not quite so young 
 as we used to be, nor so frivolous, nor so imprudent, 
 nor so slim; that is just where our worry came in. 
 Our lot had, as I have remarked, been one round of 
 happiness, but when ten yearly laps of prosperity have 
 wound themselves round the averacre middle-ao-ed 
 citizen, his happy lot is apt to extend his lot of bulk. 
 For the last year or two my excellent tailor has flat- 
 tered me with periodic felicitations on the steady 
 expansion of the lower chest. He, innocently enough, 
 puts it down to my proficiency in dumb-bell exercise. 
 I had a guilty consciousness that he would have been 
 nearer the mark if he had guessed "dumb-waiter 
 drill." The plain truth was — I was growling visibly 
 bulbous, with " the promise and potency " of full- 
 blown obesity by my jubilee birthday, and my once 
 sylph-like wife was already as deliciously plump as 
 the chubbiest Eaffaelle cherub, had he been burdened 
 or blessed with a body. 
 
 We were having an enjoyable talk over things in 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET, 9 
 
 general, family affairs anc wliat not, as befitted our an- 
 niversary, when we struck this matter of bodily health. 
 
 " Now, see here, Patty," said I, and my head gave 
 itself a sideway nod that seemed to shake all the other 
 bumps into my left-hand bump of wisdom, "there's a 
 trouble that has been weighing heavily on my mind 
 for a long time, and I propose we discuss it and do 
 something about it right here and now '' 
 
 " Whatever's that, George ? " 
 
 "Well, it's just this: I guess we either eat too much, 
 or the wrong sort of stuff; look at your dyspepsia! 
 look at my size — and that of the kitchen and doctor's 
 bills, my dear ! " 
 
 ^^ DonH ! they haunt me in my very dreams ! But 
 I always thought you wished to be a man of weight, 
 George ? " 
 
 '^And idJw dissuaded me from running for the 
 Senate by swearing she would waste awa}'' and die by 
 inches in my absence, eh ? Pretty good chance of 
 lingering a century or two if somebody^ s waist only 
 wanes an inch in a year ! " 
 
 "Now, George, its wicked of you to poke fun at 
 the afiflicted when 3''ou ought to help cure them ; what's 
 your idea on this dinner-table problem ? I^ve been 
 thinking a good deal about it, too." 
 
 " Well, mj' dear, has it ever struck you that ever 
 since we started as copartners in this housekeeping 
 
10 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 business, we have been vastly more business-like in 
 caring for the smartness of our chairs and tables than 
 in securing good health to enjoy them ? " 
 
 " Well, I was never taught to bother with any of 
 those dreadful 'ologies that girls nowadays have to 
 dabble in, and I don't see that their complexions are 
 much improved nor their common sense much in- 
 creased with all their learning. We were trained to 
 leave all those things to the doctors, poor dears, they 
 must live, you know — but lately I've come to think 
 we have done our full share towards their mainte- 
 nance." 
 
 " Full share ! Why, bless your heart, Patty, do you 
 really know how much we have paid for physic in 
 all its disguises these ten years ? Not less than 
 $5000, I reckon, omitting the bills for medical at- 
 tendance !" 
 
 Taking advantage of the momentary dumbness that 
 was caused by my hap-hazard revelation, I went on 
 to deliver my teeming mind of the reflections which I 
 here briefly summarize. Please picture my angelic wife 
 transfixed with alternations of astonishment and ad- 
 miration at my hitherto unsuspected bump of philos- 
 ophy. 
 
 For ten long years we have been sailing with the 
 social stream, eating, drinking, ailing, wailing, and 
 doctoring in the good t»ld conventional way. We 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 
 
 11 
 
 have been mighty particular in adapting our dress, 
 our daily routine, our places of abode to the times 
 and seasons, but we keep to the jog-trot diet all the 
 time. The coats on our backs give us more concern 
 than the coats of our stomachs, and good living, to 
 keep pace with our neighbors, outweighs the import- 
 ance of enjoying a good liver all to ourselves. By and 
 bye there comes a day of reckoning uj) correctly these 
 forgotten miscalculations. This is how the ghosts of 
 my own arithmetical blunders appeared to me on 
 mare-back one memorable night. 
 
 Folly. 
 
 Breakfast : 
 
 Hot bread, baked pork 
 tenderloin, mush and 
 milk, fruit, potatoes, but- 
 ter, pickles, tea, ice water. 
 
 Luncheon : 
 
 Soup and lobster salad, 
 mutton rare, apple pie, 
 tea, coffee, beer or ice 
 water. 
 
 Dinner : 
 
 Oysters, soup and sber- 
 ry, fish and hock, meat 
 and curry, game and 
 claret, sweets and cham- 
 pagne, ices and cham- 
 pagne, cheese and beer, 
 nuts and old port, coffee 
 and brandy. 
 
 Nightcap : 
 
 Wliisky and crackers, 
 soda and brandy. 
 
 Consequence. 
 
 T h i c k-headed- 
 ness, disinclination 
 for brain-work. 
 
 Uneasiness in the 
 equatorial region. 
 
 Ligh t-headed- 
 ness on a leaden 
 stomach, temper- 
 ed by twinges and 
 tantalizing fore- 
 bodings. 
 
 Thou g h ts too 
 deep for words. 
 
 Penalty, 
 
 Cocktail and 
 reaction. 
 
 Whisky 
 st r a i g h t and 
 headache. 
 
 Morning blues 
 after vigorous 
 nightmare ex- 
 ercise. Pills, 
 po t i o n s, and 
 pick-me-ups. 
 
 Dyspepsianity. 
 
12 
 
 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 And I saw this other grim squad hovering over the 
 heads of Patty and the children. 
 
 Folly. 
 
 Consequence. 
 
 Penalty . 
 
 Breakfast : 
 
 
 
 Porridge aiul milk; sar- 
 
 "Sort of a sicky 
 
 More ice water. 
 
 dines, liot buttered cake 
 
 sinking sensation." 
 
 sal V o la ti le, 
 
 and tea, candied fruits, 
 
 
 candies, or soda 
 
 ice water. 
 
 
 water, and float- 
 ing aches. 
 
 Lunch : 
 
 
 
 Cake, chocolate, pie, 
 
 Slight suspicion 
 
 Soda water or 
 
 ice water. 
 
 of indigestion. 
 
 o t li e r d r u g - 
 drinks, and fit 
 
 Dinner : 
 
 
 of the blues. 
 
 Can't eat; nibble a bit of 
 
 Temper somehow 
 
 A champagne 
 
 pie, just one macaroon, 
 
 gets three-corner- 
 
 or Maraschino 
 
 a nut or two, a candied 
 
 ed, everybody is so 
 
 af t e r - d i n n e r 
 
 plum, a sip of peptonized 
 
 disagreeable. 
 
 tonic, with the 
 
 port, a couple of pearly 
 
 
 very latest var- 
 
 dinner pills as a final 
 
 
 iety of Society 
 
 relish. 
 
 
 headache to 
 follow. 
 
 Finale : 
 
 
 
 Libation of Vichy- 
 
 An uncertain re- 
 
 Until next 
 
 washy water to appease 
 
 spite. 
 
 day. 
 
 the Demon Dyspepsia. 
 
 
 
 Well, I set to work to tot up the whole sum. I 
 found that our butcher-bills seemed to grow bigger 
 the less we were able to eat, because we got too dainty 
 to enjoy a hearty meal off a plain leg or loin, and yet 
 they were needed to yield our dainties and feed the 
 household. And my wife's library of fancy cook- 
 books threatened to swamp everj^ spare shelf in the 
 house. They were quite an item in the year's expen- 
 
OUR EXPEillMENTS IN DIET. 13 
 
 diture, to say nothing of the brilliant failures they 
 created in the kitchen. I went on an exploration 
 tour through the house one day when I happened to 
 be alone and the regiments of " tonic " bottles, the 
 battalions of quack medicine cartoons, and the masked 
 batteries of pill-boxes that met my gaze utterly ap- 
 palled me. Talk of doctors' bills ! Why, here were 
 proofs palpable that for every dollar 1 had ever paid 
 to our worthy Dr. Drencham, at least three had been 
 paid for drug-drinks and kindred bastard physics. 
 And the organic remains of defunct lizz-syphons, 
 spent candy caskets and dislocated nutcrackers that 
 lay strewn around bafSed my comprehension. There 
 was a dose remaining in one of the anti-blue-devil 
 bottles, wliich I thought came in rather handy just 
 then, so I drank to my own good health, wishing it 
 might soon rival that of a lusty-lunged ballad singer 
 who was introducing the fresh air of "Sweet Violets" 
 to our neighborhood for the first time that Spring. I 
 envied the free and easy play of his wind apparatus 
 as I reflected that the natural music of my pipe organ 
 was one rasping howl for "Hop Bitters" or other such 
 herbal abominations. As I came panting down the 
 stairs the rascal knocked at the door and asked for 
 his reward. " See here," I said, " you're a lazy 
 hound, I can see, but I'll give j^ou a quarter if you'll 
 tell me how you manage to keep those leather lungs 
 
1-i DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 of yours in such good working order on what 3'^ou 
 pick up, which can't be much ? " 
 
 " Oh, shure an^ it's that I will, sorr. I lives, so I 
 does, jist like the blessid bastes uv the field, God's 
 good craythurs jist like you an' me, sorr ; I ates whin 
 I'm hungry an' dhrinks whin I'm dhr}'^, an' laves off 
 whin I've had enough, an' as for the fools that makes 
 bastes o' thersels, as the sayin' is, by layin' in more 
 tlian's good for them, divil fly away wid them for 
 shlanderin' their betters by the kimparison !" 
 
 He got his quarter for the oration and another for 
 making quick tracks into the next parish. 
 
 He preached a smarter sermon than I had heard in 
 a long while. I preached a few more thirdlys, finallys 
 and lastlys to myself. How is it, I eloquently pro- 
 ceeded, that these poor, who are alwaj^s with us, are 
 so much richer in rude health, and perhaps in com- 
 mon sense, than we are ? How is it that the so- 
 called pauper laborers on European farm lands, the 
 Scotch cottier, the English Hodge, the Irish bog- 
 trotter, the French vine-tender, the Spanish ox- 
 driver, the German wood-chopper, the Eussian sickle- 
 wielder, the Turkish porter, all sustain their health, 
 strength and toughness on a diet as costless as it is 
 plain ? How is it that the native laborer in India 
 gets through more hard work than the well-fed Eng- 
 lishman, though his only food is three cents worth of 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 15 
 
 rice a day ? And that handful of Vegetarian cranks 
 I met in London hist summer, I guess they had the 
 hxugli on me when my masterly exposure of their 
 queer fallacies was cut short by about the worst at- 
 tack of indigestion I ever had. These things are 
 mysteries to most of us. But then, most of us are 
 out and out fools when it comes to a pitched battle 
 between our health and our appetites. We don't know 
 how to referee the business. At school I learned 
 pretty nearly every useless thing in the books, only to 
 find out on leaving that I knew nothing about " the 
 one thing needful " to a live man, namely, how to live. 
 From to-day I am going to "read, mark, and learn" 
 how to "inwardly digest " the terrors of the table 
 which harm or help the liver. This is the era of in- 
 vestigation, I will prove the pros and C07is of this 
 question with what remnant of common sense dyspep- 
 sia has left me. To know how to live rightly is the 
 soundest preparation for learning how to die rightl}^, 
 and in resolving to study the welfare of my body I 
 am fortified by the text our good rector preached 
 from last Sunday : " First cometh that which is nat- 
 ural, and afterwards that which is spiritual.'' 
 
16 DLNNEROLOGY : 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 GOING BACK TO A B C. 
 
 Our Co-operative Lecture Scheme. — What P'ood Is, and 
 What Food Does. — Dinner-table Keforni, not Revo- 
 lution. — Science. — Facts in Plain English. — What You 
 Actually Buy When You Go to Market. — How to Make 
 Allowances. 
 
 We discussed our new hobby every meal-time, and 
 a lively toj^ic we found it. Hardly a day came without 
 bringing its bunch of new facts, and each dish on the 
 table nourished our minds, if not our bodies, by serving 
 as a corpus vili for experimental demonstrations and 
 most learned moralizing-s. But it was all desultory, 
 disjointed, unpractical. Patty had lately taken it into 
 her head to attend a course of college forenoon leC' 
 tures on — was it Lunar Psychology ? or something 
 high in that line — and though she evidently didn't 
 find it worth crowing about, she had too much spirit 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 17 
 
 to admit that the course tickets were a bad bargain. 
 So she 'cutely remarked, during dessert : " I've learnt 
 one thing, George, at the lectures, that is well worth 
 all the fee, if there were nothing else, and that is 
 the great improvement to one's mind in having to sit 
 still " 
 
 "And silent? " 
 
 "Yes, anc? silent (nasty thing !), while a man fills 
 a whole hour with dry talk which you have to pencil 
 down into the most interesting brevities you can in- 
 vent." 
 
 "Not invent, my dear, surely!'' 
 
 "Yes, invent^ remember — any man, almost, is 
 capable of spinning loose yarn by the hour, but it re- 
 quires a woman to weave it into a usable fabric ; — have 
 another candied ginger ? " 
 
 " Thanks, I'll take another chocolate ice and a few 
 almonds. Well, go on ! — " 
 
 " Well, I was thinking how nice it would be if you 
 would just turn Professor, you know, dear (only pre- 
 tending, of course), and while you lecture, as it were, 
 I can take down all bits oifact, and sense, you know, 
 that—" 
 
 " Oh, yes, I see ; I'll unload my coal-cart and you'll 
 produce the diamonds !" 
 
 " iVb y you'll furnish me with the diamonds, dear, 
 and I'll sift your coal into best cobbles and rubbish. 
 
18 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 But there — don't cry — and the dear ill-used darling 
 shall have an extra treat to-morrow — I'll make you 
 a delicious ^wr^ey-rhubarb pie — I'm sure you'll need 
 it badly after those ices ! " 
 
 " But how is a sinner going to reform if he doesn't 
 enjoy a lively realizing sense of the bitter conse- 
 quences of his sin ? You ought to rejoice at such a 
 sign of grace and back it up — hand me that slice of 
 melon, dear !" 
 
 "Now, seriously, George, hadn't we better go about 
 our reform, as you call it, systematically ? You have 
 been reading up the food question here, there and every, 
 where, you are well stocked with all the latest scien- 
 tific facts and doctrines, it would be so nice, and quite 
 literary, you know, for you to just talk them in your 
 own way to me and then you can arrange my notes in 
 their proper order afterwards, you see, and who knows 
 but what you may blossom into a real live author yet, 
 — think of that, George ! " 
 
 I don't mind confessing, in a confidential way, 
 mind you, that Patty touched a tender chord right 
 there. Not that I am conscious of the least lust after 
 the fame-dregs drained out over the vagrant tribe of 
 bookikins that are not akin to Books, and yet I have 
 always fancied that the latent genius of my country 
 has never yet been fully put forth, at least in its liter- 
 ature. This is a patriotic, not at all a personal, re- 
 
OUfl EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 19 
 
 mark. However, aside from this, there was excellent 
 common sense in Patty's suggestion, and we agreed 
 to adopt it. 
 
 I shall now reproduce, substantially, the notes she 
 made of my remarks, great though the labor it in- 
 volves ; for she used the shiniest paper and the hardest 
 pencil procurable, and her " free and independent " 
 contempt for punctuation is glorious, if a trifle puz- 
 zling. The inevitable improved spellings I have 
 restored to conventionality (Mem : Did you ever know 
 of a lady's letter without at least one orthographic 
 originality ?). I will just remark that the following 
 is a fair epitome of what I said, or intended to say, 
 when I addressed my vast imaginary audience, of 
 whom only one was actually visible. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : When a person stands up 
 to address an audience so eminently intelligent and 
 critical as the one before me, it behooves him to make 
 clear what he is going to talk about, why he is going 
 to talk about it, and what right he has to talk about 
 it. Now, ray subject is, " What Food Is, and What 
 Food Does.'' And I'll tell you why I have chosen it. 
 Because experience has convinced me that people in 
 general, including my enlightened audience and my- 
 self, enjoy a sounder ignorance upon the common-sense 
 of eating and drinking than upon any other prevalent 
 fashion of the day. And, again, because Food and 
 
20 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 Feeding are absolutely the most important considera- 
 tions that affect our bodily, and therefore our mental, 
 welfare. As for my fitness to talk about this matter, 
 I will content myself with the statement that I have 
 had a wide and deep practical experience of stupid 
 and sensible feeding, its system of rewards and pen- 
 alties, its expenses and its economies, and its litera- 
 ture of the last quarter century has added to the 
 information gained from specialists, both scientists 
 and cranks, and from the data set forth in the Gov- 
 ernment Food Museums in Washington and London. 
 W^hat is Food? Just that proportion of what we 
 swallow which is thoroughly digested j not a bit 
 more. What is Feeding f A fascinating popular 
 pastime ? Yes, and it is also, or should be, the art 
 and science of selecting the digestibles which best 
 replace the waste in our individual body, while giving 
 us pleasure after, rather than during, eating. 
 
 What coals are to a steam engine, so food is to a 
 man. So much of each is required for each day's 
 work, so much is consumed, i. e. transformed into 
 force, and so much goes off as waste. The engine has 
 its "horse-power" limit. We each have our man- 
 power limit. Cram an extra sack of coals into the 
 already sufficiently filled engine fireplace, and it 
 either explodes or chokes. Stuff more food into the 
 stomach than it needs, be the excess little or much, 
 
OUR EXI»ERIMEKTS IK DIET. %1 
 
 and you surely spoil the smooth working of the sys- 
 tem. So much for quantity. But there are good 
 coals and bad, coals that waste their heat in splutter- 
 ing sparks and useless smoke, and coals that give out 
 a bright glow from first to last. So with food. We 
 have the choice between foods that really feed, that 
 build us up honestly just where we need repairing, 
 and foods that are like a coating of stucco on a plain 
 brick house, the wrong thing in the wrong place, 
 giving a wrong impression to the fool who thinks all's 
 right. The practical question for each of us is to find 
 out what toodsj'eed / which have the most value, and 
 which the most waste. 
 
 Here we may do one of two things, we may either 
 trust to the kitchen customs of the day, as the out- 
 come of the rough and ready experience of our 
 ancestors, or we may reason that scientific investiga- 
 tion (a long-winded word for fact-getting) may have 
 something eye-opening and valuable in this as well as 
 in other directions, which may revolutionize our sys- 
 tem of feeding as it has done our system of lighting 
 and distance-talking. I propose to adopt both courses. 
 I don't want to disturb the conventional system more 
 than I can help, for "with all thy faults, I love thee 
 still." I only insist on the wisdom of using the 
 lamp of knowledge to throw its penetrating light upon 
 the dishes on our table. It brings out their little 
 
22 DINKEROLOGY: 
 
 secrets, their good or bad designs upon us, their 
 powers of revenge, their ability to console and succor 
 and bless. Let me know my friends from my ene- 
 mies, say I. 
 
 Now we have got to learn our A B C of foods and 
 their properties. Everything we eat and drink has a 
 certain amount of waste in it, often a mischievous 
 amount. In the solids there is more liquid than we 
 fancy, so much flesh-forming material, so much force- 
 furnishing material, and a residue of solid waste. 
 Get to know just what proportions of these materials 
 there are in your bread, mush, steak, fish, and pie 
 crust and then you are for the first time in your life 
 qualified to out-wit the doctor in his own domain by 
 Preventing nine-tenths of the ailments which nine- 
 tenths of the medicos never cure. 
 
 You are afraid it means a return to the drudgery of 
 our schooldays ? Well, it does not. If it did, wise 
 folk would be wise to get the A B C at any rate. As 
 the old proverb has it, "a little Jcnoioledge is a mighty 
 convenient thing." I never was remarkabl}^ accurate 
 in my quotations, but I'm always right in their drift. 
 We cannot all be learned Professors (thank the Lord), 
 but we can be humble Practisers of the sensible things 
 we are permitted to learn and think out for ourselves. 
 May my sins be forgiven me, but I sometimes think 
 the best-intentioned learned Professors scare us away 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN" DIET. 23 
 
 from their fountains by their dryness and the learned 
 confusion of tongues in which they invite us to drink. 
 At a certain college a very accomplished scientist 
 discoursed upon ^' the Physiological and Fecundary 
 Economy of Food/' and the papers reported him as 
 prescribing for the laboring man a daily diet of "one- 
 fourth pound of proteine, one-fourth pound fat, and a 
 pound of carbo-hydrates," to keep him well and strong. 
 This was excellent advice, but it is like putting a hungry 
 man's dinner on a shelf just out of his reach. He 
 might be too far gone to climb the ladder by the time 
 he had found one. There have been various essays in 
 popular serials from time to time in which facts, 
 figures, and diagrams have crowded upon each other's 
 heels to the bewilderment of the general reader. The 
 intention has been admirable, the erudition and pains- 
 taking beyond all praise, so that we common folk find 
 it so good that we put it carefully aside for " some 
 other day," when we have nothing to hinder our 
 giving its intricacies a real good study. 
 
 Now, I don't proj)ose to use scientific terms when 
 ordinary words will do as well, nor to rack anyone's 
 brain with figure or diagram puzzles. All the same, 
 though, I shall sing their song, but to my own tune. 
 My facts will be their facts, only I may make them 
 march in my own " awkward squad" formation. And 
 in deference to the gifted audience I have the honor 
 
24 BINNEEOLOGY : 
 
 to see before me I shall flourish my modest math- 
 ematical gift as sparingly as possible, well knowing 
 this assembly's constitutional hatred of percentages 
 and decimals. 
 
 If the laboring man aforenamed, or if you and I, 
 had been told in plain language that three-fourths of 
 our weight is water, and that to make up for the day's 
 waste we have to take food, three-quarters of which 
 must be water, and the remainder flesh-forming, heat- 
 giving and bone-making substances, we should have 
 been more likely to work the subject up long ago. 
 
 We could then have procured one of the tables of 
 food constituents and values such as have hung these 
 thirty 3'ears in the London Food Museum, and are 
 printed in the cheap catalogue, as also now in Wash- 
 ington. Or we could get the substance of these 
 tables in a hundred cheap books, pamphlets or free 
 leaflets. Or we might easily compile a good enough 
 table or chart for ourselves. The foods classify their 
 properties as follows : 
 
 1. — Flesh and muscle-formers, (nitrogenous). 
 
 2. — Heat or force-givers, (carbo-hydrates). 
 
 3. — Ashes. 
 
 4.— Water. 
 
 Now we want to know how much of each of these 
 qualities there is in what we are going to eat. Then 
 
OUR EXPERIMEKTS IN DIET. 25 
 
 we shall know what the dish is worth to us, and 
 whether it is cheap or dear at the price. 
 
 I am pretty safe in assuming that my gentle 
 audience is more familiar with dollars than with 
 decimal fractions. I will therefore ask j^ou to suppose, 
 for our present purpose, that you are going to buy a 
 dollar's worth of each of the following articles. Then 
 you will see what ybo(^ you get for your money. But 
 as you note the proportions (which are given in suffi- 
 ciently accurate round numbers) you will allow for 
 the difference in cost and nutritive value of the 
 articles which contain water when you buy them, and 
 the others which 3'ou buy dry and add the water in 
 cooking. For instance, a pound of dried peas, costing 
 say three cents, yields more nutriment thanapoundof 
 steak, costing say 18 cents, as the peas contain only 
 two ounces of water, while the steak holds more than 
 10. But you never eat the same weight of dried 
 peas as you do of wet steak, and the water they absorb 
 in the boiling brings them nearer to the level of the 
 steak as food, as to which we shall get more practical 
 information in a later talk. 
 
 Now please fill your pocket-book with crisp one 
 dollar notes and come with me to market. 
 
 It will simplify the thing, in view of the above hint 
 about the differences, if we keep the wet and the dry 
 foods separate. 
 
26 
 
 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 FLESH AjS'D fish (wET), 
 
 
 t« . 
 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 *^ Vi 
 
 -*j . 
 
 q; 
 
 c3 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ : 
 
 WHEN YOU SPEND 
 
 M O 
 
 o . 
 
 o 
 
 o • 
 
 A DOLLAR ON 
 
 
 1/3 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 o o 
 
 G fciD 
 
 j^ 
 
 C +^ 
 
 
 
 -Jl 
 
 <1 
 
 <*1 
 
 Fat Meats 
 
 15c. 
 
 20 
 25 
 15 
 
 30c. 
 
 ■5 
 10 
 
 o- 
 O 
 
 5c. 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 50c. 
 
 Lean Meats 
 
 70 
 
 Salmon 
 
 GO 
 
 Cod 
 
 80 
 
 Oysters 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 85 
 
 Eels 
 
 10 
 15 
 
 20 
 2 
 
 5 
 3 
 
 65 
 
 Chicken 
 
 80 
 
 Sardines — canned 
 
 25 
 
 15 
 
 5 
 
 55 
 
 FARM PRODUCE. 
 
 Cheese — best. 
 
 Butter... 
 
 Milk 
 
 Eggs, 
 
 Apples . . 
 Potatoes . 
 Turnips. 
 
 4c. 
 
 4 
 3 
 2 
 1 
 
 30c. 
 
 10 
 
 85 
 
 78 
 83 
 75 
 90 
 
OKR EXPERIMENTS IN" DIET. 
 
 27 
 
 DRY FOOD-STUFFS. 
 
 Whole wheat — flonr 
 
 Wheat — bread 
 
 Rye flour ... 
 
 Lentils 
 
 Peas 
 
 Beans 
 
 Oatmeal 
 
 Rice 
 
 PIH 
 
 lOc. 
 
 8 
 
 5 
 29 
 23 
 25 
 12 
 
 6 
 
 > 
 
 *5b 
 
 75c. 
 
 55 
 
 80 
 
 52 
 
 63 
 
 54 
 
 75 
 
 80 
 
 •v 
 
 .^ 
 
 2c. 
 
 2 
 2 
 
 13c. 
 
 35 
 
 13 
 
 16 
 
 11 
 
 18 
 
 10 
 
 13 
 
 So much for the statistical business. Just enough 
 to be an easy guide to the selection of the especial 
 nourishment we need, as from these examples a fairly 
 good guess can be hazarded at the value of most ordi- 
 nary articles. A moderate exercise of common sense 
 will enable us to arrange a course of dishes propor- 
 tioned to each other and to our bodily requirements. 
 
 One important point invites consideration. Bear- 
 ing in mind that the Heat-givers are fully as neces- 
 
28 OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 
 
 sary as, and sometimes more valuable to our system 
 than, the Flesh-formers, we may be surprised to see 
 how high the figures run in the second column of the 
 last two tables. Look into it a moment and you 
 will learn that you get very much more Heat and 
 Force-giving material for your dollar when you buy 
 the non-flesh foods than when you buy the flesh 
 foods. The first two columns in each table show the 
 proportion of nutriment over waste. Add the totals 
 of the first four articles in the Flesh table and it 
 comes to $1.23 worth of Food in your $4.00 outlay. 
 Do the same with the first four articles in the Farm- 
 stuffs and you see your $4.00 there have yielded 
 11.74 worth of Food; and your 14.00 expended in 
 the first four articles of the Dry-stuffs (omitting the 
 bread), have brought you 13.37 worth of nutriment. 
 And we must not forget that cooking meat multiplies 
 its cost nearly three-fold. 
 
 We must remember, however, that mere statistics 
 are very dry bones indeed, bad to digest and not 
 always nutritious when digested, unless simmered 
 down into a gelatinous gravy with a good ^^ stock " of 
 common sense. Chemical analysis is infallible in its 
 wa}^, no doubt, and when it shows us that our oyster 
 is little more than mere water, and our milk cheats us 
 out of ninety cents in the dollar, we are bound to be- 
 lieve it. And yet we know very well that (honest) 
 
DINNEROLOGY : 29 
 
 milk makes us plump and we are exhilarated by the 
 innocent bivalve. If we can't get precisely these 
 qualities in the water from our back-yard pump, well, 
 we'll pay the clever chemist his analysis fee all right, 
 but we have a sneaking sort of notion that the 
 other waters are cheaper at the price, after all. 
 There are still some estimable souls who solemnly be- 
 lieve that each little pot of condensed beef-extract 
 they buy for forty cents contains a whole ox, boiled 
 down. Of course, the lamented Liebig is not respon- 
 sible for this big lie. One of the prettiest ways for a 
 gourmand to hasten his end by starvation would be to 
 limit his diet to beef-extract. On that and sawdust 
 he could live for months, but deprive him of the saw- 
 dust and he would not last as many weeks, if days. 
 We must have bulk with our chemical proteine, 
 carbo-hydrates, etc., and though much of the fibrous 
 matter we eat ranks chemically as waste, it has served 
 its useful purpose, as the coals fill the grate and sup- 
 ply the body for the soul of consuming heat. The 
 water that oozes from an oj^steris as full of phosphorus 
 as its body is, and we lose its best quality the longer the 
 interval between the opening of the shell and our eating 
 of the oyster. This phosphorus has been recommended 
 as " brain-food," and now some of our scientists are 
 pooh-poohing the idea as a fallacy. Again let me 
 urge the wisdom of applying the test of experience to 
 
30 OUR EXPEEIMEXTS IN DIET. 
 
 » 
 
 the statistics of the hiboratory. When we come to 
 deal with another branch of our subject I will give 
 my own testimony for what it is worth ; remarking 
 for the present that whether in daring to do good in 
 its artless way fish-phosphorus transgresses the rules 
 of professional etiquette or not, it assuredly doctors 
 the nervous system and tones the brain better than all 
 the medicaments of the laboratory clubbed together. 
 
 To sum up ; we have arrived at the clear under- 
 standing that each thing we eat performs several 
 offices for our benefit, and that it is wise for us to 
 know what each food is capable of doing for us. We 
 have seen that this can be learnt by a little easy study 
 of the component parts of our staple foods, not worry- 
 ing ourselves over unnecessary minutise. We also 
 appreciate the verdict of practical experience as mod- 
 ifying some of the cast-iron decrees of scientific stat- 
 istics. Here, then, is where our individual responsi- 
 bility comes in, and I promise you will find it no less 
 a pleasure than a profit when you begin to work out 
 the golden mean between scientific and practical 
 dieting. 
 
 What my patient audience and myself are now 
 going to do is to blend the knowledge we possess, 
 (such as it is, seeing we are only beginners) of the 
 scientific properties and uses of foods with our more 
 advanced knowledge of kitchen cooker^'. Fur m^'^self, 
 
DINNEROLOGY : 31 
 
 I have been so struck with the conviction that most 
 of us eat much too much meat, game, and flesh food in 
 general, I am disposed to experiment in a long lenten 
 abstinence from them, though I scarcely expect to 
 carry my naturally conservative audience with me. 
 If I so decide, it will be in sheer philanthropy, though 
 I doubt whether the terrible deprivation will be com- 
 pensated for by the delight of having sacrificed my 
 table-pleasures to give the public the benefit of my 
 martyrdom. The fox that lost his tail made very few 
 converts. I shall plunge into the dread unknown in 
 the coldest possible scientific spirit. Probably one- 
 half of mankind live and flourish without tasting 
 roast, boiled, stewed, baked, fried, hashed, devilled or 
 flesh food in any form, which consoles me in advance 
 against the dread of starvation. In assuming the 
 position of an experimenter, pro bono puUico, I am 
 simply beginning at the beginning, like Adam, who 
 was happy and prosperous as a virtuous vegetarian 
 until his strong-minded wife led him to misery and a 
 meat diet, some of the curses of which hang over hus- 
 bands unto this day. 
 
 [Mem. : This is as far as the edifying portion of the 
 lecture notes extends, what follows being the reporter's 
 sharp digression into a purely domestic side issue, 
 quite UQScientificand, strictly speaking, impertinent.] 
 
32 OUR EXPERIMENTS UST DIET. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 OUR VEGETARIAN EXPERIMENT. 
 
 How we Kept a Literal Lent. — Our Table-Turning Device. — 
 The Ills that Flesh is Heir to.— Our Vegetables, Fishes, 
 Pigeon-pies, Beefsteak-Puddings and Poultry. — What a 
 " Banquet " is. — The Elevating Tendency of Vegetarianity. 
 — Our Failure and its Lessons. 
 
 Patty and I agreed very nicely about the desirable- 
 ness of reforming our diet, up to the point of how to 
 begin, and on that we agreed to differ. She, as I 
 have implied, was conservative, like all the sensible 
 of her sex, while I was radical, like many of the 
 foolishest of mine. I wanted to revolutionize the 
 dinner table, she to improve it, dish by dish from day 
 to day. 
 
 " My dear George, j'^ou'd go from bad to worse if 
 your passion for novelty had its fling ! Isn't it more 
 sensible to weed out the harmful things one at a time 
 till we are sure we can replace them with something 
 better ? '' 
 
 " Your argument would be a good one for you to 
 use next time they tempt you to purchase a flimsy 
 
DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 33 
 
 new outfit before your sensible suit is half worn ; but 
 there's no rule without an exception." 
 
 '' Yes, there is ; the cleverest husband must be in 
 the same room with his wife before he can give 
 her the morning kiss he owes her." 1 took the hint, 
 and changed the subject. 
 
 "By the way, this is Ash Wednesday, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Why, of course it is, don't you see it's soup 
 maigre and fish ? " 
 
 " I felt there was something new, it's generally 
 Hash Wednesday with us " 
 
 " George ! consider the children — suppose they 
 grow up to be punsters — humorists ! " 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! I withdraw the slip. But, 
 Patty dear, as this is the first of Lent, what do you 
 say to keep it up, strictly, mind you, right through 
 the forty days ? " 
 
 " What, no meat, no pork, no " 
 
 " No nothing beefy or vealy or piggy or goosey 
 or " 
 
 " Nor turkey ? " 
 
 " No, nor brawny nor gravy ! " 
 
 " What, forty days without 
 
 " The children of Israel were forty years without 
 tasting the flesh-pots they used to like, and when 
 they grumbled, they were glad to put up with manna, 
 my dear." 
 
34 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 " Yes, to eat with their quails — mayn't vje have 
 quails, George ? " 
 
 "Not unless we quail before our task, which won't 
 be for the next six weeks, will it, Patty ? " 
 
 "No, George, it shall not. There now, we'll brave 
 every danger with the heroism of a lioness when the 
 cruel hunter fires " 
 
 " Or when the mean lion grabs her favorite quarry j 
 that's a neater simile." 
 
 " You always spoil my little soarings. But have 
 you really mastered the subject fully enough to ven- 
 ture on so serious a change ? I had no idea you 
 had got so far " 
 
 "Certainly. I have been reading more deeply than 
 you have fancied. I have been studying the early 
 authorities in the original tongues. Porphyry of 
 Tyre, who lived in the third century, strongly 
 denounces the eating of meats. The ancient Greeks, 
 he tells us, lived entirely on fruits, vegetables and 
 grain, so did the Syrians, and by the laws of Tripto- 
 lemus, the Athenians had to abstain from eating any 
 creature of flesh and blood." 
 
 " Well, I suppose we Americans know a thing or two 
 more than the gentlemen who died thirteen hundred 
 years before the first cook-book was printed ? " 
 
 " My dear, they knew all that was worth knowing 
 of baking and roasting and drinking and indigestion 
 
OUll EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 35 
 
 and gout and big heads long before Doctor Moses 
 invented Lent as a preventive of dyspepsia, a cure tliat 
 has never been improved on since ! " 
 
 "JSTo doubt of it, George, but however well their 
 messes of pot-herbs and porridge may have suited the 
 antediluvians I'm afraid youHl soon begin to look 
 lean and lanky, and the neighbors will hint that you 
 are mean and cranky." 
 
 " Let 'em ! I'll write some tracts to educate them 
 enough to know that there are miners toiling below 
 ground, trappers in Arctic regions, dock and farm 
 laborers, brain workers and sedentary toilers who 
 to-day enjoy perfect health and abundant strength 
 though they have never tasted flesh for as long as 
 forty years, some of them ! " 
 
 " That's a good deal more to the point than ^ the 
 laws of tomfoolery,' only I feel afraid you would lose 
 your good looks, if even you kept your health, and I 
 shouldn't like to see you going off——" 
 
 " My dear old Beef-eater ! see here, has any two- 
 legged animal more physical beauty than a racehorse, 
 more strength than an elephant, or more endurance 
 than a camel? And aren't they strict vege- 
 tarians ? They have just the same flesh and 
 blood and the same internal machinery that we have, 
 but we eat beef and enjoy dyspepsia, while they 
 avoid it and flourish." 
 
36 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 •' I hadn't thought of that— " 
 
 " Nor this either, perhaps ; that we cannot eat the 
 flesh of flesh-eating animals, because it is carrion ; we 
 eat vegetarian animals, and so we only get a vegetarian 
 diet second-hand, after all ! " 
 
 " That's so, come to think of it, and yet it strikes 
 me there's a good deal to the credit of the accommo- 
 dating four-legged machine that takes in grass and 
 turns out beef — " 
 
 " 'All flesh is grass,' don't you know ? " 
 
 '^ Yes, and all men are animals, but they are not 
 all jackasses, dear ! When grass becomes gravy, the 
 veriest greenhorn must see that it is just as sapient to 
 say 'all grass is flesh.' " 
 
 "Well, now, we're going to keep strict Lent, are 
 we ? " 
 
 " Certainly. I'll give in to your theory — but how 
 about the practice ? " 
 
 " Oh, that's easy enough — " 
 
 '' What, for the children, too ? " 
 
 " Of course. Haven't you noticed all along that 
 every baby is a born vegetarian, and it takes years 
 to get them to like meats, if ever they do, and then 
 only when capable of sin — " 
 
 But how about their soups and gravies ? They 
 like them, anyway.'' 
 
OUB EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 37 
 
 " Well, T propose we begin our dinners tail-end 
 first, and see how that works." 
 
 And that is just what we did. This is how it 
 answered, and the same with every meat meal. By 
 way of tickling the juveniles into the new anti-meat 
 system we induced them to put on their very best be- 
 havior by the promise of fruits and sweets at 
 the beginning as well as at the end of their 
 dinner. Didn't they think it a glorious treat ! 
 We said we would do the same, just for the fun of the 
 thing, and so we all began with the oranges, raisins, 
 and almonds, figs and plums, and whatnot. Then we 
 tackled the pies and puddings, custards, blancmanges, 
 and jellies, liy and bye we all began' to think how 
 nice it would be to change to something savory, and 
 we welcomed the asparagus on toast, and the omelet 
 with gravy. It was very puzzling to find that we 
 really had no appetite left when we got to the plain 
 potatoes and greasy meats. Next day we quietly 
 hinted to our cook that she need not trouble about 
 doing any meats, or fish, or poultry for the next few 
 days. 
 
 We never missed them ! at first. An extra pudding 
 and a few more fruit sundries did the business per- 
 fectl}'-. Even the cheeses and crackers had no extra 
 run upon them. Our souls and stomachs were all 
 serene. 
 
38 DINKEROLOGY : 
 
 " George dear, it's just four weeks to-day since we 
 tasted the meat which my soul loveth — don't be 
 alarmed, I'm not hankering after the flesh-pots of 
 Egypt. But their departed odors — were — awfully — 
 delicious weren't they ? " 
 
 " I admit it, dear monitress, — dee — licious ! What a 
 bad time those antique anchorites must have had — 
 eh ? Barring themselves out/breyer from " 
 
 ^•George ! You're never weakening — surely ? " 
 
 "By the memories of Delmonico's, never ! at least, 
 not just yet, anyhow. It suits us all right, doesn't 
 it, Patty ? " 
 
 '' Splendidly ! " 
 
 " Perfectl}^ gorgeous ! " 
 
 "Don't say gorge-ns ; I'm sure we don't ! " 
 
 " I didn't mean anything. Tolerably up to weight, 
 though, I guess, ain't we ? '' 
 
 "' Certainly Tm no slimmer as yet, nor you either. 
 But I was going to suggest that we had better draw 
 up a sort of bill of fare, what we may eat, and what 
 we maynH, you know, dear, a sort of a vegetarian 
 decalogue, which we can stick up on the wall." 
 
 " Good, and I'll add the chemical values of what is 
 in every dish, so that we can convince our guests 
 that they are feasting on the fat of the land un- 
 awares." 
 
 " Oh doy it will be fun ! And now I want to know 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 39 
 
 whether we mayn't introduce fish, Just a little — harm- 
 less salmon or cod or bass or trout — or " 
 
 " My dear child, salmon and cod are a variety of 
 vegetable that don't grow in the vegetarian's garden." 
 
 " But if we are vegetarians we are not vegetable- 
 arians, are we ? It seems to me that an eel is as 
 much of a vegetable as an egg, and we are allowed 
 eggs ! " 
 
 " And a sausage is as fragrant a fruit as an ome- 
 let, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Ah, but sausages are made of real meat.'' 
 
 " If I could be sure of that I believe I'd be tempted 
 — but no ; see here, dear, I'll make that Index Ex- 
 inirgatoriits for you, drawing the line at fish, fowl, 
 and flesh, because life has to be sacrificed before they 
 become food. As to sausageS; I will reserve the point 
 for more mature consideration ; if I am convinced 
 (and it is not an impossibility) that their mysterious 
 elements never drew the breath of life, I will squeeze 
 them in. Wines, beers and honest liquors are admitted 
 because thej^ embody the very spirit of vegetarianity, 
 especially potato spirit, cider, and Jersey apple 
 jack." 
 
 I soon had the chart drawn up and hung right in 
 view of the diners at our table. This, in brief, is 
 what it contained, made plain to all by the beautiful 
 arrangement of figures and diagrams. 
 
40 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 Man ts a frugivorous, not a carnivorous 
 animal; vide Ciivier, Linnreus^ and modern scien- 
 tists. {This was printed large to inspire respect for 
 our vege-table). The animals we eat suffer from dis- 
 ease as we do ; your chop may have belonged to a 
 consumptive sheep ; your steak to a scrofulous ox, 
 your pork tenderloin to a gouty pig ; your breast-cut 
 of wild-fowl to a lunatic canvas-back, your dainty 
 wing to a dyspeptic prairie chicken, and your mayon- 
 naise cutlet to a salmon with incipient paralysis. 
 {This was to reconcile them to the absence of those 
 dainties.) A full-grown man can live luxuriously on 
 ten cents a day ; comfortably on five ; adequately on 
 two. Two cents worth of wheat, corn, potatoes, 
 onions, etc., are ample to sustain health. Five cents 
 add milk, cheese, butter, etc., to enrich the former. 
 Ten cents, by weekly or monthly purchases, add 
 dates, figs, raisins, nuts, fresh fruits, tea or beer, 
 etc., yielding as rich and varied a diet as a man needs. 
 {Here folloioed the tables of food values as already 
 given.) A healthy man should eat no more than he 
 wastes joer die^n. Excess is worse than wastefulness. 
 Experience is a better guide than statistics as to the 
 quantity required. The various dishes that will be 
 set before you will furnish your system with a liberal 
 store of flesh-forming, muscle-strengthening, bone- 
 building, heat-giving, force-creating substances. Be 
 
OUK EXPERIMENTS TN DIET. 41 
 
 not down-hearted because a disli seemeth bald ; there 
 is more meat within than meets thine eye. 
 
 By this time we had become vegetarians, pure and 
 simple. We were launched on the sea of experiment, 
 out of sight of land, and the toothsome animals there- 
 on. You will be curious to know the contents of our 
 larder. Well, it might have passed for a grocery 
 store, and a variegated one at that. But this gives 
 you no idea of the transmogrification its contents 
 underwent on their triumphal march to the din- 
 ing-room. We had frequent little parties, of inti- 
 mates only, of course, and I assure you that Patty 
 and I laughed consumedly over the fun our menus 
 caused. It did not cost me a cent for antibilious 
 medicine the whole of our year's experiment. But, 
 to be candid, I guess it would have meant a few 
 dollars but for the laughing fits. 
 
 Our soups bore the most illustrious names in the 
 culinary calendar, and never did anybody detect their 
 innocence of flesh. Lentil or pea flour, with barley, 
 potatoes, herbs, a bit of toast, burnt onion, burnt 
 sugar and sauce will deceive the very elect if nobly 
 christened. 
 
 Our " fish " course would include salmon steaks, 
 cod rissoles, oysters and other finny-cal morsels, and 
 we prided ourselves on their bonelessness. I under- 
 
42 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 stood that a basis of cunningly flavored pudding-stuff 
 served for the fishiness and Patty's artistic genius 
 satisfied the critical eye. Her mock oysters were 
 sublime but for their lack of pedigree ; the sauces 
 worked the charm. 
 
 Your everyday coarse sirloins and legs were beneath 
 our serious notice. In lieu of these there came a stately 
 array of mock-goose, mock-chicken, mock-pigeon pie, 
 mock-beefsteak pudding, accompanied by real cauli- 
 flowers soused with cheese sauce, real potato omelet 
 disguised in a garment of brown jelly ; real haricot of 
 chestnuts with savory sauce cutlets, and kindred 
 dishes galore. The " mocks " were a real delight to 
 our guests, but the " realities," I confess, mocked 
 most of our anticipations. 
 
 " Hello ! Patty ! — my — —' Jc-' cJc-umm ! " 
 
 '■'■George! You're choking ! Oh, %ohat shall I do ! 
 — Bridget — run — run — " 
 
 " All right now, dear ! Gi' me a drink but 
 
 it's all over with me now ! " 
 
 ^' George ! what is ? " 
 
 " Strict vegetarianity — that's all, dear, — Vve swal- 
 lowed a snail in my cabbage P 
 
 It was the moral lapse that grieved me. To think 
 I had fulfilled my vows eleven whole months and then 
 to fall back to flesh ! Worse still not to have one's 
 choice of a backslide. 
 
OUK expekXments in diei\ 43 
 
 When it came to the sweets and the dessert we, of 
 course, had no more dodgery to do. We noticed that 
 our friends seemed to regain their wonted gaiety 
 about the time when I ceased expounding the chart. 
 But fruits and pies and w^nes generally do gladden 
 the hearts of well-dined philosophers. T ought to 
 have explained that lard never entered our larder, 
 though it seems as if the closet so named ought never 
 to contain anything else. We used butter and olive 
 oil, being vegetables within the meaning of the law, 
 always allowing for the usual legal loophole through 
 which genuine cotton-seed unction and immaculate 
 oleomargarine no doubt found their occasional way. 
 
 Perhaps it may be thought that our food field must 
 have been considerably limited under our new system. 
 Yet the taking a herd or a flock out of a pas- 
 ture rather suggests the notion that more grass, 
 (which is flesh) would remain. Anyway, to settle the 
 point, take a careful inventory of all the dishes on the 
 next banqueting board you adorn, count those that 
 belong to the animal kingdom and those that belong 
 to the vegetable, and you will discover that, while, 
 numerically, the meats would scarcely be missed, the 
 bulk of the nutriment you take in comes from the 
 other class. The very word ''banquet" originally 
 meant what is now called the dessert. Tlie coarser 
 fare was eaten in a matter-of-fact way and then the 
 
44 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 company adjourned to a more elegant room, usually 
 the arbor or garden house, to enjoy the banquet of 
 sweets and fruits while " merrie musicke " was sung 
 and played. 
 
 The staple foods at our other meals included the 
 pulse family, macaroni, fruits, oftener raw than 
 cooked, vegetables, eggs, cheese, jams and jellies, 
 salads and sauces (home-made) frumenty (a glorious 
 dish and a prime favorite with all) cocoa, milk, lem- 
 onade, tea, coffee, fruit juices, and nuts unlimited. 
 
 As to nuts, they are blamed for half the sins of 
 the dinner-table. They require a full proportion of 
 gastric juice to digest them. Fill the stomach with 
 meats, pastry and similar exacting substances, and 
 they help themselves to all the available service of 
 the digestive machinery. To eat nuts now is to 
 doubly overload an already overloaded beast of burden. 
 But go to your nut store hungry, and a dozen oily 
 Brazils will sit on your ^' chest "with the graceful 
 lightness of a fairy. Eat your chop first, and then 
 two of them will weigh like the nuts on a suspension 
 bridge. Moral : If you like nuts, pay them the com- 
 pliment of hungering for them. 
 
 " My dear, have you noticed the peculiar walk 
 Percy has got into the way of lately, the little dar- 
 ling?" 
 
 " Little ! I've been wondering if you've been 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 45 
 
 qualifying him for some amateur dime-show charity ! 
 Why, no ; I've not particularly noticed his walk, 
 Patty.'' 
 
 " Well, he seems to me to bob up and down between 
 his strides like the porpoises we saw from the ship — " 
 
 ^^ I see, you mean an airy, fairy-like rise. I've 
 observed that. In fact I catch myself at it at times, 
 and I do believe you tread the floor more lightly 
 than " 
 
 " Kow, George, you're teasing, and I'm in earnest 
 about the dear boy ! " 
 
 ^'So am I, Patty; the truth is our diet is so rich 
 in hydrogen, amongst other blessings, I really should 
 not be very surprised to see Master Percy bobbing 
 all round the dining-room ceiling one of these morn- 
 ings, and you trying to hook him down with the toast- 
 ing fork — with the imminent risk of recovering noth- 
 ing but his ^ bust ! ' '^ 
 
 " You horrid thing ! Do be serious — do ! " 
 
 "My dear Patty, am I ever anything else? Have 
 you forgotten our studies in the old masters ? Don't 
 you remember asking me why that voracious old veg- 
 etist the philosophic Pythagoras forbade his disciples 
 to eat beans ? '' 
 
 " Yes, I remember, and you told me that as the 
 colleges at Boston all boycott Pythagoras and his 
 
46 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 teachings you were never able to find out the reason 
 why " 
 
 " My dear — I know it noio ! I feel as if I had 
 ^ Itesurgani^ tattooed across my chest — don't you 
 too ? " 
 
 "Oh George, you make me feel so uncanny — I'm 
 growing quite light-headed." 
 
 " Exactly, the practice of vegetarianism does tend 
 to increase the brilliance by decreasing the gravity 
 of the cerebral organ. But it gives great breadth 
 elsewhere ; that reminds me — confound it — I forgot to 
 go and try on my new " 
 
 " You^ue not been ordering new clothes too ? '' 
 
 " Why, have you ? !' 
 
 "Well, haven't you noticed that I've been keeping 
 riorrie and Percy in pinafores all the time — poor 
 dears — -they haven't a decent thing that will button 
 properly ! " 
 
 " Ha ! — that's good — oh, it is too good ! Why, 
 there hasn't been a week these three months that 
 I have not had to have something let in to let 
 out my vest behind. I didn't think it worth nam- 
 ing to you." 
 
 ^' Well, and I've had to do no end of dress-making 
 lately, in a quiet way.'' 
 
 "I guess vegetarianity needs a powerful lot of 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 47 
 
 studying by the help of the modern commentators, 
 Patty, before we can strike the golden mean." 
 
 "That's just what I've been thinking for ever so 
 long, George, dear, only I didn't like to shake your 
 faith." 
 
 "A little judicious shaking might have done mc 
 good, physically, anyway ; but I think, as we are just 
 at the end of our long Lent we may profitably review 
 our experience." 
 
 So we gave up several evenings to a thorough bal- 
 ancing of the pros and cons. It was something to 
 feel we were at the end of our penance, for the sorest 
 of our experiences were the temptations of seeing our 
 hosts and hostesses enjoying what we had muz- 
 zled ourselves against. Of course, it was sturdy 
 moral discipline, and we made the most of that 
 flattering solace. The other moral reward was 
 the consciousness that we were demonstrating the 
 practicability of living, healthily and heartily, with- 
 out tasting flesh. That was almost a miracle in 
 our friends' eyes, who verily believed they would 
 perish of inanition if they did not eat meat at 
 least once a day. The flesh and blood superstition is 
 slow in giving way to reason and fact. We felt a 
 solid satisfaction in convincing ourselves, and others, 
 that meat-eating is a mere luxury, not a necessity. 
 If we can convince the poor of this, it alone will cure 
 
48 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 half the ills which ignorance makes poverty inherit. 
 As for the sufficiencj'^ of a non-flesh diet, the following 
 example deserves consideration. A recent writer de- 
 scribes the life of the famous French Carthusian 
 monks who make the liqueur known by the name of 
 the monastery, the Grand Chartreuse. 
 
 " The order was founded by St. Bruno in 1084. Its 
 founder believed that manual labor was more healthy 
 to relieve the hours of contemplation than other un- 
 profitable exercise. The monks are never allowed to 
 eat meat, and fish cannot be eaten except when given 
 as alms. Eggs and cheese are their food on two days, 
 pulse and boiled herbs on three others, and bread and 
 water on Wednesday and Friday. One meal a day is 
 the only allowance, except on feasts of the double 
 class, and this they eat in their lonely cells. They 
 sleep on sheetless beds, and are awakened twice dur- 
 ing the night to recite their office. Hough hair 
 shirts are worn next their skin, and when they die 
 they are laid in the grave without anything between 
 them and the clay but the robes they wore in life. A 
 single cross marks their graves, no name being en- 
 graved thereon. Strange to say, nearly all the monks 
 die of old age.'' 
 
 Another example, nearer home, is that of Dr. Gar- 
 rettson, of Cincinnati, who was interviewed on behalf 
 of the New York Mail in the Christmas week of 1888. 
 
DINNEROLOGY . 49 
 
 " Dr. Garrettson, who was in this city during the 
 past week, is 83 years old, and it is his boast that he 
 never in his life suffered a pain. 
 
 ^ How do you explain such a remarkable exemp- 
 tion ? ' he was asked. 
 
 ' You would scarcely believe me were I to tell you,' 
 he replied ; and an incredulous smile played about 
 liis pallid lips. ' I am not as robust as some men, 
 nor as full of life's rosy color, but my step's as light, 
 my nerves are as true and ray appetite as good as, or 
 perhaps a trifle better than, those of men half my 
 age, who are reputed to be models of good health.' 
 
 EATS NEITHER MEAT NOR SALT. 
 
 ' Why is it ? Well, I will tell you, although you 
 no doubt will scout the idea, as most people do. It 
 has now been fifty-three years since I tasted meat or 
 grease of any kind whatever, and forty-two years 
 since I have eaten a particle of salt or seasoning of 
 any kind in any food. Doesn't look reasonable, does 
 it ? Everybody, you know, imagines that if he were 
 to be denied salt he would get sick and ultimately 
 perish — but, sir, it is true — no salt in forty-two 
 years.' 
 
 < But when travelling. Doctor, how do you manage 
 it?' 
 
 ' Easy enough. I have my food especially prepared 
 at the hotel if I am away from home any length of 
 
50 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 time ; if I am not, I carry enough lunch ^\lt\\ me to 
 last till I return/ 
 
 ' That's all very pretty, but what about the grease 
 — ^you know that enters everything in the cooking 
 process ? ' 
 
 'Not in my case. To begin with, I do not eat 
 fried food. An article fried is already condemned. 
 Did you ever hear of anything being fried for a sick 
 man? When the stomach begins to break down, the 
 first thing it rejects is fried food. Next it rejects 
 grease in any form. It's nauseous. This fact was 
 what suggested the elimination of grease from my 
 food. I experimented with such marked success that 
 my mind began to inquire furtl.er into the problem.' 
 
 THE INDIAN AS A MODEL. 
 
 'The Indian in his native state,' he said, ^ never 
 tasted salt, and health with him is almost second 
 nature. As much as I liked salt as an element to 
 bring out the latent flavor of many articles of food, I 
 regarded perfect health as essential to happiness and 
 conducive to greater enjoyment of life than what 
 little pleasure I might extract from an hour at table, 
 and my salt went the way my meat and grease went. 
 When I gave up meat and grease, the denial cost 
 me a great effort, but I came out in time master of 
 the situation, and have not for years had any desire 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 5J 
 
 for any of those things. Taste is very much a thing 
 of cultivation. The palate is capable of being ad- 
 justed to a high appreciation of almost any flavor. 
 Why, I have seen men gag over beer arid oysters and 
 bananas and tomatoes and whatnot, when they first 
 tasted them, but after repeated attacks became fond 
 of any or all of them. To me, now, a seasoned article 
 of food or grease in any form would be as unpalatable 
 as an article which 3'ou refuse to eat unless highly 
 seasoned would be to you were it not seasoned.' " 
 
 For the moneyed classes the inducements of veg- 
 etarianism are based on the alleged harmfulness of a 
 flesh diet, which is quite true of excessive meat-eat- 
 ing. The question is, What is excess ? And may not 
 the disuse of meats tend to an excess of the other 
 sort ? We rather thought it did. If we had gone 
 in for the vegetarian practice of the Nebuchadnezzar 
 school, I dare say the field exercise would regulate 
 the girth. As to digestion, we had nothing to com- 
 plain of. It required undying vigilance at the chart 
 to secure our freedom from troubles, and we agree 
 that the same care will probably pay us as good a 
 profit when we enter upon the modified dietary we 
 propose. Another valuable lesson we learnt, which 
 was that we may safely rely on a very much smaller 
 quantity of food than we had formerly thought essen- 
 tial. But this, too, applies equally to the meat-eater. 
 
52 DINNEEOLOGY : 
 
 Patty had cliarge of the economics. She reported 
 that while it is easy to feed phiin palates on a suffi- 
 cient diet at a cost of a very few cents a day, practi- 
 cally it is not possible to furnish an ordinaril}^ taste- 
 ful table for any less cost than under the mixed 
 dietary. She found many advantages appreciable 
 by housewives in general, but especially by those 
 who have to study economy, in the meat market that 
 are not to be had for the same outlay in the vege- 
 tarian store. Tastes wearied of the " mock " meats 
 sooner than they do of the actual. There is more 
 trouble in the kitchen and consequently more kitchen- 
 troubles. The lower region is demoralized, and 
 there are rumors of rebellion. (She refers to the 
 basement floor.) On the whole we agreed that the 
 advantages were outweighed by these and other 
 drawbacks. We never wished to cultivate asceticism. 
 So, feeling convinced that our valuable experience 
 would enable us to hit upon a scheme more sweetly 
 reasonable and practicable, we made up our minds to 
 draw up a plan for further trial. 
 
 Patty permits me to copy two or three of the vege- 
 tarian Christmas dinner recipes she collected. Whether 
 I ever tasted any of these marvellous concoctions I am 
 quite unable to say, and I dare not ask her 
 Vegetarian Goose: 
 Get a vegetable marrow, pare it, and scoop out all 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 53 
 
 the seeds ; make a stuffing of sage, onions, bread 
 crumbs, and butter, and stuff the marrow ; boil or 
 steam in a cloth two hours. Two vegetables and 
 brown gravy, the gravy to be made by putting a little 
 butter in the frying-pan with a little flour, and al- 
 lowed to brown ; then add so much water to suit 
 family, and mix it and let it come to the boil ; to be 
 followed by mince-pie, Christmas-pudding and sweet 
 sauce. 
 Vegetable Pie : 
 
 Stew some lentils and split peas till tender in suf- 
 ficient water, with one large onion, and a few leaves 
 of sage; have ready some potatoes boiled and mashed, 
 turn the lentils, peas, etc., into a buttered dish ; spread 
 a thick layer of potato over it, score it ; place in oven 
 to brown (add salt and pepper to taste). The peas and 
 potatoes may be cooked the day before required, and 
 then made into pies when wanted. Two vegetables and 
 brown gravy as above. Mince-pie and Christmas- 
 pudding, sweet sauce. 
 Another Christmas Dinner: 
 
 First Course : Savory pudding, dish of mashed 
 potatoes, dish of Brussels sprouts, brown bread, apple, 
 sauce, brown sauce. Second Course : Plum Pudding, 
 Third Course : Cheese and celery. Fourth Course : 
 Apples, oranges, nuts. Directions for preparing the 
 above. Savory Pudding : Ingredients, 4 oz. butter, 
 
54 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 4oz. onion, 12 oz. wlieatmeal, six sage leaves, 2 oz. 
 tapi-oca, pepper and salt to taste. Wash the tapioca, 
 and soak it for two hours in cold water. Rub 
 thoroughly the butter and meal together ; chop the 
 onions and sage fine. Mix the whole together with 
 skimmed milk (water will do) ; make it into a long 
 pudding in a cloth, and boil about two to two and a 
 half hours. — Plum Pudding : Ingredients : 4 oz. butter, 
 6 oz. plums (or sultanas), 1 oz. peel, 3 oz. Demerara 
 sugar, 12 oz. wheatmeal, half a nutmeg grated, 2 oz. 
 tapioca. How prepared : Wash and soak tapioca as 
 for savory puddings, rub the butter and meal together 
 thoroughly ; stone the plums, cut the peel into small 
 dice, mix all together with skimmed milk (water will 
 do) ; put into a well-buttered basin and boil three 
 hours. An egg well beaten and added to it when 
 mixing up would improve it. When done turn out 
 and grate lump sugar over it, and stick a small twig 
 of holly in the top. Apple Sauce. — 2 oz. apples, 2i.^ oz. 
 Demerara sugar. Wipe and wash the apples, and 
 take out the cores (not necessary to peel them if they 
 be cut up small) ; boil till thoroughly tender, with 
 just enough water to cover when put on. Do not 
 strain any away. Add the sugar when the apples 
 are done, and beat up. Brown Sauce : 2 oz. butter, 
 pinch of pepper and salt, a little flour. How pre- 
 pared: Melt the butter in a frying pan over the fire, 
 
OUK EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 55 
 
 dredge in the flour as long as the butter will take it 
 up, then stir about with an iron spoon till it is nicely 
 browned ; then add the pepper and salt, and sufficient 
 water to make it of a thin creamy consistence (about 
 a pint and a half), stir together and boil one minute. 
 Potatoes : Peel 41bs. of potatoes ; put into a saucepan 
 of cold water, add a piece of salt about the size of a 
 small walnut, and boil till tender. Strain away the 
 water ; let them steam for about five minutes, then 
 beat them, while still in the saucepan, athwart and 
 across, and round and round with an ordinary steel 
 table-fork', until they are nice and fine ; turn out into 
 the dish, and cut across. Brussels sprouts : A gal- 
 lon of sprouts. Pick and wash carefully, and just 
 crack the base of the sprout with the knife. Don't 
 soak all the taste out of them by letting them stand 
 in water for hours. When ready, throw them into 
 a saucepan of boiling water, to which has been add- 
 ed a pinch of salt, and a very little carbonate of 
 soda ; boil rapidly with the lid off till done. From a 
 health point of view the third and fourth courses 
 would be better omitted. Total cost for the whole of 
 the materials ought not to exceed 44c or 50c. at 
 the outside. The two courses would be found suffi- 
 cient for six average adults. The dinner, if properly 
 prepared, will be not only cheap, but delicious, whole- 
 some, nutritious, satisfying and easily digestible. 
 
5Q DTKNEROLOGY 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OUR COMMON-SENSE COMPROMISE. 
 
 Our Declaration of the Eights of the Inner Man. — We Ad- 
 mit the Animals to Our Alimentary Arli. — Patty 
 Preaches. — Kniclcerbocker Solidity. — Common Sense 
 Drinking. — Sham Abstinence. — The Prohibitionist's 
 Soliloquy. — We Kesolve to Enjoy, Simplify, Economize. 
 
 At last the three hundred and sixty-sixth day of 
 our Lenten fast came, and we broke it with an Easter 
 feast of — ham and eggs ! Yes, I shamelessly confess 
 it, for Patty as well as myself. She wanted us to have 
 a sausage inauguration of the Restoration to Dietetic 
 Rights, but I stood out against the indignity of 
 mincing matters by any such nondescript symbolism, 
 and my battle for " the whole hog or none " pre- 
 vailed. After a glorious, but withal, a frugal " free '^ 
 meal, we went into select committee upon the table- 
 policy for the ensuing year, intent upon drawing up a 
 schedule of operations. 
 
 "And I think we ought to begin by a Declaration 
 of Independence, don't you, George ? " 
 
 " Conjugal, my dear, or '' 
 
 "Bless you, 7to/ I declare you re much too inde- 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IK DIET. 57 
 
 pendent, already ! I mean our mutual independence 
 of cranks and grim science grinders, scaring our com- 
 fort with their isms and ologies ! " 
 
 " Why, certainly we will, my dear, and your sug- 
 gestion is admirable. Here goes : 
 
 '■ When, in the course of human events, it becomes 
 advisable for two people to dissolve the prejudicial 
 
 bands which have united them ' 
 
 ' Pm sure that's all wrong, — you are mixing the 
 Declaration with the preamble of the latest Divorce 
 Act, I think, and it would be better for your good 
 citizenship if you'd think more about the one, and less 
 of the other, George ! " 
 
 "Well, Patty, those are just the things most fel- 
 lows do get mixed up in nowadays, if we may judge 
 by the papers — " 
 
 " Oh, I'm sick of the papers ! They fill one column 
 with bragging that our country is the biggest in the 
 world, and the next five try to make out by their 
 tittle-tattle that its people are the smallest ! " 
 
 " My dear, don't be hard upon the unfortunates 
 who have to ' chronicle small beer,' or starve for want 
 of cranial capital. But where did we leave off ? " 
 
 " We were just coming to the Whereases^ and I had 
 prepared this : 
 
 ^ Whereas all men are created equal, and most 
 women superior, we hold that they are endowed with 
 
68 DINNEROLOGY ; 
 
 certain inalienable rights, among which is the Kight 
 to pursue happiness in the dining-room, and the Lib- 
 erty to enjoy life and Good Living unfettered except 
 by prudence.' How will that do, my royal George 
 the First?" 
 
 *^ If you put it that way — I surrender, of course. 
 But now to business, Patty, for I am beginning to 
 see visions of the coming lunch — di(;cklings and saddle 
 of mutton — ah ! " 
 
 " And real salmon steaks and real pigeon pie ! " 
 
 " See here, Patty, let's change the subject ; it's not 
 ten o'clock yet ! What you were driving at is this, 
 ain't it ? We are going to extend our range (I don't 
 mean the kitchen range) but not our execution — " 
 
 " I don't know anything about your military ma- 
 noeuvres, so I'll explain it for you in good womanly 
 English — we are going to do three sensible things : 
 
 1. Enjoy our Food ; 
 
 2. Simplify it ; and 
 
 3. Economize it. 
 Won't that do ? " 
 
 '^ Splendidly ! Why, Patty, you are quite a parson, 
 with your firstly and finally — " 
 
 "Nevermind, wait till I come to the practical ap- 
 plication. Oh, no, I didn't hint at a kiss, though it 
 will probably soften my concluding rap at the sinner; 
 — there, now, let's talk week-day sense again." 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 59 
 
 " Well, I'm glad you have put your first head first, 
 Patty. I am perfectly sure God would not have 
 filled man's table with good things, nor have made his 
 cup run over, if He had intended enjoyment in eating 
 and drinking to be a sin." 
 
 " Why, of course not ! There are lots and lots of 
 passages that set our mouths watering, and they were 
 never put there for nothing. I can only think of one 
 just now, where it tells us that Miis brethren set food 
 before Benjamin, and he did eat ' — how wonderfully 
 expressive that did is, isn't it ? " 
 
 " My dear, I fear the commentators would make a 
 hash of Benjamin's dish, but your reading would do 
 credit to the imagination of Talmage himself." 
 
 "Well, but, whatever it was, he evidently enjoyed 
 it, and that's all I care about ; you should never ex- 
 pect a preacher to tackle more of his text than suits 
 his purpose, don't j^ou know ? " 
 
 " I guess our jolly ancestors enjoyed their dinners 
 — look at great-grandpa Vanboompje up there — ha, — 
 
 there's your 
 
 Justice, 
 In fair round chest, with good fat capon lined, 
 With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, 
 
 but eyes that twinkled and beard that merrily wagged 
 when the capon had reached home well drenched with 
 wine-showers ! " 
 
60 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 " George, do you know I came across a piece the 
 other day in one of your old books — here it is — I'll 
 read it ; it's from old George Gascoigne's ^Voyage to 
 Holland.' He wrote it more than three hundred 
 years ago. Here's his picture of your old Knicker- 
 bocker of the period : 
 
 Methinks they be a race of bull-beef born, 
 Whose hearts their butter mollyfieth by kind, 
 And so the force of beef is clean outworn ; 
 And eke their brains with double-beer are lined, 
 So that they march bumbast with butter'd beer, 
 Like sops of brovesse (broth) puff'd up with froth ; 
 Where inwardly they be but hollow geer, 
 As weak as wind which with one puff upgoeth. 
 And yet they brag and think they have no peer, 
 Because Haarlem hath hitherto held out. 
 
 "Well, that's all right as far as the beef and butter 
 and beer, but I guess they had good honest avoirdupois 
 inside their galligaskins ; they weren't vegetarians, 
 you know." 
 
 " That's true, yet I shouldn't wonder if some of 
 their descendants don't sometimes show a symptom 
 of hereditary puffed-upishness even now ; but that's 
 nothing, is it ? " 
 
 " My dear, I'm not a pursuivant herald-at-arms in 
 the 'America Heraldica' college of free and equal 
 'ocracies ! " 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 61 
 
 "Well, the amount of feeling you threw into the 
 first line of the hj'^mn last Sunday set me thinking ; 
 it was : 
 
 Hark the herald angeh sing." 
 
 " I must have been thinking about that gorgeous 
 monogram you had ordered, my dear, which reminds 
 me we were discussing Dutch dinners " 
 
 " I ho]3e you don't intend us to discuss them on 
 our table, George ! Judging by your ancestors' por- 
 traits, I am inclined to quote — wasn't it Canning's 
 little joke — 
 
 ' In dming, the fault of the old time Dutch, 
 Was pausing too little and eating too much !' " 
 
 " My dear, you never can quote correctly j that's 
 all wrong — it goes more like this : 
 
 In talking, the wealth of a woman is sucli, 
 
 Her gold is too scarce and her bronze too much." 
 
 " George ! How dare you ! That's a wicked slan- 
 der on Canning — and on our sex ! " 
 
 " Talking of canning, my dear, I haven't any par- 
 ticular respect for it, always excepting sardines and 
 potted pastes. We can't e7ijoi/ canned fish, for 
 instance, or fruit." 
 
 "That's a neat sneak-out, George ; so I'll forgive 
 you this once. No, Z don't much care for more than 
 
62 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 can't be done without, though they come in very 
 handy sometimes. What are we going to do about 
 wines and beers ? " 
 
 "Drink 'em, my dear." * 
 
 " Well, I'm not quite clear about that. I've 
 thought a good deal of late about the evils of stimu- 
 lants." 
 
 " The physical or the moral ? " 
 
 " Both ; but I am thinking of the physical just now." 
 
 " Well, Patty, don't you know that neither we nor 
 anybody else can get along in health without taking 
 stimulants ?" 
 
 " Now that's absurd, George. Look at the Drink- 
 waters ; teetotal all their lives ! " 
 
 " Tea-total drinkers I'll swear ! Why, there isn't 
 a teetotaller in existence who doesn't take his full 
 whack of vicious stimulants — *y they are vicious; the 
 only difference is they get it round the corner, so to 
 speak." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 "Just this; there's more rank poison in a pint of 
 tea than there is in a pint of beer or a bottle of sound 
 wine, and I am satisfied that more dyspepsia is caused 
 by tea and coffee than by the same quantities of good 
 'intoxicating' beverages." 
 
 "But people don't go around making fools of them- 
 selves on tea." 
 
OUR EXPEKIMENTS IN DIET. 63 
 
 "No, but they get there just the same in the long 
 run. There's absolutely no nutriment in tea, till 
 you add cream and sugar, and even then it is more 
 harmful than a glass of honest ale. In fact I have 
 to drink a glass of beer to allay the nerve irritation 
 caused by tea.'' 
 
 " But all teetotallers don't dissipate on tea, dear." 
 
 "Very likelj'' not, but I have never met one who 
 didn't either eat more flesh meat or fish tlian the 
 average man, unless he had tea, coffee, milk, or some 
 so-called ' temperance ' drink-shams ; they 77iust stim- 
 ulate some way and they do." 
 
 "Well, George, I've tasted some delicious temper- 
 ance cordials and wines. I'm sure they were just as 
 good as hock or claret, in their way — " 
 
 "And do you know what their way is, Patty? 
 Why there is not a teetotal ' non-alcoholic ' wine that 
 has less than from fifteen to thirty j)er cent, of pure 
 — no — the impurest, fieriest, cheapest alcohol in it, to 
 keep it good. They simply cannot make a wine with- 
 out alcohol, as everybody knows, or ought to. And 
 as for the tribe of quack ^ tonics,' ^ bitters ' and 
 ^ cordials,' the professing teetotaler who keeps them 
 on his premises, whether on the sideboard or in the 
 little locker in the bedroom, well — you may safely 
 write him down a pharisee or a phool." 
 
64 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 " You are talking strongly, George ; are you quite 
 sure you are on safe ground ? " 
 
 "You may be sure I shouldn't speak without 
 authority. I have myself known a teetotal firm, 
 makers of 'temperance' drinks, and they not only 
 told me, but showed me that it was absolutely neces- 
 sary to put fourteen per cent, of alcohol (potato spirit) 
 into the mildest brew they made. The public ana- 
 lysists testify to the same facts. The chemist to the 
 Board of Health of Massachusetts published a report 
 on investigations recently made by "him into the 
 tonics and bitters advertised and used in the United 
 States. Forty-six out of 47 examined were found to 
 contain alcohol in quantities varying from 6 to 47.5 
 per cent., the average being 21.5 per cent. One 
 advertised as • not a rum drink ' contains 13.2 per 
 cent.; a 'coca beef tonic/ which is said to contain 
 some sherry, actually contains 23.2 per cent., while 
 sherry contains only 18 to 20 per cent. Another 
 described as a purely vegetable extract, ' a stimulus 
 to the body without intoxicating,' contains 41.6 per 
 cent, of alcohol, while whisky and brandy contain 
 only 50 per cent. This particular tonic is especially 
 recommended to inebriates struggling to reform, 
 because ' its tonic and sustaining influence on the 
 nervous system is a great help to their efforts.' An- 
 other tonic, said to be distilled from seaweed, and 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 65 
 
 quite harmless, contains 19.5 per cent, of alcohol, and 
 certain ^German bitters,' which are advertised as 
 purely vegetable and free from alcoholic stimulant, 
 have 26.5 per cent. Certain ' sulphur ' bitters con- 
 tain no sulphur, and, though advertised to contain no 
 alcohol, actually contain 20.5 per cent. One maker's 
 'concentrated sherry wine bitters' contain 47.5 per 
 cent, of alcohol, or barely 2,5 per cent, less than 
 brandy, while another ' stomach bitters ' contain 42.6 
 and a third 44.3 per cent, of alcohol. Of the whole 
 forty-seven tonics and bitters examined, only one was 
 free from alcohol, and the average alcoholic strength 
 was greater than that of sherry. Now do me the 
 justice to observe that I am in no way running tee- 
 totalism down, nor upholding drunkenness. I draw 
 a broad line between the sincere abstainer and the 
 hypocrite who tipples in these abominable deceptions. 
 I reverence the self-denial of the man who says ' I 
 will drink no wine, that I may reclaim my brother 
 who drinks too much.' These are our untrumpeted 
 heroes, greater in true greatness than the lucky leader 
 of big armies. But this is moral suasion, quite 
 another thing from the abusing of nature's gifts 
 because the weak-minded don't use them sensibly." 
 
 " Shouldn't we keep them from the drinks, or the 
 drinks from them ? '' 
 
 " If you live in a free country, peopled with com- 
 
66 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 mon-sense folk, you have certainly no right to lock up 
 their razors or tlieir ropes, or their laudanum or their 
 beer. If some of them misuse these excellent aids to 
 happiness, — well, sit down and study the percentage 
 of fools in the family, then count the spare beds in 
 your asylum, mail a ten-dollar note to the nearest 
 church, do your duty to your weakling friends by 
 your strong talk and example, and then be thankful 
 you live in a land where drunkards don't claim the 
 right to prohibit tea-tippling." 
 
 " Whatever should we do if they did, and got a 
 majority ? Wouldn't it be frightful ? " 
 
 ^'My dear — never speak disrespectfully of a major- 
 ity! God has given us a majority of fingers, toes, 
 limbs and organs expressly to govern the minority 
 organ — the brain — which floats like scum at the top." 
 
 "Now, I had never thought of that! How clever 
 3'ou always are, George ; what a consolation when 
 we are tempted to grumble at election time." 
 
 "Yes. Now I'm going to read you a new piece. 
 It's called 
 
 THE prohibitionist's SOLILOQUY. 
 
 To be free, or not be free, tbat is tbe question ; 
 Whether 'tis right to rail at all ale drinkers, 
 And sling against them most outrageous charges, 
 Or take up arms against the drunkards only, 
 And, by restraining, save them, 
 
ONK EXPiiiilMENTS IN DIET. ' 67 
 
 To spy, to creep, 
 To make a crime of taste, and think we end 
 Men's Freedom by our thousand tyrannous tricks ; 
 To gain the right by wrong — 'tis a dehision 
 Devoutly to be hugg'd. To sigh, — to weep, — 
 And know saloonatics and heelers laugh 
 And only drink the more, — ay, there's the rub ; 
 For though we gag with all our might in Maine, 
 They cutely shuffle off our legal coil ; 
 This gives us pause. There's no respect 
 For the calamity of our party vote : 
 Shall we still bear the whips of scornful foes, 
 The brewer's chaff, the moderate drinker's frown, 
 The pangs of unsuccess, the law's fair-play, 
 The hopelessness of office, and the spurns 
 That Conscience puts on our intemperance 
 In thrusting " temperance" down a free man's throat, 
 When our much-wished quietus we might make 
 By taking back our threats, and canting-talent, 
 Wrapp'd in its muzzlin' napkin ? 
 
 Who would beat the air, 
 And grunt and sweat under this losing strife, 
 But for the itch of forcing all free men 
 To think and act like me, and drive them to 
 That undiscover'd country in whose bounds 
 No beer is brew'd, where glad'ning wine is sin, 
 And alcohol in sickness deadly crime ? 
 We'd rather lop the liberties you have, 
 Than grant you tolerance — which we know naught of. 
 Thus conscious cowardice makes despots of us all. 
 
68 DINNEPvOLOGY : 
 
 And thus the native hue of Prohibition 
 
 Is sickUed o'er with this vain east of thought : 
 
 To wit — When we usurp the seat of Power, 
 
 We'll make a law to crush the wicked ways 
 
 Of temperate livers, whose pernicious vice 
 
 It is to use, without abusing, drinks. 
 
 O then — look out for squalls ! Beer bungs shall fly, 
 
 Bottles disgorge their contents down the drains. 
 
 And he who dares to sip shall straight be hanged ! 
 
 Thus beer shall brew no more, and Temperance 
 
 Shall be no more a Virtue. 
 
 We adjourned after this until afternoon, when we 
 resumed our work. We had decided the first princi- 
 ple — we meant to e?2joi/ our diet. The next point 
 was, how to simplify it, for we had been fully con- 
 vinced by our twelve months' experiment that health 
 by no means demands more than a very modest table 
 can furnish. 
 
 " Patty, my dear, I guess we won't quarrel so much 
 over this clause as we did over the first. I actually 
 had to have a stimulant before I could venture on my 
 walk." 
 
 " Oh, George, what is becoming of all our fine res- 
 olutions ? It was never — whisky ? " 
 
 " No ; try again, dear." 
 
 "Sherry, bass, or — temperance cordial? ""^ 
 
 " Catch me at that I No, my dear, I took my pick- 
 me-up dry " 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IK DIET. 69 
 
 " Of course, 'extra sec ' something " 
 
 " ]S^ot a bit of it. Just a small handful of raisins 
 and almondsj that's all ! Why, there's as much stim- 
 ulating virtue in a score of raisins as in a full glass of 
 wine, and with the almonds they make as fine a lunch 
 as a man need wish." 
 
 " Nutritious, too ? " 
 
 " Certainly, few foods more so. People make a 
 huge mistake in using them at dessert only. They 
 should make an occasional meal on them, and notice 
 the effect." 
 
 " But what a luxurious taste ! to say nothing of 
 the price ! " 
 
 " Well, any nuts, almost, are as good as almonds as 
 far as that goes. You can't eat a cart-load at a time, 
 either. I guess I shall revive some of the old drinks 
 one of these days. ' Booza,' for instance, a drink 
 the Turks used to make from barley, whence, I sup- 
 pose, our verb to ' booze,' familiar to boozers. Then 
 there's the Russian ' Quash,' an elegant beverage 
 made of hot water poured on rye bread until it fer. 
 ments. The Dutch drink Schnapps for malaria, a 
 gin made of turpentine, one taste of which taught me 
 that the correct pronunciation of Schiedam, where it 
 is made, is to pile all the emphasis on the second syl- 
 lable." 
 
 That's all very well, George, but I must keep you 
 
70 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 to the point; if we are going to simplify, I fancy 
 plain crackers and ice water come nearer the mark/' 
 
 " I don't feel so sure about that, Patty. Adam and 
 his antediluvian posterity lived pretty largely on 
 almonds and raisins, I guess, only they weren't dried 
 up as ours have to be ; his had all their life-giving 
 sunshine in them. These, with frumenty and perhaps 
 a potato or two," 
 
 " And a bit of venison to relish them — " 
 
 '^ Well, perhaps, — or maybe a bit of veal at a family 
 gathering (they had a weakness for apoplectic veal 
 in those days it would seem).'' 
 
 " But the orchard and the field supplied most of 
 their wants, and supplied them well, as we know by 
 the prosperit}'^ of his posterity." 
 
 " Well, what of that ? " 
 
 ^' Why, this : as soon as they got to be prosperous 
 they invented indigestion and doctors ; as the good 
 book tells us, 'they waxed fat and kicked.' " 
 
 " The doctors ? " 
 
 " Oh no, the doctors are always slim enough to 
 dodge a fat patient's agility." 
 
 "I'm sure most mien sufferers are impatients I " 
 
 " And doctors naturally appreciate the womanly 
 virtues, 'patients and long suffering.' I was'saying 
 that degeneracy came in with luxury, and it will be 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 71 
 
 our wisdom to get back to simplicity as quickly as 
 we can." 
 
 " Yes, dear, I'm entirely with you there. We shall 
 set the world an example in that direction, which rtxay 
 spread and spread until we convert the whole of the 
 parish, who knows ? " 
 
 '^ That's more in our line than converting the world^ 
 Patty, and you might drop a hint to that effect when 
 the rector asks for the next missionary donation. 
 Well, now, there's not much more to discuss under 
 this head so we'll pass on to number three, Economy." 
 
 "Yes, that's where I guess I shall really shine, 
 George. I've done no end of figuring, as you call it, 
 and you'll be astonished when you learn what can be 
 done." 
 
 " Studied 3''our tables ? I mean the food charts 
 and figures, as well as the market tables ? " 
 
 " Thoroughly, I've worked everything out beauti- 
 fully — try me — " 
 
 " You know just what our system requires to keep 
 it strong and healthy ? " 
 
 " Yes, all that we studied together, j^ou know." 
 
 " Well, I particularly want to get at the probable 
 cost of supplying the minimum of these food-sub- 
 stances to an average body. For instance, of the 150, 
 or thereabouts, pounds you weigh (check me if I am 
 wrong anywhere) 90 are oxygen, 30 are carbon, 15 are 
 
72 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 hydrogen, 5 are nitrogen, 3 are calcium, and the 
 rest is made up of phosphorus, potassium, sulphur, 
 chlorine, sodium, magnesium, fluorine and iron, as you 
 of course well know." 
 
 " Grood gracious, George ! Did you expect to stuff 
 all that jargon into my head ? Haven't we agreed 
 that we will en^oy our food ? How on earth could 
 anybody enjoy life if they had to keep counting and 
 comparing those hideous things with every mouthful 
 we eat ! " 
 
 " Well, my dear, I only thought I'd take you at 
 your word; I've thankfully forgotten most of the con- 
 founded chemicalities mj^self." 
 
 "That's right, only they were very good to know 
 when we were beginners, weren't they ? They taught 
 us what foods really feed us, and what don't, and 
 that's a very necessary foundation before we can build 
 our new system of dietetic enjoyment, simplicity and 
 economy — " 
 
 "Yes, nature is the sure guide and true economist. 
 See how she supplies the right foods in the right 
 places ; fats to the cold northerners, fruits to the 
 southerners, and both to latitudinarians such as we 
 are going to be." 
 
 " So we are, for I've drawn upon every country in 
 the world for our supplies. We shall be French, Dutch, 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 73 
 
 English, Russian, Scotch, Italian, German, Chinese 
 
 in turn and Americans all the time ! " 
 (' That doesn't sound too economical ! " 
 " Oh, you'll see. If I can't squeeze an extra new 
 
 bonnet or two out of our cash surplus and still beat 
 
 the record, I will resign my stewardship,— ^Aere/ " 
 I subsided. 
 
74 DlNNEllOLOGY : 
 
 CHA.PTER V. 
 
 HOW WE LIVED WELL ON A DIME A DAY. 
 
 Patty Makes a Few Prefatory Remarks on Eating too Much, 
 too Rich, too Often. — How She did her Marketing. — 
 The Sham-bread Delusion and Snare. — Our Dime Diet 
 Experiment, which Saved us $30.80 per Week. — Our 
 Amply Generous Dietary, which Saved us $14 per Week. 
 — Our Twenty-cent Christmas Dinner. — How Patty 
 Spent Some of her Savings. 
 
 There are two good reasons why I propose to do all 
 the talking myself in this chapter : first, because it is 
 going to be all in praise of Patty, and secondly, be- 
 cause if I let her get a start I couldn't get half said 
 that I want to, and most likely she would spoil my 
 present seraphic mood. She does that many a time 
 with her darting repartees, but, of course I am too 
 much of a philosopher to let her know it. Besides, 
 she saves me from indigestion, and there's a heap of 
 virtue in that. I can forgive her most incisive elo- 
 quence under any circumstances with the sweet seren- 
 ity of conscious innocence, whether Pm guilty or not. 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 75 
 
 Looking back over the experiences of the twelve 
 months — or thereabouts — I am proud to announce 
 that Patty has proved herself a conqueress in the 
 battle against superstition in the kitchen, and an im- 
 perial Victoria over the dangers and difficulties of the 
 festive board. (I think this will make rather an ef- 
 fective beginning for a little article I intend to write 
 for our local newspaper. In our newspapers style is 
 everything, don't you know.) Yes, I freely confess the 
 dear little Boss-ess has won a genuine triumph all 
 along the line. When we commenced our compromise, 
 as we called it, she showed that admirable practical 
 sense, which so rarely balances beauty like hers, by 
 suggesting that we had better begin by living on a 
 dime a day, so that we might really acquire the right 
 to speak with the authority of experience. I was 
 nothing loth, in fact it was just what I wanted, only 
 I should have been rather afraid to ask her to share it 
 with me. Then she made me jot down on paper the 
 general outlines of her plan of campaign, as she 
 termed it. This practical way of hers is what makes 
 me discreetly mute so often. There's no answering a wo- 
 man when she baffles you with a bit of common sense. 
 I must have made some weak remark or other, because 
 I don't forget how she dropped on me with a moral 
 introduction to the practical business that followed. 
 It was to this effect : — " The only danger in having 
 
76 DINKEROLOGY : 
 
 what looks like a scanty table is the temptation to 
 eat too much. As if most of us don't do that every 
 day on our ordinary diet ! Yet over-feeding is the one 
 thing we never tolerate in our horses nor in our babies, 
 and where will you find two such joerfect, beautiful 
 types of physical health and sweetness as a baby and 
 a 2:20 trotter? Vegetarians both, too, but plain 
 feeders, anyhow, and that's all I care for. To read 
 the papers, the vulgarized ones I mean, one would 
 suppose that the highest delight of the average New 
 Yorker is to qualify for the Fat Men's Club by piling 
 200 superfluous pounds of carrion on his carcass. 
 They glory in gluttony, this class of intellectual jour- 
 nals, giving whole columns to the chronicling of clam- 
 bake gorgings, but only five lines to philanthropic 
 work among the poor. They boast about this being 
 a big country, with the biggest showing of the big- 
 gest pigs in civilization, and I dare say they dream 
 on Sundaj^s of the big reservation staked out in 
 heaven for the special roly-poly use of the New York 
 Club's Fat Angels ! 
 
 " George, we won't let each other over-eat." 
 As I had scaled no higher than 175 for a year and 
 a half, I cordially agreed without the slightest per- 
 sonal feeling. 
 
 " And next, George, we won't be so silly as to want 
 rich food, will we ? We both like a good dish, and I 
 
OVR EXPEKIMENTS IN DIET. 77 
 
 shall put plenty of them on the table, but, you know, 
 the way to get the most enjoyment and good out of a 
 dainty dish is — do7i^t have it too often. And the 
 way to make a plain dish into a dainty one is — donH 
 eat it until you are hungry. A good appetite is the 
 best appetizer. A concoction which is thrust into an 
 over-loaded, jaded stomach to ' tone ' it, simply irri- 
 tates it. As well expect a church organ to play more 
 brilliantly by blowing it up with coal gas, as a 
 stomach organ to attune itself to Nature's harmony 
 by dosing it with condensed cyclones of 'bitter^ dis- 
 cords. It may go wrong, as the best organs some- 
 times do, and play long metre, short metre, or sixes 
 and sevens, but anything is better than gas metre. 
 We will just eat and drink like sensible beings, 
 George, and so long as we do this we shall always 
 have appetite as Nature's grace before meat, and di- 
 gestion, as Shakespeare says, to wait on us, as our 
 proper dessert." 
 
 All this was most convincing, though I thought 
 there was just a trace of hostility to my noontide 
 Bass or nip of Amontillado. However, I said noth- 
 ing. It was prudent not to. Patty then remarked 
 that the cost of a thing greatly depends on the price 
 of it. This would never have struck me. Also, that 
 when you go to the provision market the more cash 
 you spend the less will be your outlay. She said that 
 
78 Di^NEUOLOGY; 
 
 if the Fifth Avenue hotel were to contract to board 
 us for our fixed expenditure of ten cents a day each, 
 its proprietors would go bankrupt, unless they stocked 
 their larder a month in advance. I suggested what a 
 good idea it would be to offer them tlie reward of 
 fame and glory that would follow their demonstration 
 of the feasibility of our scheme ; it might even pay 
 them to keep us for good for a dime, the pair of us. 
 But Patty discouraged the notion. What she most 
 insisted upon was the necessity of my keeping a sharp 
 lookout on the provision market and its prices. As 
 Wellington won Waterloo in the cricket-field of Eton 
 College, so were the seeds of Patty's immortal laurels 
 sown in the stony soil of the market-place. She made 
 me write down the lists which I may as well put here 
 as anywhere else. I had to make each on a separate 
 sheet of paper and obey her instructions to the letter. 
 
 THE PULSE FAMILY. 
 
 Wheat, in grain : Tapioca, 
 
 Barley, Beans, 
 
 Prepared grits, etc. Peas, 
 
 Hominy, Lentils, 
 
 Sago. Macaroni. 
 
 I suggested that perhaps some of these were rather 
 distant relations of the family, but Patty replied that 
 
OUll EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 79 
 
 even if they were perfect strangers it is all the more 
 our Christian duty to take them in. 
 Then came : 
 
 THE BREAD BRIGADE. 
 
 Crushed wheat : Barley meal 
 
 Oatmeal, Groats. 
 
 White flour, Patent "healthy" 
 Kye flour, flours. 
 
 These, she carefully explained, were to be made 
 into home-made bread, under her own superintendence. 
 Patty never would regard ordinary baker's bread as 
 worthy the grand old name. Its whiteness and 
 lightness are not merely useless qualities, but abso- 
 lutely bad ones. Bread of this sort is simply the least 
 nutritious portion of the wheat frothed up into a 
 flabby sponge with tartaric acid and carbonate of soda. 
 The crumb is pastry in the mouth and the crust 
 pricks like bits of broken bottles. It is emphatically 
 not food, but fashion. The bread that alone is en- 
 titled to be called " the staff of life " is that made of 
 the whole grain, ground into flour, the bread of 
 ancient Israel and of modern Orientals. She had 
 tried all the so-called " health" breads in the market, 
 and we found one or two were excellent of their kind, 
 but none were equal to her own home-made loaves of 
 
80 DINNEEOLOGY : 
 
 crushed wheat, either in delicious taste, or appear- 
 ance, or in good effects upon the system. And we 
 believed hers came cheaper in cost, as it certainly did 
 as a food and regulator. 
 
 Here is an excellent American recipe for preparing 
 whole wheat : 
 
 " To cook sufficient for four adults take one cupful 
 of wheat, and washing it clean in cold water, put it in 
 a tin pail or crockery bowl and add one-half teaspoon- 
 ful of salt and three cups of cold water. Then sus- 
 pend the pail in a pot of cold water, set upon a heated 
 stove and boil for ten hours. When cooked, it should 
 be soft, adhesive, glutinous, and easily masticated. 
 Serve with butter or milk or cream, or eat it withoutf 
 as the Asiatics eat rice, with no se'asoning. If the 
 cooking is well done there is an agreeable nutty 
 flavor of the wheat which corresponds to the bouquet 
 of grapes. This flavor seems to be lost when the 
 wheat is cracked, crushed, or ground long before 
 cooking." 
 
 Crackers and biscuits we always used sparingly, 
 because their dryness taxes the digestive organs more 
 severely than moist foods, and this is apt to cause 
 derangement if not allowed for. 
 
 Next came 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 
 
 HANDY SAVORIES. 
 
 81 
 
 Sardines, canned. 
 
 Beef Extract, pots. Kippered Herrings. 
 
 Potted Hare, Game, 
 Bloater. 
 
 Soup flavorings. 
 
 Salmon, canned. 
 
 HANDY SWEET. 
 
 Scotch Marmalade. Preserved Ginger. 
 
 English Jams. Chocolate. 
 
 Raisins. Gingerbread Nuts. 
 
 Figs and Dates, Canned Eruit. 
 
 CHEESE. 
 
 English Dairy. 
 Dutch. 
 
 Roquefort. 
 Camembert. 
 
 We had oilier lists of fresh Meats, Fish, Vege- 
 tables, and Fruits, but they were quite ordinary in 
 variety and price. The foregoing lists chiefly, it will 
 be noticed, of dry stuffs, formed the basis of our 
 dietary. The problem Patty had to solv6 was how 
 to bring our daily expenditure down to ten cents 
 per head out of a larder stocked with this material, at 
 a fair discount off retail prices. 
 
82 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 There were six in our household, including the two 
 " girls '' who favored us as lady helps in the kitchen. 
 Our weekly food-bill averaged $35 in the old days, 
 and rather more during our vegetarian experiment, 
 because of the difficulty of devising as great a variety 
 of savory dishes as are possible with a very moderate 
 use of flesh. 
 
 Our first week of dime-a-day diet cost only $4.20, 
 and this was how it was done. 
 
 Patty said that four honest meals a day would be 
 better than a nominal three, which generally mean 
 five, three "square meals'^ and two three-cornered 
 " snacks. " So we had breakfast at 8, dinner, with 
 the children, at 12:30 ; tea, with the children, at 5, 
 and supper, by ourselves, or with friends, a( 9 P. m. 
 We still prefer this to the late dinner system for 
 home life, so many of the comforts of which are 
 trampled to death by town fashions. What is more — 
 our visitors have come to look forward to our old- 
 fashioned nine o'clock suppers, informal, simple, jolly, 
 and warranted guiltless of morning headaches. 
 
 We did not intend to do more than test the practic- 
 ability of our ten cent table, so it must not be sup- 
 posed that our little entertainments were limited to 
 to that cost. 
 
 Here are our menus for the week, calculated at per 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 83 
 
 adulfc, buying the milkj vegetables, fruit and groceries 
 
 in quantities : 
 
 Cost per head, 
 cents. 
 
 Breakfast — Mush, Wheat, ) 
 
 >-ana milk, . . 2 
 Oatmeal, Homony, \ 
 
 Cup of coffee and cracker 1 
 
 Dinner — Lentil, or Pea Soup, Beef 
 
 -T-i , , n • -YT A erood 
 
 Jiixtract navoring, Vege- ^- . o 
 
 table Condiments, 
 (Or Macaroni and cheese, 
 
 or beans and butter, or bacon fat). 
 A few raisins, a fig or banana, 
 
 or a nip of cheese and cracker. . . 1 
 
 Tea — Cup of tea, coffee, / ^^„, ^ . 
 
 ^ ' y Milk and sugar . . 1 
 
 cocoa. V 
 
 Home-made bread, with butter or 
 
 jam, or stewed fruit 2 
 
 Supper — ^Bread and cheese and glass of 
 
 beer 2 
 
 Or mush and stewed fruit, 
 
 Macaroni and milk, 
 
 Cocoa, bread and butter, 
 
 Egg, bread and butter, 
 
 Milk pudding, 
 at same cost. 
 
 Total , . . 11 
 
84 DINNEROLOGY I 
 
 The total might be increased to thirteen, fourteen, 
 or even fifteen cents, without exceeding the average of 
 ten cents, as the two children consumed less than the 
 average two adults, and there is sure to be one, if not 
 more, small eater among six. But the strong adult, 
 who tries this experiment for himself, will be sur- 
 prised to find how much he really gets for his money. 
 Its health-value he can soon compute for himself, or 
 his analytical chemist will satisfy any doubts as to its 
 sufficiency and efficiency. As a isict,jive cents worth 
 per day of the lentil soup or the macaroni, or the crushed 
 wheat, will more than sustain the health and strength 
 of the average worker. 
 
 There is a rural postman in the north of England, 
 whose duties necessitate his tramping some twelve 
 miles a day or more on rough roads, in all weathers. 
 He has extreme notions about dieting, as will be seen, 
 but his work is duly done on a diet of which the fol- 
 lowing is a specimen week. He is well-known in his 
 district and distributes leaflets about his hobbj'^, one 
 of which came into our hands. Neither Patty nor I, 
 however, propose to adopt the system. 
 
 Sunda}^, 8 o'clock, breakfast : Brown bread, with 
 tinned tomatoes and olive oil. 1.30, dinner : Pota- 
 toes, lettuce with vinegar, olive oil, eating with brown 
 bread ; corn flour blancmange, with stewed black cur- 
 rants and brown bread. 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 85 
 
 Monday, 5, up. 8, breakfast : Kice pudding, stewed 
 blackberries, and brown bread. 3, dinner: Potatoes, 
 lettuce with olive oil, and brown bread. Corn flour 
 blancmange, stewed fruit, and bread. 
 
 Tuesday, 5, up. Breakfast, 8: Eice pudding, tea 
 cake, brown bread with stewed blackberries. 3, din- 
 ner : Potatoes, lettuce, olive oil, bread-pudding, and 
 stewed fruit. Bed, 11. 
 
 Wednesday, 5.30, up. 8, breakfast : Oatmeal por-^ 
 ridge, tomatoes and bread. 3, dinner : Potatoes, 
 tomatoes with olive oil and the squeeze of a lemon, 
 along with brown bread. Bread-pudding, stewed 
 gooseberries, and bread. Bed, 11. 
 
 Thursday, 5.30, up. 8, breakfast : Kice pudding, 
 tomatoes, brown bread, and tea cake. 4, dinner: 
 Potatoes, beans, olive oil, and bread, barley-pudding 
 and stewed blackberries. Bed, 10. 
 
 Priday, 5.30, up. 8, breakfast : Pice pudding, 
 tomatoes, tea cake, and brown bread. 4, dinner: 
 Potatoes, beans, with lettuce and bread, rice-pudding, 
 and stewed blackberries. Bed, 11. 
 
 Saturday, 6.30, up. 8, breakfast : Oatmeal porridge, 
 stewed blackberries, two eggs, with brown bread. 
 3, dinner : Potatoes, green peas with oil and bread, 
 rice-pudding, and stewed fruit. Bed, 11. 
 
 Sunday, 6.30, up. 8, breakfast : Kice pudding, 
 
86 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 tomatoes^ and bread. 2, dinner : Potatoes, peas, 
 savory pudding, parsley sauce, and bread. 
 
 Patty says that though the good man's name is 
 Wright his anti-butter prejudice is wrong, as there is 
 no healthier food of its kind. This was an August diet- 
 ary and the man never drinks anything, not even 
 water ! 
 
 Having satisfied both our appetites and our reason- 
 ing faculties that our dime-a-day diet was perfectly 
 feasible and healthful, we extended our menu, but only 
 for pleasure, not because it was necessary. We found 
 that we could enjoy really excellent meals at a won- 
 derfully small cost in proportion as we made the 
 shnples our foods and the et ceteras our luxuries. 
 
 Por breakfast we would ring the changes on mushes 
 and porridges, with milk, tea, coffee, or (preferably for 
 health) cocoa, bread or plain cake and butter, a little 
 toasted bacon, followed by a little dry or fresh fruit 
 and keep it easily within the ten cent limit for each 
 person. 
 
 Our dinners included a substantial soup, fish, a little 
 meat or game, more for flavor than anything, a light 
 pudding, (the apple charlotte sort is perhaps the nicest 
 and safest variety) with cheese and fruit, with a glass 
 of beer, milk or water, and twenty-five cents generally 
 covered each dinner's cost. 
 
 A five o'clock tea, with a rather substantial fortifi- 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 87 
 
 cation of breads, plain cakes, jams, sardines or potted 
 game, toast, etc., rarely exceeded ten or twelve cents 
 per head, and often came nearer six. 
 
 Our suppers were a favorite repast, and we had 
 proved that our temperate and simple mode of living 
 ensured us a good appetite for our late meal without 
 the least risk of indigestion. In fact we found it much 
 better to sup at nine and taste nothing afterwards, than 
 to dine at seven and have to disturb the stomach when 
 it ought to be put to bed for the night with no new 
 loads on its mind. We would have, according to the 
 season and our day's exercise, sometimes a soup, some- 
 times a dainty rissole, or sausages, or fish, with a baked 
 potato for our first course. Or perhaps a beef-extract 
 sandwich, (a remarkably tasty snack) or sandwiches 
 of potted hare, turkey or other potted meat ; a simple 
 pudding or blancmange, with stewed fruit or jam ; 
 aUvays finishing with a piece of our very best cheese, 
 eaten with deliciously crisp pulled bread, and celery 
 or lettuce when in season. A glass of good beer, or 
 perhaps a jorum of mild toddy later on, would round 
 off a healthful day at an average cost of about fifteen 
 cents at the outside, always remembering the saving 
 clause already considered. 
 
 Keckoning the cost per head as here estimated^ 
 breakfast 10 cents, dinner 25, tea 10, and supper 15, 
 we get a total of 60 cents per head per day. But 
 
88 DTNNEROLOGY 
 
 this will reduce itself to an average of 50 cents in 
 actual experience. Every cent over and above this 
 may safely be set down to ttnnecessary expenditure, 
 for any sort of person in any sort of circumstances. 
 How far the excess would be extravagance each must 
 of course determine for himself. This liberal allow- 
 ance, it will be seen, includes beer, up to four glasses 
 a day if required. A housewife as sensible as Patty 
 can accomplish many wonderful things in the culi- 
 nary way, besides those indicated, and still keep well 
 within the margin. Our average weekly expenditure 
 was thus $21, a saving of $14, on our former average 
 weekly outlay. If our wives, whether heiresses, 
 millionairesses, or dollarless darlings, would take 
 more personal interest in their kitchens and more 
 pride in their practical skill in home management, 
 the husbands would realize new charms in their home- 
 kingdom, and have more treasure with wliicli to crown 
 their queens. 
 
 We had the felicity of seeing our friends around 
 our modest board, always enthusiastic over the artis- 
 tic satisfactions which Patty never failed to add to 
 the substantial merits of our viands. But there was 
 nothing wonderful in that, after all ; for we had some 
 friends in another part of the country who for thirty 
 years had never partaken of more than two meals a 
 day, and strictly vegetarian and teetotal meals at 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 89 
 
 that. We had read of others, well-known persons in 
 their spheres, who in their seventies and eiglitics 
 were hale and hearty after half a century or more of 
 anti-flesh diet. Still, we had no notion of developing 
 into cranks even of the purely angelic order. 
 . On Christmas Day we gave a swell dinner. It 
 came ahout this way. I had been gently chaffed by 
 a few old friends and neighbors on my enthusiasm 
 over the dime-diet. The good rector (of whom I 
 shall have something more to tell by-and-bye) pre- 
 tended to doubt my assurance that this dime-diet 
 would bring about the physical and social millennium 
 sooner than pulpit soft-soap and thunder-bombs are 
 likely to effect a moral millennium. My lawyer- 
 friend insisted that a dime-diet would be a revolu- 
 tionary defiance of the laws of Nature, and a mortal 
 peril to the constitution. Our wicked editor coolly 
 predicted that a poor dime-diet for men would soon 
 turn us into a dime ricli diet for worms. My wealthy 
 neighbor who runs the lumber-mill, agreed that my 
 dime-diet would just be about enough for his 
 "hands," but what was to be done with their 
 stomachs ? I asked him whether it could be possible 
 that so famous an economist had not yet perceived 
 how to utilize his sawdust, and I shall never forget 
 the new joy that beamed in his face as the possibili- 
 ties of future triumphs dawned on his piece of mind. 
 
90 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 All this mighty good-humored interest in our 
 philanthro2;)ic experiment primed me — and so it did 
 Patty when I told her — with a determination to get 
 even with them. We talked it over together and 
 decided to ask them to dine with us on Christmas 
 Day. I told my friends that we should not hurt 
 their feelings by giving them a dime dinner, so that 
 they need not trouble to elongate their lunch, but it 
 should be a fairly economical dinner, expressly to 
 convince them that it is possible to dine well and be 
 well upon simple fare within the reach of the poor. 
 
 Dinner-time came and with it the expectant diners. 
 We limited our party to six. Patt}^ had the table set 
 out as if for six emperors. Our choicest silver, our 
 presentation centre-piece, our exquisite dessert knives, 
 gold-plated blades, with malachite handles, our costli- 
 est glass, old and new, our rare antique dessert china, 
 the fairest flowers (out of our own conservatory) dis- 
 played with grace, not heaped upon everything in 
 vulgar advertisement of cost, our fine Queen Anne 
 candelabra, with old-fashioned plain lights ; in fact, 
 the table was itself a banquet to the cultured eye. 
 The ^^ favor," or souvenir, each guest was presented 
 with was the menu, unique in having the bill of cost 
 included in the bill of fare. This is it. Patty de- 
 signed and wrote them all. 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 91 
 
 CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 
 So now is come our joyfuUcst Feast 
 
 Let every Man be jolly ! 
 Let rich Men give the Poor good Gifts ^ 
 
 And deck their Llomes zuith Holly ; 
 And feed their Families with Good Cheer, 
 And make them merry with good Old Beer, 
 For Christmas comes hit once a Year, 
 Then let Us all be jolly ! 
 
 Cost. 
 
 $ c. 
 I. 
 
 Oysters (four each) : ..... . .25 
 
 11. 
 
 Lentil Soup : * . '06 
 
 III. 
 
 Cod, boiled; oyster sauce : ... .20 
 
 IV. 
 
 Old English Frumenty : .10 
 
 V. 
 
 Grapes: 10 
 
 YI. 
 
 Beer (20 glasses) ; .20 
 
 YII 
 
 Cigarettes (1-2 oz. tobacco makes 9) : . .07 
 
 Potatoes, Bread, Cheese, Condiments : . . .22 
 
 Total cost for six . . . . • $1.20 
 
 To a contented mind, 
 
 Tin ceuf is as good as a feast. 
 
92 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 Our guests waxed eloquent over Patty's achieve- 
 ment. Her Twenty-cent dinner completely satisfied 
 the expectations of the inner man, and surpassed 
 those of the doubters. They expatiated sympathetic- 
 ally upon the really simple needs of the human 
 animal, rightlj^ considered, though none would have 
 believed that their double-dime dinner could be so 
 substantial, enjoyable, and superabundant, for all 
 was not consumed. While we were arguing the 
 momentous cigarette question (of wliich more anon), 
 Patty came in, by a little preconcerted arrangement 
 of ours, and asked if our guests would either excuse 
 her absence for half-an-hour, or would they care to 
 accompany her to a little supper we were giving to a 
 few children in a house near by. 
 
 They were delighted at the idea of assisting at a 
 gathering of the old-time sort, so we started. 
 
 We had hired a sort of hall, with a cottage at- 
 tached. Going first into the little parlor, we were 
 greeted hy a dozen beaming-faced old folk, all over 
 60, husbands, wives, widows and widowers, who were 
 just passing the tobacco, and cigars, and snuff, and 
 old Irish whiskey around, to end a homely meal of 
 beef, potatoes, plum-pudding and ale by a cofy gossip 
 over good old times. These were Patty's old crony 
 neighbors, and right merry was the cheer of welcome 
 they gave her. We wished them a good old-fashioned 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 93 
 
 Merry Christmas, and passed into another little room, 
 where a few tramps were feeling at peace with them- 
 selves and respectable mankind for the moment. Up- 
 stairs in the big room we found more than a hundred 
 girls and boys, youths and maidens, sitting at long 
 tables as happy as kings and queens used to be before 
 trouble was invented. They wanted to keep cheering 
 till "daylight did appear,'^ but at last I managed to 
 howl the news that the guests from downstairs would 
 be coming up soon, and then the stereopticon show 
 would begin. We stayed until our clever young 
 friend began his performance, which to our surprise, 
 opened with his request for three more cheers for — 
 Patty. Then he requested she would say just a few 
 words to the audience, as they had particularly asked 
 him to express their wish. At last I induced her to 
 comply. She said very little, but it seemed to im- 
 press her hearers peculiarly, especially our friends 
 who had honored us with their company at home. 
 Patty made a few genial remarks about the season 
 and so on, and ended somewhat like this : 
 
 " You are all far too generous m thanking us for 
 the little good-fellowship we are showing to each other 
 this hospitable Christmas time. I assure you I should 
 be ashamed to accept thanks for anything that does 
 not involve some self-sacrifice, and so far from this 
 modest entertainment causing that, I want you all to 
 
94 OUR EXPEllIMENTS IN DIET. 
 
 know that ^/;e are the real gainers. When we used 
 to live in the conventional way, what with its cost 
 and the cost of ailments from careless dieting, we could 
 never afford to give ourselves the real pleasure this 
 scene yields. But when we learnt how to live in the 
 common-sense way, we recovered our health, and we are 
 able to afford this pleasant intercourse with you, my 
 friends, out of what we have saved. So good-night 
 and a merry Christmas to j^ou all." 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 95 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WE TALK ABOUT OLD TIME COOKERY. 
 
 How We Converted Our Missionaries. — The Bread of Patri- 
 arch Abraham. — The Calces of King Alfred. — The Plain 
 Fare of the Pilgrim Fathers. — The Feasts of our British 
 Ancestors. — Specimen Recipes from a Cook book of 1743. 
 
 OuK little dinners soon became famous. We were 
 honored by the visits of more friends then we had fan- 
 cied we possessed, whose invitations to Patty to invite 
 them to our economical board were about as embar- 
 rassing to her, poor dear, as the polite patronage of 
 hungry Washingtonians sometimes is to the Chinese 
 Embassy on a banquet night. We felt flattered, of 
 course, but the enlightenment of the populace was 
 not my benevolent ambition. At least, not yet. I 
 flew at much higher game. I would preach to the 
 preachers ; I would convert the apostles. Let me get 
 hold of the heads of the people, — I mean those who 
 do their thinking — and tag-rag and bobtail will chime 
 in all right in the long run. Of course I was not 
 audibly disrespectful to my many-headed Master. I 
 cherish the most wholesome regard for his welfare and 
 powers, spiritual and stomachic. Still the Bobadil 
 tactics have always seemed to me the perfection of 
 warfare — if you only get them to work right. This is 
 why we kept oj^en house and a tempting table for our 
 worthy neighbors Dr. Goodbody the rector, Doctor 
 
96 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 Drencham the leech, Mr. Quillcraft the editor, and 
 Brother Hipkins the excellent Deacon who owns the 
 big factory. Said I to Patty, many a time, '^ My 
 dear, if I can but just screw a bit of diet-sense into 
 the craniums of these omnipotent citizens, why, we 
 shall have rescued the whole population from the error 
 of their table ways ! " And Patty never failed me 
 in her " Amen ! " A trifle extended as to feminine 
 phraseology, but that's just what she meant, had the 
 sex been blessed with brevity. 
 
 We were all circled round our open fire grate, the 
 rector and his wife, the doctor, the editor and his 
 literary spinster sister, and Tatty and I, after one of 
 
 my wife's most triumphant me?iu " recitals " (that is 
 
 * 
 
 high art, I believe, for a demonstration in any virtu- 
 osity), enjoying a delicious cup which I had specially 
 prepared for our visitors. Patty had been diligently 
 rummaging among my old-time cook books to find the 
 famous recipe for the Pope's Sack Posset. This I 
 had solemnly resurrectionized, and presented to our 
 distinguished circle with all the honors. 
 
 To break the hallowed silence that crowned our 
 first memorable sip seemed sacrilege. We were 
 mute with exquisite bliss. At length the good 
 rector returned thanks. " Friends all," quoth he 
 radiantly, "I call you to bear testimony to the 
 profundity of my Protestantism, but I freely declare 
 to you that I never felt so serene a tolerance for 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 97 
 
 Papal pretensions as I do at this moment. So this 
 is the Pope's Posset ! is it ? " And he sank back into 
 the embrace of his cosy chair with an " A.-a-ah ! " 
 of unspeakable gratification. 
 
 " George, dear," and Patty's melodious voice broke 
 the stillness as village chimes sing their sweetness 
 through the summer Sabbath air, "don't you think 
 you might take this food question for the subject of 
 the lecture they want you to give at the Institute ? 
 You could call it — well, for instance — ^ How to Furnish 
 a Dainty Table without Going to Extravagant Ex- 
 tremes, which Frequently Bring On All Sorts of Aw- 
 fully Annoying Attacks of Dj'spepsia and are Far Too 
 Expensive for the Generality of Housewives who Find 
 it Almost More than They Can Do to keep Them- 
 selves and Their Children Dressed in Anything near 
 the Prevailing Fashion,' that's rather a long title but 
 you know what I mean." 
 
 " You've fixed it ! " said the emphatic Deacon ; 
 "the precise prescription," said the Doctor. "And 
 may you have the Pope's blessing " spake the editor as 
 he sipped a sip to the Pontiff's memory. " And I will 
 preach a special sermon the Sunday before to put 
 our people in the proper frame of mind, " cliaritably 
 chimed in the Rector. 
 
 " Well since you are all so one-minded upon vay 
 good wife's suggestion, I don't see how I could refuse, 
 
 7 
 
98 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 if I wished to, which I don't. With your help, my 
 dear Patty, I guess we maj'- shorten that title with a 
 day or two's labor — " 
 
 " Why, of course we can, George, if you won't 
 waste so many words over magnifying my short- 
 comings ; suppose we call it " Food," for short, and 
 divide it into heads, like the revival preachers do, F, 
 fools ; 0, over-eat ; 0, originate ; D, dyspepsia, and 
 so on — " 
 
 This unsuspected flash of genius ended our solemnity 
 and I dodged the smart blow behind the sheltering 
 laugh. I was nothing loth to hop on the lecture- 
 perch single-handed if need be, but the prospect of a 
 duly prepared audience and the certainty of the able 
 assistance of Patty— perhaps as "^ demon stratress " 
 with real '^properties," mad me eager for the fray. 
 I scarcely needed the spur that editor Quillcraft 
 furnished when he inquired, (professionally, no doubt,) 
 how I proposed to trea the subject. 
 
 " How will I treat it ? Why, sir, I shall begin at 
 the beginning, proceed along the line of history and 
 bring you right down, or, rather, up to the standard 
 you have helped to raise here to night. I'll " 
 
 " And you'll tell them all about our experiments in 
 Ancient Cookery too, won't you ? '^ 
 
 " Of course I will, my dear. There is no branch of 
 our scientific investigation that does greater credit to 
 my wife, gentlemen, than her masterly illustrations 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 99 
 
 of the strength and weakness, if I may say so, of our 
 ancestors' wa}^ of living. She has devoted half her 
 energies and nine-tenths of my share of her leisure 
 to unearthing and reproducing the cookery recipes 
 of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries." 
 
 " We picked up several rare old cook-books when 
 we were in London last year, and they have been 
 such fun ! '^ 
 
 "Tell us something about the old folks. I'll be 
 bound they knew what was good for them," said Dr. 
 Drencham. 
 
 "Oh, yes, they got along finely with their three 
 favorite aoctors, Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merri- 
 man," responded the rector, beamingly. 
 
 I saw that there was a risk of our talk dwindling 
 into mere frivolity, so I set about sobering it as be- 
 fitted my weighty theme, and thinking I should 
 profit by a full-dress rehearsal, I started in with a 
 rough and ready outline of my lecture-to-be. They 
 stood it like lambs, thanks to the antique Pope and 
 his Posset. 
 
 I threw a sphinx-like, penetrating gaze clean 
 through the solid wall before me and bade them stare 
 with me through the mystical chink, back, back to the 
 tent of old Abraham on the plains of Mamre. See 
 there how simplicity ruled the fare and ensured the 
 welfare of that remarkable early people. Listen to 
 the grand old man giving an immortal recipe for the 
 
100 DINNEROLOGY .* 
 
 making of bread, the purest ever eaten from then to 
 now. " Make ready/^ said he to Sarah, " quickly 
 three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make 
 cakes — upon the hearth." True, a disli of tender 
 veal adorned the frugal board, but the cakes were the 
 staff of life then as now. The Oriental housewife 
 makes her bread to-day in exactly the same way. 
 Turn your gaze to our own land, and " Lo, the poor 
 Indian," down to 1762 at any rate, follows suit. The 
 Cherokee squaw made her fire on the hearthstone, 
 then she swept the embers off and laid her cake on 
 the hot stone, covering it with a dish, on the top of 
 which she lays another fire. 
 
 The ancient Greeks and E-omans loved simple fare 
 and flourished on it, until luxury wrought their ruin. 
 The Britons of old grew strong upon frumentum, 
 still a popular dish in the northern shires, known as 
 ^'furmity'' and "frumenty." Good King Alfred 
 showed sound plebeian common sense in baking the 
 old dame's cakes, and characteristic monarchical stu- 
 pidity when he let them burn. Tlie makers of sturdy 
 England had strong stomachs, as we shall see, but 
 their climate deteriorated their simple appetites. 
 Their fighting propensities called for beef and beer, 
 tough sirloins and strong ale. And how they gorged 
 themselves in those good old times ! 
 
 The goodman breakfasted on ale and cakes, dined 
 on flesh with cakes and ale, and supped till well 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 101 
 
 drunken on more ale and cakes, or the wits-twisting 
 metheglin or mead. The goodwife and her childer- 
 kin revelled in porridges and pottages, with hasty pud- 
 den and sour cider, apples, and nuts by way of daint- 
 ies, and acorns and wild berries were to them what 
 potatoes and grapes are to us. 
 
 And those mighty feasts at Christmastide ! Come 
 with me to Squire Bumpleby's Christmas dinner in 
 Misletoe Hall, period 16-something. Here's the 
 prime boar's head, borne shoulder-high in all its 
 glory. After it comes the lordly peacock, his inside 
 has been taken out, dressed, stuffed, roasted, and 
 slipped back into its feathers again, a standing deli- 
 cacy at the great man's board. Next we must taste 
 the plum pudding, which really was plum broth, a 
 thickened gravy of mutton or beef, soused in which 
 were raisins, dates, currants, wine, cloves, plums, 
 verjuice, ambergris, saffron, spices, eggs, with other 
 fragrant mysteries. Next we shall do well to sup a 
 bowl of the primitive frumenty, broken grains of 
 wheat, boiled plain, or with eggs, milk and flavoring 
 added. A few oysters will now mend our blunted 
 appetites, that we may the better enjoy the huge sir- 
 loin that has been roasted with a basting of claret, 
 and its following of mince pyes. These will make us 
 yearn for the next course of a made dish of sweet- 
 breads, made of chickens, marrow, oranges, artichokes, 
 asparagus, mush, potatoes, cheese, cinnamon, nuts 
 
102 BINNEROLOGY : 
 
 and a supplement of all sorts. Perhaps we shall find 
 it unnecessary to taste each of the remaining dishes, 
 a roast swan, a kid with a pudding in its hellj^, a 
 venison pasty, geese, cajDons, pies, and turkeys, but 
 we may be tempted by the next entree of lemons and 
 oranges to begin again on the last course. This in- 
 cludes a lamb, four rabbits, a pig soused (in spiced 
 wine), with tongues, ducks, pheasants, partridges, 
 swan pie, bologna sausages, mushrooms, jiickled 
 oysters, caviare, teal, a gammon of Westphalian ham, 
 a quince pie, woodcocks, a standing tart in puff 
 paste, preserved fruit, larks, neats' tongues, sturgeon, 
 salted geese, and jellies. We should call this a square 
 meal, but in those days it used to make our fathers 
 round. Those were great times, and they produced 
 great men, some of the best of them set sail for Ply- 
 mouth Pock to produce you and me, my friends. I 
 am not enough of a philologist to fix the j)recise con- 
 nection between Ply-mouth and Pil-gritn, but I guess 
 the Doctor here has profitably traced it. 
 
 Our ancestors certainly had the stomachs of horses, 
 and by overloading them they proved they had only 
 the brains of asses. And as they over-fed, they under- 
 mined their national greatness. The Poundheads 
 turned into Poundribs and the Puritans into ghastly 
 ascetics, except the wise few who came over here 
 and set Gothamite gourmands the noble example of 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 103 
 
 the 96 pound down-east Yankee, as thin and bright and 
 keen as a Damascus blade. 
 
 And look at China ! How can they hope to rise 
 from the laundry to the laboratory, from soapsuds to 
 scientific discovery while they eat what they do ? 
 N"ote their most elegant banquets. Birds' nests with 
 bamboo sprouts ; hog's liver fried in castor oil ; puppy 
 pie ; shark's fin liash ; stale eggs, three months 
 " high," ham of sucking-pig; crab cooked in castor 
 oil; horny nuts, mysterious sweets, and sugarless 
 tea. 
 
 No, my friends, human nature has its limits, as the 
 cannibal found out when he tackled the missionary's 
 favorite hard corn. Even our home-grown, American 
 human nature, tough as it is, has to pay a sorry obei- 
 sance sooner or later to the evil genius of the dinner 
 table. We have got the teaching of history behind 
 us, we have got its object lessons right before our 
 eyes, and if we don't learn them with our heads we 
 shall find the practical moral asserting itself in our 
 department of internal economy. 
 
 Patty dear, suppose you hand me your cookery 
 scrap-book, and I'll just wind up right here by read- 
 ing some of the dishes you have been experimenting 
 on lately. 
 
 It would take me too long to tell how we succeeded 
 and where we failed with these resurrected recipes, so 
 
104 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 I'll simply spread them on the record, and yon can 
 cook them for yourselves if they tickle your fancy. 
 
 To start with, here are four specimen dinners se- 
 lected from a monthly bill of fare for the j^ear 1746 : 
 
 A BILL OF FARE FOR EVERY SEASOJi OF THP 
 YEAR. 
 
 JANUARY TO MARCH. 
 
 FIRST COURSE. 
 
 Collar of Brawn. Hen Turkeys with Eggs. 
 
 Bisque of Fish. Lamb Pasty. 
 
 Soo}:) with Vermicelly. Oyster Pye. 
 
 Orange Pudding with Patties. Pupton of Veal. 
 
 Kettle Drums. Grand Sallad with Pickles. 
 
 SECOND COURSE. 
 
 Wild-Fowl of all Sorts. Jole of Sturgeon. 
 
 Tench with stewed pitchcock'' d Oyster Loaves. 
 
 Eels. Turkeys'' Livers forced. 
 
 Fruit of all Sorts. Dish of TartSy Custards and 
 
 Tansy and Fritters. Cheesecakes. 
 
 APRIL TO JUNE. 
 
 FIRST COURSE. 
 
 Soop a la Sante. Green Puery Soop. 
 
 Dish of Fish of all Sorts. Fried Lamb-stones. 
 
 Lumber Pye. Roasted Fowls a-la-daube. 
 
 Pole of Ling . Ragoo of Veal. 
 
 Dish of roasted Tongues , Roasted 11am and Peever^ 
 and Udders. 
 
our. EXPERIMENTS IX DIET. 
 
 105 
 
 SECOND COURSE. 
 
 Green Geese and Ducklings. Lobsters Sereene. 
 Dish of Notts, Ruffs Tongue Pye. 
 
 and Quails. 
 Cocks-combs and Stones com- Rock of Snow and Syllabubs. 
 
 porte. 
 Crocande of Pippins. Buttered Apple Pye. 
 
 JULY TO SEPTEMBER. 
 
 FIRST COURSE. 
 
 Cock Salmon with buttered Stewed Carps. 
 
 Lobsters. 
 
 Dish of Scotch Qollops. 
 
 Venison Pasty. 
 
 JJmble Pyes. 
 
 Grand Sallad. 
 Patty Royal. 
 
 Neck of Mutton boned and 
 roasted, with a Ragoo of 
 Cucumbers. 
 
 Dish of Tarts of Sorts. 
 
 Dish of Jellies. 
 
 SECOND COURSE. 
 
 A Hare larded. 
 Dish of Lobsters and Prawns. 
 Pistachio Pudding. 
 Cocks-combs a-la-Creme. 
 
 Dish of Fryed Soles and Eels. 
 Morello Cherry Tarts. 
 Strawberries or Raspberries. 
 Fried Artichokes. 
 
 OCTOBER TO DECEMBER. 
 
 FIRST COURSE. 
 
 Soop of Beef Bollin. 
 Cods-head IV ith Shrimps 
 
 and Oysters. 
 Haunch of Doe with Udder 
 
 a-la-Force. 
 Minced Pyes. 
 
 Grand Patty. 
 Teals and Larks. 
 Harrico of Mutton. 
 Scalloped Oysters. 
 Salmigondin. 
 Quince Pye. 
 
106 . DINNEROLOGY 
 
 SECOND COURSE. 
 
 Turkeys roasted. Pickles of Sorts 
 
 Chine of Salmon broiled. Buttered Crabs. 
 
 Tansy and Black-caps. Potted Wheat-ears. 
 
 Florendines. Crocande of Sweetnoeats. 
 
 The following receipts are taken from the same 
 eighteenth century cook-bonk. 
 
 A LUMBEE, OK UMBLE PYE. 
 
 Take a pound and a half of fillet of veal and mince it with 
 the same quantity of beef-suet; season it with sweet spice, 
 five pippins, and handful of spinage, and a hard lettuce, thyme 
 and parsley; mix it with a penny grated white loaf, the 
 yolks of eggs, sack and orange-flower water, a pound and a 
 half of currants, two or three Spanish potatoes, boiled, 
 blanched, and sliced; or an artichoke bottom or two, with 
 prunellos, damsons and gooseberries ; then close the pye; when 
 'tis bak'd make a caudle for it. 
 
 We had prolonged and excited debates upon the 
 question — is an Umble Pj^e a Sweet P^^e or a 
 Savory Pye ? Patty insisted tliat it as surely be- 
 longed to the former category as a Mince Pie does, 
 which also secretes meat. I gracefully capitulated, 
 with the peace-renewing remark " Sweets to the 
 Sw^eet ! " And then we unanimously agreed that 
 this should be the proud caudle to grace our Umble 
 Pye. 
 
 A CAUDLE FOR SWEET PYES. 
 
 Take sack and white-wine alike in quantity, a little ver- 
 juice and sugar, boil it, and brew it with two or three eggs, 
 as buttered ale; when the ])yes are baked, pour it in at the 
 funnel and shake it together. 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 107 
 
 OYSTER LOAVES. 
 
 Take a quart of middling oysters and wash them in their 
 own hquor; then strain them through a flannel, put them on 
 the fire to warm ; then take three-quarters of a pint of gravy 
 and put to the oysters, witli a blade of mace, a little white 
 pepper, horse-radish and a piece of lean bacon and half a 
 lemon, then stew them leisurely; take three penny loaves 
 and pick out the crumb clean ; then take a pound of butter, 
 and set on the fire in a saucepan that will hold the loaves, 
 and when it is melted, take itoff the fire and let it settle, then 
 pour off the clear, and set it on the fire again with the loaves 
 in it and turn them about till you find them crisp; then put 
 a pound of butter in a frying-pan and with a dredging box 
 dust in flower (!) till you find it of a reasonable thickness, 
 then mix that and the oysters together, and when stewed 
 enough take out the bacon and put the oysters into the 
 loaves; then put them into a dish and garnish the loaves with 
 the oysters you cannot get in, and with slices of lemon, and 
 when you have thickened the liquor squeeze in lemon to your 
 taste, or you may fry the oysters with batter to garnish the 
 loaves. 
 
 A RAGOO OF OYSTERS. 
 
 Put into your stewpan a quarter of a pound of butter, let 
 it boil; then take a quart of oysters, strain them from their 
 liquor and put them to the butter ; let them stew with a bit 
 of eschalot slired very fine, and some grated nutmeg and a 
 little salt; then beat the yolks of three of four eggs with the 
 oyster liquor and half a pound of butter and shake all very 
 well together till it is thick, and serve it up with sippets, gar- 
 nished with sliced '' 
 
 A Tansy. 
 
 Boil a quart of cream or milk with a stick of cinnamon, 
 nutmeg, and large mace; when half-cold mix it with twenty 
 yolks of eggs and ten whites; strain it, then put to it four 
 grated biskets, half a pound of butter, a pint of spinage- 
 
108 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 juice, and a little tansy, sack, orange-flower water, sugar and 
 salt; then gather it to a body over the fire and pour it into 
 your dish, being well buttered; when it is baked, turn it on 
 a pie-plate, squeeze on it an orange, grate on sugar and 
 garnish it with slic'd orange and a little tansy; made in a 
 dish, cut as you please. 
 
 Aisr Amulet ( !) of Eggs the Savouky Way. 
 
 Take a dozen of eggs, beat them very well, and season them 
 with salt and a little pepper, then have your frying-pan ready 
 with a good deal of fresh butter in it, and let it be thoroughly 
 hot; then put in your eggs, with four spoonfuls of strong 
 gravy and have ready parsley and a few chieves cut, and 
 throw them over it and when it is enough turn it; and when 
 done, dish it and squeeze an orange or lemon over it. 
 
 To Make a Chesnut Pudding. 
 
 Take a dozen and a half of chesnuts, put them in a skillet 
 of water and set them on the fire till they will blanch, then 
 blanch them and when cold put them in cold water; then 
 stamp them in a mortar with orange-flower water and sack 
 till they are very small; mix in two quarts of cream and 
 eighteen yolks of eggs the whites of three or four; beat the 
 eggs with sack, rose-water and sugar; put in a dish with 
 puff -paste; stick in some lumps of marrow or fresh butter; 
 bake it. 
 
 To Make a Spread-Eagle Pudding. 
 
 Cut off the crust of three half-penny rolls, then slice them 
 into your pan, then set three pints of milk over the fire, make 
 it scalding hot, but not boil, so put it over your bread and 
 cover it close, and let it stand an hour; then put in a good 
 spoonful of sugar and a very little salt, a nutmeg grated, a 
 pound of suet after it is shred, half a pound of currants 
 wash'd and pick'd, four spoonfuls of cold milk, ten yolks of 
 eggs, five of the whites; and when all is in stir it, but not till 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 109 
 
 all is in; then mix it well, butter a dish; less than an hour 
 will bake it 
 
 To Collar Eels. 
 
 Split them down the belly and take the bones out clean, 
 make a seasoning with spice powder'd and herbs chopt fine; 
 strew it in and roll them up, and sew a cloth over each eel, so 
 boil them in a pickle, half white-wine and half vinegar with 
 a few-blades of mace, some slic'd ginger, whole pepper and a 
 bay leaf, with a piece of lemon and some salt; when they 
 are boiled enough, lay them out and keep them in it; the 
 cloths must be taken off when the eels are cold. 
 
 To Pot a Svtan. 
 
 Bone and skin your swan, and beat the flesh in a mortar, 
 taking out the strings as you beat it ; then take some clear 
 fat bacon and beat with the swan, and when it is of a light 
 flesh-colour there is bacon enough in it, and when it is beaten 
 till it is like dough it is enough; then season it with pepper, 
 salt, cloves, mace and nutmeg, all beaten fine; mix it well 
 with your flesh and give it a beat or two all together; then, 
 put it in an earthen pot, with a little claret and fair water, and 
 at the top two pounds of fresh butter spread over it; cover ib 
 with coarse paste and bake it with bread; then tiu-n it out 
 into a dish; squeeze it gently to get out the moisture, then 
 put it into a pot fit for it, when cold cover it with clarified 
 butter; and next day paper it up. In this manner you may 
 do goose, duck, or beef, or hare's flesh. 
 
 To Make a Pulpatoon (Pupton) of Pigeons. 
 
 Take mushrooms, palates, oysters, sweetbreads, and fry 
 them in butter; then put all these into a strong gravy; give 
 them a heat over the fire, tUpn thicken up with an egg and 
 a bit of butter; then half roast six or eight pigeons and lay 
 them in a crust of forc'd meat, as follows: scrape a pound of 
 veal and two pounds of marrow and beat it together in a 
 
110 DINNEROLOGY ; 
 
 mortar, after it is shred very fine then season it with salt, 
 pepper, spice, and put in hard eggs, anchovies and oysters; 
 beat all together and make the lid and sides of your pye oi' 
 it; first lay a thin crust in your pattipan, then jDut in your 
 forc'd meat, then lay an exceeding thin crust over them, then 
 put in your pigeons and other ingredients, with a little 
 butter on the top; bake it two hours. 
 
 A Batalia, or Bride-Pye. 
 
 Take young chickens as big as blackbirds, quails, young 
 partridges and larks, and squab-pigeons, truss them and put 
 tliem in your pye; then have ox palates boiled, blanched and 
 cut in pieces, sweet-breads, cocks-combs blanched, a quart of 
 oysters dipt in eggs, and dredged over with grated bread and 
 marrow; having so done sheeps' tongues boiled, peeled, and 
 cut in slices, season all with salt, pepper, cloves, mace and 
 nutmegs, beaten and mixed together; put butter at the 
 bottom of the pye, and place the rest in with the yolks of 
 hard eggs, forced-meat balls, cover all with butter and cover 
 up the pye; put in five or six spoonfuls of water when it 
 goes into the oven and when it is drawn pour it out and put 
 in gravy. 
 
 To Make the Light Wigs. 
 
 Take a pound and a half of flour, and half a pound of 
 milk made warm, mix these together, and cover it up; let it 
 lie by the fire half an hour; then take half a pound of sugar 
 and half a pound of butter, work these in the paste and 
 make it into wigs, with as little flour as possible; let the oven 
 be pretty quick and they will rise very much. 
 
 A Fine Potatoe-Pye for Lent. 
 
 First make your forced-meat, about two dozen of small 
 oysters just scalded, and when cold chopt small; a stale I'owl 
 grated, and six yolks of eggs boiled hard, and bruised small 
 with the back of a spoon; season with a little salt, pepper, 
 nutmeg, thyme and parsley, shred small. Mix these well to- 
 
Ol/B iiJXFilKlMENTS IN DIET. Ill 
 
 gether, and pound tliem a little, and makeup iu a stiff paste, 
 with half a pound of butter and an egg worked in it, just 
 flour it to keep it from sticking, and lay it by till your pye is 
 fit, and put a very thin paste in your dish, bottom and sides; 
 then put your forced meat, of an equal thickness, about two 
 fingers broad, about the sides of your dish, as you would do 
 a pudding-crust, dust a little flour on it and put it down close; 
 then fill your pye, a dozen of potatoes, about the bigness of 
 a small egg, finely pared, just boiled a walm or two, a dozen 
 yolks of eggs boiled hard, a quarter of a hundred of large 
 oysters just scalded in their own liquor and cold, six morels, 
 four or five blades of mace, some whole pepper, and a little 
 salt butter on the bottom and top; then lid your pye, and 
 bake it an hour; when it is drawn, pour in a caudle made 
 with half a pint of your oyster liquor, three or four spoonfuls 
 of white wine, and thickened up with butter and eggs, pour it 
 in hot at the hole in the top, and shake it together, and 
 serve it 
 
 To Season and Bake a Venison Pasty. 
 
 Bone your haunch or side of venison, and take out all the 
 sinews and skin ; then proportion it for your pasty, by tak- 
 ing away from one part and adding to another, till it is of an 
 equal thickness; then season it with pepper and salt, about 
 an ounce of pepper; save a little of it whole and beat the 
 rest, and mix with twice as much salt, and rub it all over 
 your venison, and let it lie till your paste is ready. Make 
 your paste thus: A peck of fine flour, six pounds of butter, a 
 dozen eggs; rub your butter in your flour, beat your eggs, 
 and with them and cold water make up your paste pretty 
 stiff, then drive it forth for your pasty; let it be the thick- 
 ness of a man's thumb; put under it two or three sheets of 
 cap-paper well floured ; then have two pounds of beef-suet, 
 shred exceeding fine; proportion it on the bottom to the 
 breadth of your venison, and leave a verge round your 
 venison three fingers broad, wash that verge over with a 
 bunch of- feathers or brush dipped in egg beaten, and then 
 
112 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 lay a border of your paste on the place you washed, and lay 
 your venison on the suet; put a little of your seasoning on 
 the top and a few corns of whole pepper, and two pounds of 
 very good fresh butter, then turn over your other sheet of 
 paste, so close your Pasty. Garnish it on the top as you think 
 fit, vent it in the middle, and set it in the oven. It will ask 
 five or six hours baking. Then break all the bones, wash 
 them, and add to them more bones or knuckles, season them 
 with pepper and salt, and put them, with a quart of water 
 and half a pound of butter, in a pan or earthen pot, cover it 
 over with coarse paste, and set it in with your Pasty; and 
 when your Pasty is drawn and dished, fill it up with the 
 gravy that came from tlie bones. 
 
 To Make March pane. 
 
 Take a pound of Jordan almonds, blanch and beat them 
 in a marble mortar very fine ; then put to them three 
 quarters of a pound of double refined sugar and beat them 
 with a few drops of orange-flower water; beat all together 
 till it is a very good paste, then roll it into what shape you 
 please. Dust a little fine sugar under it as you roll to keep it 
 from sticking. To ice it, scarce the sugar fine as flour, wet 
 it with rose-water, mix it well together, and with a brush or 
 bunch of feathers spread it over your March-pane; bake 
 them in an oven that is not too hot; put wafer-paper at the 
 bottom and white paper under that, so keep them for use. 
 
 To Make Quince Cream. 
 
 Take quinces, scald them till they are soft, pare them, and 
 mash the clear part of them, and pulp it through a sieve; 
 take an equal weight of quince and double-refined sugar 
 beaten and sifted, and the whites of eggs, and beat it till it 
 is as white as snow, then put it in dishes. 
 
 To Make a Jelly Posset. 
 
 Take twenty eggs, leave out half the whites, and beat them 
 very well, put them into the bason you serve it in, with near 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DEET. 113 
 
 a pint of sack, and a little strong ale; sweeten it to your taste, 
 and set it over a cliarcoal fiie, keep stirring it all the while; 
 tlien have in readiness a quart of milk or cream boiled with a 
 little cinnamon and nutmeg, and when your sack and eggs 
 are hot enough to scald your lips, put the milk to it boiling 
 hot; then take it off the fire and cover it up half an hour; 
 strew sugar on the brim of the dish, and serve it to the table. 
 
 To Make Tea Caudle. 
 
 Make a quart of strong green tea, and pour it out into a 
 skillet, and set it over the fire; then beat the yolks of four 
 eggs, and mix with them a pint of white wine, a grated nut- 
 meg, sugar to your taste and put all together; stir it over the 
 fire till it is very hot, then drink it in china dishes as caudle. 
 
 To Make the Everlasting Syllabubs. 
 
 Take a quart and a half a pint of cream, a pint of rhenish, 
 half a pint of sack, three lemons, near a pound of double- 
 refined sugar; beat and sift the sugar and put it to your 
 cream ; grate off the yellow rind of your three lemons, and put 
 that in; squeeze the juice of the three lemons into your wine, 
 and put that to your cream ; then beat all together with a 
 whisk just half an hour, then take it up all together with a 
 spoon and fill your glasses; it will keep good nine or ten days, 
 and is best three or four days old; these are called the ever- 
 lasting syllabubs. 
 
 To Make Cock-Ale. 
 
 Take ten gallons of ale and a large cock, the older the 
 better; parboil the cock, flay him, and stamp him in a mortar 
 till his bones are broken (you must craw and gut him when 
 you flay him), then put the cock into two quarts of sack, 
 and put to it three pounds of raisins of the sun stoned, 
 some blades of mace, and a few cloves; put all these into a 
 canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale has done 
 working, put the ale and the bag together into a vessel; in a 
 
114 dinnerology: 
 
 week or nine days time bottle it up, fill the bottle but just 
 above the neck, and give it the same time to ripen as other 
 ale. 
 
 To Make Saragosa Wine or English Sack. 
 
 To every quart of water put a sprig of rue, and to every 
 gallon a liandful of fennel roots, boil tliese half an hour, then 
 strain it out, and to every gallon of this liquor put three 
 pounds of honey, boil it two hours, and scum it well, and 
 when it is cold, pour it off, and turn it into the vessel, or such 
 cask as is fit for it; keep it a year in the vessel and then 
 bottle it; it is a very good sack. 
 
 King Charles II. 's Surfeit Water. 
 
 Take a gallon of the best aqua-vitte, and a quart of brandy, 
 and a quart of aniseed water, a pint of poppy water, and a 
 pint of damask rose water; put these in a large glass jar, and 
 piit to it a pound of fine powdered sugar, a pound and a half 
 of raisins stoned, a quarter of a pound of dates, stoned and 
 sliced, one ounce of cinnamon bruised, cloves one ounce, four 
 nutmegs bruised, one stick of liquorice sci'aped and sliced; 
 let all these stand nine days close covered, stirring it three or 
 four times a day; then add to it three pounds of fresh pop- 
 pies, or three handfuls of dried poppies, a sprig of angelica, 
 two or three of balm, so let it stand a week longer, then strain 
 it out and bottle it. 
 
 A Snail Water Against a Consumption. 
 
 Take a pound of currants, and of hart's-tongue, liverwort 
 and speedwell, of each, a large handful; then take a peck of 
 snails, lay them all night in hyssop, the next morning rub 
 and bruise them, and distil all in a gallon of new milk; 
 sweeten it with white sugar candy and drink of this water 
 two or three times a day, a quarter of a pint at a time; it has 
 done great good. 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET, 115 
 
 To Roast a Shoulder of Mutton in Blood. 
 
 Cut the shoulder as you do venison, take off the skin, let it 
 lie in the blood all night; then take as much powder of sweet 
 herbs as will lie on a sixpence, a little grated bread, some 
 pepper, nutmeg and ginger, a little lemon peel, the yolks of 
 two eggs boiled hard, and about twenty oysters and salt; tem- 
 per all together with some of the blood and stuff the meat 
 thick with it, and lay some of it about the mutton; then 
 wrap the caul of the sheep round the shoulder; roast it, and 
 baste it with blood till near done; then take off the caul, 
 dredge it and baste it with butter and serve it to the table 
 with venison sauce in a bason. If you do not cut it venison- 
 fashion, yet take off the skin, because it eats tough; let the 
 caul be spread while it is warm or it will not do well; and 
 next day when you are to use it wrap it in a cloth dipt in hot 
 water; for sauce take some of the breast bones, chop them, 
 and put to them a whole onion, a bay-leaf, a piece of lemon- 
 peel, two or three anchovies, with spice that please; stew 
 these, then add some red wine, oysters and mushrooms. 
 
116 DtNNEHOLOUY : 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE ANCIENT CHURCIl's LENTEN LAWS AND FARE. 
 
 Our Rector's Singular Researches. — He Keeps me Awake. — 
 
 Moses as a Public Health Commissioner. — Ecclesiasti- 
 
 cism and^ Dietetics. — Clerical Licenses to Eat Meat in 
 Lent. 
 
 The worthy rector was as good as liis word. He 
 popped in one evening, invited me to invite him into 
 my snuggery, and there we communed as the clouds of 
 incense and the steaming — but what's that got to do 
 with what I was going to tell ? Nothing, so let it 
 pass. 
 
 " Well," said my genial friend and pastor, Dr. 
 Goodbody, when we had got over the preliminaries, 
 "you must know that when I promised to preach that 
 special sermon on the Feeding of the Flock, I really 
 had not a definite idea in my head. I thought, in a 
 vague way, that it would be easy enough to string to- 
 gether the usual gems of thought on the usual thread, 
 bringing in appropriate references to the various 
 kinds of foods and beverages mentioned in Holy Writ, 
 with a wind-up parallel between our bodily and our 
 
OU:i EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 117 
 
 Spiritual appetites^ and the importance of securing 
 the highest form of nourishment for both." 
 
 " Capital, Doctor ! Just the sort of sermon one would 
 expect on the subject from so original a thinker — " 
 
 "Anyhow, it's just the sort of sermon you are not 
 going to get. The novelty of the subject tickled me. 
 It struck me as so absurdly practical and out of the 
 common pulpit track that I actually felt myself a 
 3'oung fellow again, eager to put his best foot fore- 
 most because he fears he may be preaching to some 
 who have forgotten more than he ever knew. We 
 soon get over that, though. However, while I flatter 
 myself I am no greenhorn on the great dinner ques- 
 tion, I certainly realize that I shall be preaching to 
 not a few who can give me points, don't you know, 
 and beat me at that, and this is just why I've come 
 to talk my sermon notes over with 3'ou — " 
 
 " But I'm a mere sheep, one of the flock, you know, 
 — any green food is good enough for me, pastor! " — 
 
 "How about thistles? eh! Ha, ha — no — no, I 
 know the breed better than that. Well now, here are 
 some queer things to hash up in a sermon ! But, I 
 say — promise me you won't go to sleep ! " 
 
 "Not while the queerness lasts, anyway" — 
 
 "' Very well ; now let me proceed — (ah, that Pope of 
 blessed memory had a nohle palate !) you must know 
 that I started in with a few reflections on Lent. Tliree 
 
118 DTNNEUOLOGY: 
 
 hundred and twenty-five days, practically, given to 
 fasting, forty days leiit to mitigated fasting. There's 
 a deep significance in that. The sinner goes a-feast- 
 iug, he has to pay for it by a season of dyspetic sor- 
 rowing. His sins are as three hundred and twenty- 
 five to his virtues forty, and lean kine at that. You're 
 not dozing off already ? 
 
 " I was only nodding assent to — to — to whatever 
 your argument was. Doctor." 
 
 " I'm glad of that. Well, I was next led to inquire 
 what the Church has to say about Lent. I don't 
 mean now in its religious aspect, but in its historical. 
 Have you ever noticed how the Church's pious cele- 
 brations of events and seasons used to be associated 
 with something good to eat ? The co.mmon people 
 in far-back times required symbolism, and the closer 
 the symbol came to their inner consciousness the 
 greater their reverence for the truth or event sym- 
 bolized. Thus turkey, roast beef and plum-pudding 
 fixed the idea of Christmas in the popular mind 3 pan- 
 cakes prompted to confession on Shrove Tuesday (and 
 penance perhaps, next day) ; I am not certain whether 
 the eating of hash was general on Ash Wednesday as 
 some antiquarians argue ; figs and cake were proper for 
 Mid-Lent and the Sunday consumption of salt fish on 
 Good Friday and boiled eggs on Easter day attested 
 the orthodoxy of our ancestors. I am inclined to think 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 119 
 
 that some of the piety thus displayed might fairly be 
 distinguished as mince-piety, but lest us judge not, 
 lest we be judged." 
 
 " Pardon me, Doctor, did I catch a reference to 
 jugged hare ? or something else jugged ? Favorite 
 dish o' mine in England, Doctor, jugged hare — charm- 
 ing dish — by jingo ! " 
 
 " No, I was speaking of our being judged, but I 
 shake hands with you on jugged hare — grand, sir ! 
 Why don't we introduce the hare here ? However, 
 let me resume. 
 
 I unearthed some of the laws and rules of the earl}^ 
 Church upon the food and drink question. Its disci- 
 pline was exceedingly strict ; wouldn't work at all 
 nowadays, with our luxurious, free and independent 
 people. Not the least ! The Church, one might ex- 
 press it, re-enacted the Public Health legislation in- 
 stituted by Moses. The people kept Lent very strictly 
 in the second century. Even the pagan Komans 
 kept a three weeks' fast as a preparation for the return 
 of Spring. The Greek Church to-day is equally strict. 
 Not very long ago several Russian peasants who had 
 been bitten by a rabid wolf were sent to Paris for 
 Pasteur's treatment, yet they refused to taste beef-tea 
 because Lent had commenced. 
 
 The earliest decree or code of laws known in tlie 
 Christian Church are those styled the Apostolical 
 
120 DINNEROLOGY: 
 
 Canons, held alike by the Catholic, Protestant and 
 Greek Churches as the disciplinary rules that gov- 
 erned the Primitive Church for the first three cen- 
 turies. Some have claimed that these rules were 
 drawn up by the Apostles, but it is more probable 
 that they were the outcome of Church councils during 
 the first two centuries. These canons decree that all 
 clerics, readers, and singers shall be deposed if they 
 do not keep " the Holy Fast of Lent forty days before 
 Easter, or the Wednesdays or Fridays," but if the of- 
 fender is only a layman he is simply to be suspended 
 from communion. The learned Bishop Beveridge 
 argues that Lent was certainly observed as early as 
 the second century, and that the Wednesday and Fri- 
 day fast was kept in the time of the Apostles. But 
 if a cleric abstained from flesh " not from notification 
 but of abhorrence, as having forgotten that all things 
 are very good . . . and blasphemously reproach- 
 ing the workmanship of God, let him amend, or else 
 be deposed, and cast out of the Church, and so also 
 shall a layman." Vegetarianism has anything but a 
 primitive sanction. Nor did teetotallers find much 
 encouragement in those days, for the same canon 
 couples wine with flesh, and later on it commands the 
 minister to "use " both these good creatures on festi- 
 val days on pain of deposition "as one that hath a 
 sear'd Conscience and is a cause of Scandal to man v.' 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 121 
 
 Sunday was not to be a fast day. " If any clergy- 
 man be found fasting on the Lord's-day, or on any 
 Sabbath-day, except one, let him be depos'd." Com- 
 ing next to the Synod of Ancyra, in Galatia, held 
 A. D. 315, we find a marked change towards toleration 
 of dietetic reformers. It was then decreed " That 
 those in the clergy who abstain from Flesh, shall 
 (Jirst) taste it, and then abstain, if they think fit; 
 but if they will not taste, nor even eat of the Herbs 
 which are mingled with the Flesh, nor obey the 
 canon, then they cease from their Function." AVe 
 have not the statistics of those who resisted and who 
 succumbed to the savory temptations of roast and 
 boiled. The origin of the two aforesaid week-day 
 fasts is declared in the canons of St. Peter of Alexan- 
 dria, martyr, A. D. 311, as follows : " Wednesday is 
 to be fasted because then the Jews conspired to be- 
 tray Jesus ; Friday, because then he suffered for us ; 
 and we keep the Lord's-day as a Day of Joy, because 
 then Our Lord rose. Our tradition is not to kneel 
 on that day." This is still the rule of the Greek 
 Church. 
 
 Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria about A. D. 
 385, decreed that when the fast of Epiphany chances 
 to fall on a Sunday " let us take a few Dates, and 
 so break our Fast and honor the Lord's day . . . 
 eating no more till our Evening Assembly at Three 
 
122 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 after Noon." St. Basil the Grreat, Bislio]) of Caesarea, 
 A. D. 370, makes short work of the pork difficulty. 
 His 38th canon lays down that " it is ridiculous to 
 vow not to eat Swine's Flesh, and to abstain from 
 it is not necessary." The canons drawn up at 
 Laodicea, A. D. 367, give the clergy some hints upon 
 good manners. They are forbidden to celebrate either 
 weddings or birthdays in Lent, but, furthermore, 
 "they of the Priesthood and Clergy ought not to gaze 
 on fine shows at Weddings, or other Feasts, but be- 
 fore the masquerades enter, to rise up and retreat." 
 Again, '^ they of the Priesthood, or even Laity, ought 
 not to club together for great Eating and Drinking- 
 bouts." When they do go out to weddings, " they 
 ought not to use wanton dancings, but modestly to 
 Dine and Sup, as becomes Christians." And no 
 matter where or how they travelled, they were sternly 
 ordered never to enter "a public-house," correspond- 
 ing to our hotel or saloon. 
 
 " A balloon ! bless me — let's go — I shouldn't won- 
 der if I wasn't just on the verge of nodding, .Doctor, 
 but it was awfull}^ interesting " 
 
 " My dear hearer, it's you who have been up in a 
 balloon ! But I'll excuse you — if you'll ascertain 
 whether the posset has gone too ! " 
 
 " Wh}'^, of course it hasn't, Doctor ! Have a sip — 
 it'll waken us up, don't you know ! '' 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 123 
 
 '^ Thank you — the congregation needs a revival. 
 Well, to resume, notwithstanding the severity of this 
 ancient Parson's Prohibition, the usage grew very 
 much more lax as time went on, for it was not un- 
 common for the country parsons of England in the 
 last century actually to keep the village ale-house, to 
 eke out their miserable livings.' Even within the 
 past sixty years there was an instance of this in the 
 county of Westmoreland. Those were the good old 
 times when the village parson was 'passing rich' on 
 two hundred dollars a year ! " 
 
 " Shouldn't wonder if they didn't earn it better 
 than some of ow elegant Dives divines do— eh ? " 
 
 "Bless you— what are $15,000 to a Fifth Avenue 
 ficTure-head? You Wall Street men and lawyers 
 
 little know the labors and anxieties and drains " 
 
 " Your glass is empty. Doctor— allow me— we fully 
 allow for all the worries of clerical work— by allowing 
 a full stipend in most cases, though I think all cleri- 
 cal salaries should be pooled and then all share alike 
 — what do you say ? " 
 
 "As my worthy people do not pay me as much as 
 SMue of my brethren, I should hold your view— if I, 
 like you, were only a lawyer. But I must hurry up 
 -before that balloon returns for its passenger. I was 
 about to remark that there was a statute in the reign 
 of Queen Elizabeth which forbade ' the eating of llesh 
 
1 24 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 on fish-days' except by special license from Hlie Min- 
 ister.' There was a penalty for the breach of this 
 enactment of ' three Pounds in money, or three Month's 
 Imprisonment without Bail, and forty Shillings for- 
 feiture to him that conceals it.' This law was in force 
 down to about a century ago, and is probably still un- 
 repealed. I copied one of these Lenten Licenses, it 
 runs thus : 
 
 ' A License given to Sir Henry More & his Lady 
 ' Dame Elizabeth for eating flesh for the space of 
 ' Eight Days, upon a certificate fro Mr. John More, 
 ' Dr. of Physicke, yt Abstinence from Elesh would be 
 ^ very prejuditious to their health. 
 
 ' The 22nd of March, 1632. 
 ' The same license renewed Mar. ye 30 ) ^ ( testes. 
 
 * The same renewed Aprill y^ 7. ) ^^ ( testes. 
 
 By me Willia" Norma~, 
 Minister of y^ Parish of Clopton.' " 
 
 " I guess those permits cost as much as a dollar a 
 time, Doctor ? " 
 
 "A dollar! ^ive at the least I should think, con- 
 sider the social rank of the applicants '' 
 
 " Well, we'll say five dollars for the parson and one 
 for the doctor ; how's that ? '' 
 
 " But the doctors always get bigger fees than we 
 parsons— =—" 
 
OUil EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 125 
 
 " Well, then, what I would like to know is — how 
 did the sick^^oor get along ? " 
 
 "■ As most of them do now in rural parishes, by the 
 practical sympathy of the rich and the free services 
 of their pastor. Never forget that our unknown work 
 exceeds in volume and often in value the routine 
 duties, which are all that meet the public eye.'' 
 
 " I am sure that's literally true, Doctor, no one 
 knows it better than I do. But what a j^rice those 
 weekly fees must have made the squire's beefsteaks 
 come to ! " 
 
 " Well, wasn't the Church wise in encouraging 
 simplicity of diet ? I thought you would get up an 
 agitation to induce our Church conventions to put a 
 stoj; to beef-eating, funeral extravagance, and all 
 other such sumptuary sins ! " 
 
 " You've got me tight, Doctor, but I'm no longer 
 an anti-meatite." 
 
 ^' The cliL^rch has always sanctioned the innocent 
 pleasures of the table, with a sagacious perception of 
 the unwisdom of over-straining human nature. True, 
 the Council of Trullus, A. D. 683, threatened to de- 
 pose clerics and excommunicate laymen ^who bake 
 cakes presently after Christmas and eat them with their 
 Friends in Honour to the Virgin,' but this was solely 
 to suppress what was considered a festival practice, 
 just as the pro|)hot Jeremiah had denounced (vii. 18) 
 
126 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 the dainty-loving women in liis day who ' knead their 
 dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven.' Very 
 likely these were the ancestors of the prolific family 
 of Christmas cakes and pies whicli do us so much 
 damage to-day." 
 
 " Don't our brethren of the Koman Catholic 
 Church keep Lent more strictly than we do ? " 
 
 "As a whole they certainly do, and it is interesting 
 to notice, in the light of the historical sketch we 
 have been making, how carefully that Church draws 
 up its Lenten dietary. Here are the rules issued by 
 Archbishop Corrigan for the Arch-diocese of New 
 York. 
 
 ' All the week days of Lent from Ash Wednesda}^ 
 to Easter Sunday are fast days of precept, on one 
 meal, with the allowance of a moderate collation in 
 the evening. 
 
 ^ The church excuses from the obligation of fast- 
 ing (but not of abstinence from flesh meat, except in 
 special cases of sickness) the infirm, those who are 
 attaining their growth, those whose duties are of an 
 exhausting or laborious chaiacter, women in preg- 
 nancy or nursing infants, and those who are enfeebled 
 by old age. 
 
 ' The following dispensations are granted for this 
 diocese by the authority of the Holy See : 
 
 ' I'o Those loho are I^ound to Fast, — Elesh meat 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 12T 
 
 is allowed at the principal meal on all days except 
 Wednesdays and Fridays, Ember Saturday, and the 
 last four days of Holy Week. The custom of this 
 country, tolerated by the Church, permits the use of 
 eggs, butter, cheese, or white meats at the principal 
 meal, and even at the collation, provided the rule of 
 quantity prescribed by the fast be complied with. By 
 the same custom dripping and lard are permitted in 
 the preparation of food for either the chief meal or 
 for the collation. On Sundays there is neither fast- 
 ing nor abstinence, but fish cannot be used with flesh 
 meat at the same meal at any time in Lent. 
 
 ^ To Those who, though not Bound to Fast, are 
 Bound to Abstain.— \N\\iiQ meats {lacticinia) which 
 are allowed at the principal meal to those who are 
 bound to fast are allowed at all times to those who 
 are not so bound. On the days (Sundays included) 
 when flesh meat is permitted fish is not allowed at 
 the same meal. This rule applies to all fasting days 
 throughout the year.' 
 
 " These rules, I am free to say, are so excellent in 
 their sanitary aspect that 1 for one, staunch Protest- 
 ant though I am, believe it would be highly beneficial 
 to society if we were all to obey them — " 
 
 " Undoubtedly, and if all goes well my good wife 
 will probably be able before next year to give the Arch- 
 
128 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 bishop a few extra points on the practicability of 
 keeping a dietetic Lent all the year round." 
 
 " I hope she may. Well now, I've exhausted my 
 notes about as completely as they have exhausted 
 you, so I'm off for the parsonage. Good-night ! and 
 don't go to sleep quite so soon when you hear the 
 full-blown sermon ! " 
 
 We went to hear the good rector preach it, of course, 
 and I never heard him give us a sermon so full of 
 meat. 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 129 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DIETING V. DOCTORING. 
 
 Our worthy Doctor Gires us his Views on the Diet-Cure 
 for Corpulence — the Diet-cure for Consumption — Hoav 
 they Physicked us a Hundred years ago— Some Fancy 
 Foods. — Facts about Fish as Nerve-Food and Physic — A 
 Simple Cure for Dyspepsia. 
 
 " So you have actually condescended to send for me ! 
 I thought you had done with the ills of life — " 
 
 " Good-morning, Dr. Drencham ; you see we 
 haven't quite parted with every one, for here you are 
 — but we look on you as a private friend, you know." 
 
 ^' Quite right, quite right, — a blessing in the guise 
 of an eneni}^, eh ! Well now, what's the matter ? 
 Please now consider we are parleying for a truce ! " 
 
 " Well, I sprained my ankle, Doctor, in practising 
 some little gymnastic tricks I haven't tried for 
 years — " 
 
 " Ah — slight tendency to gout, probably." 
 
 "Gout ! Why, not exactly. If you had told me that 
 five years ago I should have looked up my wine bills 
 and believed you, but I could never have got a sprain 
 from acrobatic performance in those days. Doctor ! " 
 
180 DINNEKOLOGY : 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Why, I could no more bend down to button my 
 shoes with my fingers than — I could expect a swell 
 physician to prescribe a dime-diet as the best cure for 
 his rich patients' dyspepsia ! " 
 
 " If rich patients paid their doctors for common- 
 sense advice sans professional mystification, I assure 
 you our general 2^1'i^ctice would give us much more 
 satisfaction, though, mind you, there must always be 
 a large necessity for purely technical treatment — " 
 
 " Of course there must, Doctor — why, here I call 
 you in myself to treat an effect, the cause of which I 
 know more about than you possibly can. I only 
 meant a joke, yet your acceptance of it shows how we 
 often do injustice to your profession in assuming that 
 you all put cure before prevention." 
 
 Here Pattj'' came in and the doctor congratulated 
 her on her healthy complexion. 
 
 " I'm perfectly ashamed of myself," she replied, 
 " whenever I meet you. Dr. Drencham, for looking 
 and feeling as well as I do, and I hope you will for- 
 give me, for I really can't help it." 
 
 Kow, I can stand your good husband's mild jokes, 
 but if you begin to ill-use a poor, lone, defenceless 
 creature — why I shall be driven to the dime-diet 
 resort or some other form of suicide ! " 
 
 ^•' The very best way of suiciding one's dyspepsia^ 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 131 
 
 misery, Doctor ! Excuse my ignorance of profes- 
 sional terms ! " 
 
 " I capitulate, madame ; the majority rules the 
 helpless minority, and now the minority devotes its 
 superior experience to the amelioration of the help- 
 lessness of the majority ! " 
 
 The good doctor was right. Patty was perfection 
 at a market-hargain or a fricassee, but she was a noodle 
 when it came to surgery. She was lion-like in 
 tackling the agonies of bonnet-building, but the 
 sight of little Percy's cut finger brought her sheepy 
 side to the front. When the doctor had fixed me up 
 and was giving Patty some suggestions for my bene- 
 fit, she proudly pointed to my bandaged limb as a 
 grand testimony to the virtues of the siin^Je dietary 
 which had made agility possible in me, who for years 
 had been too fat and lazy to walk two blocks if by 
 riding around six I could get there just the same. 
 
 " Just what our amiable patient here was flourish- 
 ing at me," smilingly replied the doctor. 
 
 "Yes, Doctor, we like to spread the light among 
 the heathen," I joined in, " and we've not lost hope 
 of converting even learned conservative Brahmins 
 like you ! " 
 
 " Bless my soul (and you7^ l>ody), why, I'm saved 
 already, my good missionary friends ! I am indeed ! 
 Don't you know that only last month I read a paper 
 
132 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 before the Grand Panjandrum of the Medico-Surgico- 
 Homoeo-allopatheclectic region upon the Diet cure for 
 Corpulence and Consumption ? '' 
 
 '■' The dickens you did ! Why wasn't it printed 
 in every newspaper in the land ? " 
 
 " Ah, noio you are poaching on professional res- 
 ervations, my friend. But I don't mind giving you 
 and your talented wife a general outline of the posi- 
 tion I took and defended, if it would not be adding 
 torture to pain ? " 
 
 " My dear Doctor Drencham — my husband is so 
 impatient I'm sure he would be thankful for any 
 affliction that would take his mind off his toothache 
 or his ankle — " 
 
 " It's quite true, what Patty says. Doctor, I alvmijs 
 prefer her to scold me when the pain comes on — but 
 go ahead — nothing could give us greater pleasure, 
 believe me. Doctor, than to listen to such a high 
 authority on so vital a subject." 
 
 Dr. Drencham gave us the gentlest touch of his 
 lancet-wit as he drew up his easy-chair by the fireside 
 and gave us the benefit of his invaluable experience 
 and information. 
 
 He said, substantially, as follows : " You speak of 
 the diet cure for corpulence. Well, there have been 
 a good many prescriptions, systems, and theories to 
 keep down flesh whiL3 maintaining health and 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 133 
 
 strength. Not to go farther back than our own time, 
 there was the once famous Banting system. Mr. 
 Banting was the undertaker for the royal family of 
 England, and kept a large funeral furnishing store 
 just under St. James's Palace. I forget how much 
 the old gentleman weighed, somewhere about 300 I 
 think, when he discarded all the treatments he had 
 been under. They were failures. In the pamphlet 
 which won for him the only immortal fame ever con- 
 ferred on a funeral man, he told how he resolved to 
 resolve his superfluous adiposity by abstaining from 
 fats, sugars, breads and similar common articles of 
 diet. He took his tea and coffee without milk or su- 
 gar, limited his allowance of lean meats, ate any fish 
 except salmon, and generally practiced what was 
 called a starvation system. His method was opposed 
 to generally received physiological principles, but it 
 could not fairly be styled a starving diet. His pam- 
 phlet attracted great attention, he had many disci- 
 ples, and so lately as two years ago his son stated that 
 his father received more than two thousand letters 
 from persons of all ranks, praising the success of his 
 plan and thanking him for making it known. Mr. 
 Banting certainly reduced his weight to reasonable 
 proportions and died an octogenarian in the odor of 
 genteel success. 
 
 From his day until now, say twenty years, there 
 
134 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 have been other methods proposed, all of them on a 
 basis of a special regimen. Dr. Ebstein, a German med- 
 ical professor of high repute, recently published a sort 
 of anti-Banting system. He is — or was then — very 
 confident about the merits of his method. Where 
 Banting "starved" the patient, Ebstein feeds him on 
 fat. He would not risk the weakening results of 
 which many of Banting's disciples complained, and 
 from which, it was claimed, some of them died. This 
 was alleged of the Comte de Chambord, but without 
 sufficient evidence. Dr. Ebstein held that a starving 
 process sacrifices albumen as well as fat, causing im- 
 poverishment of the blood, the only remedy for which 
 is good feeding. He dismisses the " water cures " as 
 useless bj'^ themselves, and medical treatment in gen- 
 eral. Diet regulation is what he relies on. 
 
 Strange as it ma}^ seem, Dr. Ebstein insisted that 
 the eating of fat tends to reduce fatness. He gave 
 his reasons for this, accompanied by careful warnings 
 against eating more than the exact quantity suitable 
 to the individual case. Then, his patient must reallj^ 
 be patient, he must not expect to become slim in a 
 month or two. His reduction is to be the consequence 
 of a gradual but radical substitution of one dietary 
 for another, and time must be allowed for the system 
 to get used to tbe new treatment. You know all 
 about the carbo-hj^drates, because you used to keep 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 135 
 
 that chart of yours well before my eyes when I had 
 the pleasure of eating your vegetarian banquets. 
 Well^ Dr. Ebstein's prime object was to get rid of 
 them. Sugar, potatoes, and all similar foods he for- 
 bade entirely, and put a limit on bread and vegeta- 
 bles. In his book he not only admits meats, but he 
 tells his patient, "I permit bacon fat, fat roast pork, 
 fat mutton, kidney fat and marrow in soups. I allow 
 the sauces as well as the vegetables to be made juicy, 
 as Hippocrates did, only for his sesame oil I substi- 
 tute butter." 
 
 There must be no snacks between meals, light 
 wines may be drunk, but not beer — " unless the per- 
 mitted carbo-hydrates be correspondingly restricted." 
 The daily diet of one of his patients, who was cured, 
 was for breakfast, eaten early, large cup of black tea, 
 no milk or sugar, and two ounces of bread with plentj^ 
 of butter. For dinner, at two o'clock, soup, four to 
 six ounces of roast or boiled meat, vegetables in mod- 
 eration, but no potatoes, and no turnips. Some fresh 
 fruit, or a salad, to follow, or stewed fruit without 
 sugar, two or three glasses of light wine, followed by 
 a large cup of tea, as at breakfast. For supper, black 
 tea, fat roast meat, or eggs, or ham with fat bologna 
 sausage, smoked or fresh fish, a little bread well but- 
 tered, cheese and fruit, eaten at seven or eight p. m. 
 
 Of this and all such sj'stems of scientific dieting I 
 
Iij6 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 may adopt President Lincoln's convenient formula — ■ 
 " for those suited to such treatment, such treatment is 
 likely to be suitable." Whether it succeeds or fails, 
 the virtue lies more in the patient himself than in the 
 treatment. Before we can safely apply anybody's 
 finely drawn-out method, with all its niceties of 
 chemical proportions and finicky rules of conduct, to 
 our own case, we have first to learn whether our con- 
 stitution, our age, our habits, our environment, cor- 
 respond exactly to those of the person said to be 
 cured. Here is where ninety-nine per cent, of fail- 
 ures come in, in every branch of self-treatment, just 
 for want of sufficient knowledge of ever varying con- 
 ditions. I might add that this is also just where the 
 trained doctor comes in, too, "with healing in his 
 wings,'' but I scorn to interrupt my story. 
 
 At the time when Ebstein's system was being dis- 
 cussed, an interesting letter appeared in an English 
 journal, written by one of the typical ' countrj^ squires' 
 who owe so much of their robust health to their pas- 
 sion for hunting and every form of hard out-door ex- 
 ercise. He stated that for many years it had been a 
 constant study with him how to keep down his weight. 
 He dreaded becoming too fat to go a-hunting. He 
 tried Banting's and other methods with signal fail- 
 ure. They were ver}'- inconvenient to carrj'^ out. At 
 last he came to the conclusion that 'the great secret 
 
OUK, EXPERIMENTS IX DIET. 187 
 
 of keeping away fat was to limit the quantity of 
 liquid consumed, and not the qualit3\' Then he put 
 his theory into practice, and succeeded so well that 
 he was able to sign himself, ^ A Light, late a Heavy 
 Weight.' I will read the rest of his letter. The 
 '■ stone ' is 14 pounds. 
 
 'The following rules, faithfully carried out, will in a 
 month take off a stone weight of fat from any one 
 who carries it in excess of what is necessary for his 
 s 3' stem : — 
 
 1st. Three meals a day only. 
 
 2d. No intermediate nips or snacks. 
 
 3d. At each meal any reasonable amount of any 
 solid food, and one half-pint of any liquid. 
 
 This regime leaves you health}'- and vigorous, and 
 one week is quite enough to make one reconciled to 
 an apparently (not really) limited amount of liquid. 
 On it I have hunted, shot, played rackets, cricket, 
 and tennis, and for years have been as sound as a 
 bell. 
 
 The rate at which weight is lost is surprising at 
 first. A fourteen stone man who is carrying two 
 stone of useless fat will part with it at the rate of one 
 pound a day; but suffers no inconvenience beyond 
 the looseness of his garments. 
 
 An occasional "unbending of the bow," in the 
 shape of a relaxation of the quantit}^ rule, will very 
 
138 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 soon work itself off, but these ^- unbendings " must 
 not come oftener than once in five or six weeks. 
 
 For the corpulent this is a certain cure, but if very 
 large feeders are anxious to try it, it is necessary to 
 make some reduction in solid food as well. 
 
 Hunting men will find themselves a stone lighter 
 for it, if they carry unnecessary fat, almost before 
 they are aware of it, as they will waste so quickly 
 from the exercise.' 
 
 Here, again, the individual must use his own judg- 
 ment as to how far this rule is good for him. Others 
 have testified to its efficacy in their eases, and I am 
 free to saj'' that if I were similarl}^ affi^icted, this is the 
 system I should try first, because of its reasonable- 
 ness, simplicitj'-, and general soundness in principle." 
 
 We thanked the doctor for his kindness, taking 
 some credit to ourselves for somewhat improving on 
 this limited moderation by extending it to eating and 
 drinking alike. I cannot stop to report our talk upon 
 this however, because of the practical value of what 
 the doctor proceeded to tell us about diet as a cure 
 for incipient weakness of the chest in children, and a 
 remedy for developed consumption in adults. 
 
 He continued: "We are more fortunate in this 
 climate in the matter of consumption than our cousins 
 across the sea. Yet there are many reasons why our 
 people should know all that can be known about the 
 
OUK EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 139 
 
 influence of sound feeding on the diseases affecting 
 tlie lungs. In this more, perhaps, than in any other 
 ailment, good food can do good when medicines are 
 useless. To go fully into causes and effects, or to at- 
 tempt a semi-scientific exposition now would be wholly 
 out of place. I will simply avail mj'^self of a capital 
 paper on this matter from the pen of an eminent 
 specialist in Edinburgh, J. Milner Eothergill, M. D., 
 widely known for the past ten years as physician to 
 the Chest hospital in that famous city. Being Scotch 
 he is, of course, very practical, and as he speaks 
 from a wide experience, ten words from such a man 
 possess more weight than ten hours' talk from a 
 mere theorizer. His proposition amounts to this, — if 
 children and adults born with consumptive tendencies 
 were fed with a proper knowledge of what best suits 
 their trouble, consumption would cease to be as fatal 
 as it now is. Fat, he says, is absolutely necessary to 
 the building up of healthy tissue, and in consumption, 
 even at the earliest stage, * the dietary should be as 
 rich in fat as the assimilative powers of the patient 
 will permit, and to the utmost limit of tolerance on 
 the part of the stomach.' Children should be fed on 
 milk and oatmeal or hominy, because these are the 
 richest in fats. Wheat, barley and rye lack fat, by 
 comparison. Dr. Fothergill strongly advocates giving 
 children plenty of good butter. Their bread should 
 
140 DINNEROLOGY ; 
 
 be cut thin and buttered thick, rather than the oppo- 
 site. As children do not like meat fats, fry potatoes, 
 chopped fine, in bacon fat, and they will eat it and 
 enjoy it. Bread and butter puddings are much the 
 best for weakly children. Malt sugar does less harm 
 to the teeth than cane sugar, neither does it set up 
 acetous acid fermentation in the stomach, two import- 
 ant reasons for preferring malt sugar. 
 
 Toffee, or taffy, made in the old way with molasses 
 and butter is ^ a marvellous concentrated food for 
 children, and an extra ration of it in cold weather is 
 an excellent practice.' The practical experiment the 
 author tried on a school during winter confirmed his 
 opinion. For consumptives cod liver oil is the most 
 easily digestible fat, though also the most nauseous. 
 Next to it, bacon fat, the liquid fat, is the most easily 
 assimilated. The advertised fat 'emulsions' are ex- 
 plained to be the minute sub-division of the pure oil 
 into particles which, aided by our food, are more 
 likely to be absorbed than when taken alone. Dr. 
 Fothergill recommends cream as a fine natural emul- 
 sion, which anybody can take and digest with stewed 
 fruit. Dyspeptics must take it when hungry, if it is 
 to agree with them. A little liquor, or liqueur, helps 
 it to stay down. He also recommends the placing of 
 two tablespoonfuls of fresh cream in a glass and then 
 fill up with aerated water. ' This is a drink fit for 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 141 
 
 the Muses or the Graces, if threatened with phtliisis.' 
 Taking Dr. Fothergill's counsel in an ordinary way 
 we are safe in feeding delicate children and adults on 
 the maximum of proper fats consistent with the 
 minimum of indigestion, and I guess the more the 
 people generally practice this simple dietetic remedy, 
 the less they will require of our physics. We shall 
 always be needed to direct and advise, and in this 
 lies our highest value to the sick, if only they knew 
 it." 
 
 Patty was in ecstacy. That very afternoon, she 
 announced, instructions should be given to our milk- 
 man to furnish a pint of real honest cream to "emul- 
 sate," as she termed it, " poor dear little Percy, who 
 has quite gone off since we stopped his Boston beans 
 and stuffed him with Philadelphia chicken." I 
 thanked the doctor for the real information he had 
 favored us with. Patty remarked how wonderfully 
 simple doctoring seems to be getting on — nowadays — 
 " just fancy — mere cream ! And better than that 
 horrid oil, too ! " 
 
 " Yes, you may well be grateful and glad, madam," 
 said Drencham, " if you had any idea of how we should 
 have treated you a hundred years ago, you would 
 think even cod liver oil was the nectar of the gods. 
 Por instance — (please suppose me to be Cliirurgeon, 
 Apothecary in Chief to Her Majesty Queen Anne), 
 
142 DINNEKOLOGY : 
 
 if you asked me for my prescription for " tootliach/' 
 I should tell you to run your needle through the body 
 of a woodlouse and then touch your tooth with it, and 
 you would be cured. If you had sore eyes I should 
 order you to powder the sweepings of j^our poultry- 
 pen, have it blown into your eyes before going to 
 sleep, and in the morning you would see as clearly as 
 a Lick telescope. A nice fat snail, persuaded to 
 jellify itself, would take away the freckle or pimple 
 you laid it upon. For various internal troubles I 
 should have mixed you certain marvellous medicines, 
 of which one ingredient is five hundred snails, soaked 
 overnight in vinegar. If you had been afiflicted with 
 epileptic fits, I should have solemnly administered a 
 physic made after this approved prescription : ^ Take 
 of the powder of a man's skull, of cinnabar and anti- 
 mony of each a dram, of frog's liver dried and male 
 piony, each two drams ; conserve of rosemary two 
 ounces, syrup of pionils enough to make a soft electu- 
 ary, of which eat a quantity as large as a nutmeg 
 every morning and evening, drinking after it three 
 ounces of the water of the lillies of the valley ; take 
 it three days before the new moon, and three days 
 before the full moon.' 
 
 " You would have relished a tablespoonful of ants for 
 your deafness, or for leprosy. The blood and bones, 
 and certain of the organs in toads and vipers were 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 143 
 
 certain cures for other diseases. Bees dried and 
 powdered used to make the hair sprout on bald places, 
 for which cantharides are still famed. A lady-bird, 
 or sa}^, a Colorado bug, placed on your aching tooth 
 and ' crushed in ' would effectually turn your 
 thoughts from that trouble. For inflamed eyes you 
 would catch all the house-flies you could muster, boil 
 them in 3'our soup pot, and wash your eyes well in the 
 liquor. Five gnats were as serviceable as a couple of 
 pills. Earwigs eaten raw used to cure vertigo, and a 
 plaster made of spiders and put on the forehead was a 
 fashionable remedy for malaria." 
 
 Patty showed tlie surprise of uncomfortableness 
 and I began to wonder whether lunch time would be 
 long. The good doctor was wound up to go a little 
 longer, but he slightly changed the subject. 
 
 "All these antiquated prescriptions marked the 
 transition from sheer magic and superstition to the 
 dawning era of rationalism. The doctors were not 
 yet bold enough to dispense with the prevalent faith 
 in mysteries, though undoubtedly they laughed at 
 the popular credulity when they held their fraternal 
 caucuses and conventions. Yet they were by no 
 means the only sinners in stuffing the people with 
 horrible medicines. The people liked to stuff them- 
 selves with equally loathsome foods. Ants were 
 sometimes eaten in England, and in Africa and India 
 
144 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 they are regarded as a sort of national dish to this 
 day. Emin Bey, the eminent explorer, told us in one 
 of his last letters how he had been forced to make his 
 dinner on stewed ants, good big ones too, or go hun- 
 gry. Perhaps it was the late Bishop Harrington, 
 I am not quite sure. Bats were a delicacy during 
 the siege of Paris seventeen years ago, and were eagerly 
 bought at something like five dollars each. Some Indian 
 tribes were described as feasting on lice caught and 
 cooked by their women. My authority for this is 
 Southey quoting Dobrizhoffer. He also tells of a Dr. 
 Fordyce who knew tlie black servant of an Indian mer- 
 chant in America. Tliis man was fond of soup made of 
 rattlesnakes, in which he always boiled the head, re- 
 gardless of any poison in it. The fellow must have 
 been a homeopath without knowing it. Horseflesh is 
 eaten more generally than is popularly supposed. 
 There are mysteries in the laboratories of the mag- 
 icians who grow rich by transmuting the offal of car- 
 casses into the toothsome gems that are clad in tinted 
 skins. There is consolation in knowing that if we 
 ever weary of flesh and rebel against vegetarianism 
 too, we can still cultivate a new epicureanism among 
 the clay-eating Hottentots." 
 
 " One word, dear doctor, before you go. What is 
 your opinion on the value of fish for the brain ? '' 
 
 "Very high indeed. I have noticed with surprise 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IK DIET. 145 
 
 that some chemists are seeking to pooh-pooh the 
 popular belief that phosphorus in some way builds up 
 the brain. They admit in the same breath, that as 
 yet their analytical ingenuity does not enable them 
 to speak dogmatically upon the exact chemical action 
 phosphorus has upon ,the nerves. Very well, the 
 appeal then lies to experience, and experience smiles 
 at the objections of rigid theorists. I need not ap- 
 peal to the literally universal prevalence of the belief 
 among fish-eating peoples. Let me handle a few- 
 facts. Most fish is easier of digestion than flesh. 
 Good digestion is good for what bit of brain we 
 possess. But the brain is only a part of our system of 
 nerves. The food that best feeds our nervous system 
 is the best for those whose nerves are the weakest 
 part of them, and for all of us when we are over- 
 strung or worried- Fish strengthens and feeds this 
 part of us better than meats or bread foods. It does 
 not ' fill ' us so solidly as meats at the time ; we don't 
 feel in so much need of a lazy time after a fish meal 
 as after a meat meal of equal quantity, and therefore 
 we fancy that the fish has not been so ^feeding.' 
 That is a mistake. We should choose fish or meat 
 according to the chief needs of our system just then; 
 fish, if our nerves are hungr}^ flesh if we only want a 
 common ^square meal.' 
 
 And right here let me say don't merely nibble 
 
146 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 your lish and toy with a few dainty pickings if your 
 nerves want a feed. You must make your whole meal 
 of it. For an ordinary dinner in ordinary health the 
 hit of fish in its course is all right. And don't bother 
 your curiosity bump as to whether it's the phosphorus 
 or not that does the business. Perhaps the virtue lies 
 in the way you handle your fork ; what does it matter 
 to you so long as the fish-meal sets you up ? 
 
 But now for another fact for chemical sticklers. 
 An eminent English doctor happened to believe in 
 the fish-cure, so to call it. Dr. Mortimer Granville has 
 been a, if not the, leading specialist in nerve diseases 
 and lunacy, and besides having edited the principal 
 medical paper, the Lancet^ was for thirty years the 
 government official visitor of private lunatic asylums. 
 Nerve diseases, brain disorder, and lunacy are all in 
 the same category. Dr. Granville's testimony is re- 
 remarkable. I summarize it briefly. For persons 
 whose nervous system is below par, or badly de- 
 ranged, and so on up to raving madness, fish is the 
 first remedy to be given. Pound for pound it is as 
 nutritious as flesh, for them at least. Feed them on 
 fish at every meal, fish in as great variety as possible, 
 so that each course may be fish, as much as the 
 patient can be induced to eat. 
 
 Kesult, — a speedy cessation of nervous irritation. 
 They calm down, they lose their excited look, the first 
 
OUR EXPERtMEJ^TS IN DIET. 147 
 
 and principal step to final cure has been successfully 
 taken. Is it phosphorus ? Well, it is fish, and fish 
 has phosphorus, and that's just what an irritated 
 nerve sings out for. But perhaps it is only the pro- 
 tagon and lecithin '^ of the fish that work the spell ! 
 So be it ; I will let the learned pundits stick to their 
 quirks and quibbles if only the}'^ won't stick any more 
 of their scientific bones into my plain fish. 
 
 Another fact, a little nearer home. When I was 
 a student I had to ^cram' very hard, very late till 
 very early. Later in life I have had spells of brain- 
 work, involving a great deal of penwork. For two or 
 three weeks at a stretch I have had to stick to my 
 desk, writing, while referring to books, many a day 
 for twelve, fourteen, sixteen continuous hours. Plain 
 feeding kept me well, but towards the end of the task 
 my nerves would get on the rack, and at times I 
 wanted to fling the table over and have a scream. I 
 used to take sundry advertised ^ phosphorus ' nos- 
 trums as stimulants. Some served the temporary 
 purpose, but I concluded that it would be much more 
 sensible to get my phosphorus first hand. Well, I 
 ate nothing but fish, fish, fish, to every meal. Oysters 
 were best, and the plainest-cooked white fish next. 
 No meats. Results, — cessation of irritability, a sense 
 of comfort, and just enough stimulus to give the brain 
 * go.' And from that time to this, if ever I have to 
 
148 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 work at extra high pressure, I will always do the 
 same thing." 
 
 I was delighted to learn that the doctor's experience 
 agreed with ray own. 
 
 And here, for the henefit of those who suffer from 
 dyspepsia, I will give a simple method of cure, at- 
 tested by many who speak from personal experience. 
 A well-known English author thus describes it in a 
 letter to a friend, written twenty years ago, which 
 soon found its way into print. 
 
 " Doctors said that vegetable acids would aggravate 
 my complaint, as I was suffering from aciditj^ but I 
 should take carbonate of soda and ammonia-alkalis. 
 My inclination for vegetable acids was, however, so 
 strong that at last I took lemon juice with every 
 meal, a total of from one to two ounces daily. In three 
 months I was cured of my dysj^epsia. Being anxious 
 to make my remedy useful, I tried it on a few fellow- 
 sufferers and give results." After recording several 
 remarkable instances of cure he adds '^Citric acid, the 
 concentrated preparation of lemon juice, is cheaper, 
 more portable, and equally efficacious as fresh lemon 
 juice, and pleasanter than preserved juice. When 
 using the lemons, skin them before they are squeezed. 
 Avoid diluting with water or eating sugar with the 
 lemon juice, for the saccharine matter exhausts the 
 strength of the digestive acids of the stomach. The 
 
OUJa EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 149 
 
 introduction of citric acid into tlie body probably 
 favors the development of the gastric juice. Citric 
 acid and pepsine are ferments not of the hurtful na- 
 ture of yeast, but such as the body requires. Hence 
 the folly of neutralizing the acids of the body with 
 alkali, for the body requires free acids for the proper 
 digestion of the food. In the cases given the suffer- 
 ers generally adopted a farinaceous, frugivorous, and 
 vegetable diet, as twice the quantity of lemon was 
 required on the flesh diet they were accustomed to. 
 The essential oil of lemons contained in the skin is 
 injurious." 
 
150 DINNEROLOGY: 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 COOKERY AND DIGESTION. 
 
 The Art and Science of Cookery — Boiling Without Spoil- 
 ing — Grilling Chops and Steaks — Close-Oven Roasting 
 of Fish and Flesh — Potash in Vegetables — Good and 
 Bad Bread — Cookery for the Gouty — Digestible Welsh 
 Rare-Bits— The Value of Malt Extract— Tea and Dys- 
 pepsia. 
 
 I CANNOT sa.y that superstitioii is one of my weak- 
 nesses, and 3'et I was singularly impressed by some- 
 thing bordering on the miraculous, of which I had 
 read the other day, and by the interpretation thereof. 
 I felt I must tell Patty. 
 
 " Do you remember that fried steak we had for 
 breakfast on Shrove Tuesday ? " 
 
 " Yes ; 3^ou didn't feel very well after it, you 
 know." 
 
 " Just so. Well, now, what do j^ou think of this — 
 the wife of a Pennsylvania farmer was frying a steak 
 for dinner one day. When she went to see how it 
 was doing — there was a snake wriggling in the pan. 
 A village convention was held on the mystery, 
 and unanimous approval was given to the verdict of 
 the local patriarch, Avho solemnly declared that the 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 151 
 
 Lord had put that snake there as a judgment on the 
 woman for frying a steak." 
 
 Patty calmly remarked that the teachings of Provi- 
 dence often come in mysterious ways, and wondered 
 why fried snake shouldn't be as good as stewed eels. 
 I don't like solemn subjects treated frivolously, so I 
 thought it a good opportunity to let Patty know the 
 outcome of a good deal of stiff reading I had been do- 
 ing in the line of Cookery, its philosophy, science, 
 art and practice. 
 
 Of cook-books there is no end, big, little, expensive, 
 cheap, luxurious, plain, wicked and good. We owned 
 a shelf-ful ourselves, and after years of wandering 
 through their mazes and tumbling into their pitfalls, 
 we found we could get along all the better when we 
 struck out nineteen-twentieths of the recipes. What 
 I wanted to get at was this — what precise value does 
 cooking add to food, and what sort and amount of 
 cooking best serves our health ? 
 
 The literature of this department is not easy to 
 find, nor to indicate. The most useful information is 
 scattered over a thousand lectures, essays, letters, 
 speeches, etc., in medical, scientific, philanthrophic 
 and miscellaneous publications, from which I have 
 accumulated scraps innumerable. Crankiness sheds 
 its filmy sheen over much of the most interesting but 
 unreliable experiences and theories. Doctors differ 
 
152 DINNEROLOGY ; 
 
 and cooks conflict. In a magazine formerly edited by 
 the late Prof. E. A. Proctor, tlie astronomer, entitled 
 Knowledge^ many valuable papers appeared on this 
 and allied subjects, the most instructive being from 
 the pen of Mr. Mattieu Williams, a practical chemist. 
 From his pen, and from those of Sir Henry Thompson 
 and Mr. B. W. Kiehardson, the eminent English phy- 
 sicians, I take certain of the statements which follow. 
 In the cooking of meat and fish the great feat is 
 how to conserve the juices without hardening the 
 fibre. A steak, grilled, fried, or stewed is bad for di- 
 gestion in proportion as it is leathery. Everybody 
 knows that the albuminous juices in meats go hard at 
 2128, which is the boiling point. An i^.^^ put into 
 boiling water hardens next the shell, which prevents 
 the inner portions being properly cooked. If the ^^'y 
 is put into water of about 1508, and left at that tem- 
 perature for seven or eight minutes, both yolk and 
 white are equally cooked, and the flavor is unim- 
 paired. The same principle of cooking applies to 
 meats and fish. If the juices and flavors are to be 
 kept in the flesh, placing the article into boiling water 
 for four or five minutes at most will coagulate the 
 outer coating of albumen enough to prevent the es- 
 cape of those juices, but the j)ot should then be re- 
 moved to where the cooking process can be continued 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 153 
 
 at a temperature of not more than 1808, and kept 
 there for nearly double the time ordinarily specified 
 in the cook-books. A single experiment with a fish 
 or joint thus treated, compared with a similar piece 
 boiled according to the old style, will make a convert 
 of the most orthodox cook. 
 
 When the object is to extract the juices for beef tea 
 or grav}", as in stew, the opposite course is the obvious 
 one. Place the meat in cold water and gradually 
 raise its temperature. Meat that has been thus ex- 
 hausted becomes pale, dry, and fibery. It is worse 
 than useless as food. The FrcMich peasant eats it, 
 but he wisel}'- begins with the soup, which contains 
 all the nutritive elements. Tlie meat merely serves 
 to furnish the stomach with something solid to grind, 
 which is an absolute necessity. Sawdust or rags 
 would serve as well to supplement his soup. 
 
 The slow-cooking process should be tried by all 
 who dread dyspepsia. The toughest, springiest " spring 
 chicken " can be metamorphosed into tenderness by 
 this simple jjrolongation of treatment, and the older 
 the fowl the finer the flavor. By using the double- 
 vessel, now easily procurable, built on the carpenter's 
 glue-pot model, the fowl or joint of meat need not 
 come into contact with the hot water at all. You can 
 cook it to the most delicate nicety of flavor and ten- 
 derness, and a few minutes under the salamander will 
 
154 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 make the cutest epicure quite sure he is eating a deli- 
 ciously roasted chicken. 
 
 In the grilling of chops and steaks a little scientific 
 knowledge works wonders. The housewife rarely if 
 ever turns out a " grill " equal to the hotel cook, nor 
 can she be expected to with her inferior resources. 
 He has a specially constructed fireplace, with a red 
 coke fire, a minimum of flame and a maximum of 
 heat. His steak comes off the grill swollen in the 
 middle, full of its own rich juices. The domestic 
 product is oftener thinner in the middle than at the 
 edge, shrunk, dried, having left its virtue to the 
 coals. Mattieu Williams points out the chemical 
 difference between coal flame and fat flame. Head- 
 vises the cook to throw a bit of the fat from the chop 
 or steak on her red fire, and when it sets up a good 
 blaze plunge the chop into it, cooking it in its own 
 flames for a few minutes. "In spite of its blackness 
 it will be (if just warmed through to the above-named 
 cooking temperature) a deliciously cooked, juicy, nu- 
 tritious, digestible morsel, apparently raw, but actual- 
 ly more completely cooked than if it had been held 
 twice as long, at double the distance, from the surface 
 of the fire." He also lays down the general principle 
 that in roasting joints of meat, the smaller the joint 
 the higher should be the temperature. The outside 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IK DIET. 155 
 
 should be quickly crusted, and the inside then quickly 
 cooks itself. 
 
 Fish is better fried than boiled. Water extracts 
 the juices and flavor. In frying, the fish should not 
 touch the bottom of the pan. A deep vessel should 
 be used, with plenty of fat, (oil is still better, if you 
 can be sure it is honest olive oil) and the fish should 
 be immersed in the hot fat on a wire tray, or false 
 bottom, so that every part of the fish is equally in 
 contact with its hot bath. 
 
 Sir Henry Thompson holds that fish should be 
 roasted or baked. In his lecture, given at the Fish- 
 eries Exhibition in London, he advises that the entire 
 fish should be placed in a tin or copper vessel only 
 slightly deeper than its own thickness, with a lid to 
 prevent the escape of the flavor, the dish to be well 
 buttered, and then placed in a closed oven, and 
 served in its original disli. He says that even the 
 coarser kinds of fish, if cooked in this way, with a 
 slice or two of bacon and garnished with some pre- 
 viously boiled haricot beans, will yield not only a sav- 
 ory and nutritious meal, but its nutrition will cost only 
 one-third that of an average meat meal. The other 
 authorities referred to agree that oven, or close-cham- 
 ber cooking, call it baking, roasting, or what you will, 
 yield better results than cooking before an open fire, 
 from the scientific as well as from the practical point 
 
156 DINNER O LO G Y : 
 
 of view. The great distinction between roasting and 
 baking is that in the former, the temperature should 
 be maintained at the same height right through the 
 process, where in baking it steadily declines, which 
 gives flabbiness and insijoidity to the meat. 
 
 The chief value of the vegetables and salads we eat 
 with our meats consists in the potash salts they yield. 
 The potato retains most of these when boiled in its 
 skin. Peeling lets them dissolve into the wasted 
 water, and we get only the potato starch, less useful 
 to our digestive apparatus than the natural salts. 
 Baked potatoes are better than when steamed. 
 
 For those who eat but scantily of salads and fruits, 
 the most profitable way of eating potatoes is in tlie 
 form of an Irish stew, which contains their salt. 
 In this connection, Mattieu Williams says that the 
 common notion as to the cheapness of the potato as 
 food is a fallacy. According to Dr. Edward Smith's 
 tables 2 1-2 lbs. of potatoes are required to supply the 
 amount of carbon (force-givers) that is in 1 lb. of 
 bread ; and 3 1-2 lbs. of potatoes to yield the nitrogen 
 (muscle-formers) in 1 lb. of bread. Thus potatoes 
 must be one-fourth or one-third of the price of bread 
 per lb. to be really as cheap. "Potatoes," says Wil- 
 liams, "contain 17 percent, of carbon; oatmeal h:is 
 73 per cent. Ta]i:ing nitrogenous matter also into 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 157 
 
 consideration, 1 lb. of oatmeal is worth 6 lbs. of po- 
 tatoes." 
 
 Bread is a very popular subject with the crowd of 
 doctrinaires. You may be carried away with all 
 manner of plausible theories and reasonings, and ex- 
 periment upon every variety, from blackest black 
 through graduated browns to the chalkiest white, and 
 end with the reflection that as with governments, so 
 with bread, " whate'er is best administered is best." 
 There are stomachs and stomachs, livers and livers, 
 tastes and tastes. Each must be his own analyst and 
 his own laboratory. The chalky, fine, spongy stuff 
 that is supposed to look so nice on our dinner-tables 
 is — there is no mistake about this — a sham, a delu- 
 sion and a snare. It is wheat robbed of its natural 
 properties, whitened by art and puffed up with make- 
 believe fine airs, in all which miserable qualities it 
 resembles the dude and dudess of the period. On 
 the other hand, the literal whole-meal is not good for 
 tender or unaccustomed stomachs. Again the golden 
 mean is best. Bread made from natural flour, from 
 which the husk and bran has been removed, is the 
 proper staff of life. It will look dirty compared with 
 the artificially whitened loaf, but wise folk will eat 
 to benefit their health, not to tickle their eye. 
 
 Of late years there has been much study and ex- 
 perimenting to ascertain the digestibility of the 
 
158 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 chemical ingredients of food under certain conditions. 
 The adoption of the Silo system for storing fodder for 
 animals gave an impetus to the question in England, 
 and some of Mattieu Williams's observations in this con- 
 nection are well worth notice. The storing of fodder 
 as ensilage brings about a sort of cooking, or digest- 
 ing of the fibrous vegetables, much as the storage of 
 unripened fruit renders them, by their own chemical 
 action, sweet and juicy. The same is true of the 
 sauer-kraut of the Germans. Carrying the principle 
 farther, he recommends that potash should be more 
 freely used with vegetables. Not simply in boiling 
 them, as we now do, but as part of the food we eat. 
 The casein in vegetables is difficult of digestion, un- 
 less aided by some alkali, and potash in its simple 
 forms, as bicarbonate, answers the purpose well. 
 Persons subject to gout would escape pain and peril 
 by observing this very simple rule. Mr. Williams 
 instances his own case„ He says : " I inherit what 
 is called a lithic acid diathesis. My father and my 
 brothers were martyrs to rheumatic gout, and died 
 early in consequence. I had a premonitory attack of 
 gout when twenty-five, and other warning symptoms 
 at other times, but have kept the enemy at bay dur- 
 ing 40 years by simply understanding that this lithic 
 acid — stony acid — combines with potash, forming thus 
 a soluble salt, which is safely excreted. Otherwise it 
 
OUR EXPEllIMENTS IN DIET. 159 
 
 is deposited here or there, producing gout, rheuma- 
 tism, stone, gravel and other dreadfully painful dis- 
 eases, which are practically incurable when the deposit 
 is fairly established. By effecting the above-named 
 conabination in the blood the deposition is pre- 
 vented.'^ 
 
 But he cautions against the use of potash in com- 
 bination with any mineral acid, such as sulphuric, 
 nitric or hydrochloric, which are literally poisonous to 
 gouty subjects. These acids fix instead of dissolve 
 the salts of the potash, and create instead of destroy 
 the stony acid deposits. The natural acids of fruits 
 and vegetables are the only safe acids for anybody. 
 When doctors forbid ' acids ' to gouty patients, they 
 should distinguish between vegetable and mineral 
 acids, the latter harmful, the former healthful. The 
 addition of bicarbonate of potash neutralizes any ex- 
 cess, real or fancied, of the acid in lemons or other 
 fruit. He notes that vegetarians are remarkably free 
 from lithic acid troubles. 
 
 The same authority has a high opinion of cheese as 
 food. Beckoning the percentages of phosphates and 
 other elements in a good cheese compared with those 
 in fresh meat, he estimates that one pound of average 
 cheese contains as much nutriment as three pounds of 
 the average material of the carcass of an ox or sheep 
 in the butcher's shop. The difficulty is to eat a 
 
160 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 pound of cheese as easily and harmlessly as we can 
 eat a pound of flesli. Cheese has only about 30 per 
 cent of water, where meat has 75. 
 
 By adding potash to the cooked dish of cheese, the 
 difficulty is overcome. Long before I knew of this 
 writer's experiments, Patty had learnt how to make a 
 delicious dish of cheese stewed with milk, in which 
 bicarbonate of potash had been dissolved. Mattieu 
 Williams describes a similar dish as follows : Take 
 a quarter of a pound of grated cheese, add to it a gill 
 of milk, in which is dissolved as much powdered bi- 
 carbonate of potash as will stand upon a ten-cent 
 piece. Season with mustard, pepper, caj^enne, nut- 
 meg, to taste. Heat this carefully in an enamelled 
 saucepan until the cheese is dissolved. Then beat up 
 three eggs, yolks and whites together, add and stir 
 the whole. Butter a shallow tray or dish that will 
 bear beating, pour the mixture into this and bake 
 until nearly solidified. The addition of bread-crumbs 
 is a great improvement, and the richness may be 
 further lessened by using only one or two eggs. But 
 it will be found to be a perfectly harmless and deli- 
 cious dish, on which a man may do a hard day's work 
 out of doors. The potash neutralizes the acids in the 
 cheese and milk. The proportion of potash should be 
 from an eighth to a sixth the weight of the cheese. 
 
 Those who think they act wisely in taking fre- 
 quent drinks of effervescing soda and potash waters run 
 
OUK EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 161 
 
 great risks. Sulphuric acid is largely used in the 
 manufacture of some of these bottled impostures, and, 
 as before remarked, mineral acids are positively in- 
 jurious. Besides, it is never good to drink more of 
 any liquid, even if it be the purest water, than is 
 absolutely required by the system, and this is very 
 little beyond what we take in our food-dishes. The 
 man who eats freely of fruits, and refrains from teas- 
 ing his stomach with unnecessary condiments, will 
 rarely feel thirsty. 
 
 Another aid to digestion is the common extract of 
 malt, which can be made at home by soaking crushed 
 malt in warm water for an hour or two, and pressing 
 out the liquor. Or the extract can be purchased ; but 
 if so, let it be unmixed with any other preparation. 
 This simple extract corresponds to, if it is not identi- 
 cal with, the active principle of the secretions of the 
 organs which enable cattle to digest their raw vege- 
 table foods. It is called the diastase of malt, as the 
 other is animal diastase. Make a very thick porridge, 
 or hast)' pudding, of oatmeal, and the addition of a 
 little of this malt extract will turn it liquid instantly. 
 This illustrates its chemical action. The oatmeal is 
 thus made easily digestible. The use of this extract, 
 or the dry malt flour, in bread-making is equally 
 beneficial. Some years ago an English patent was 
 taken out for " malted bread," and, though it is not 
 called by this tell-tale name, Patty and I have long 
 
162 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 used a " gluten," bread made in New York, which we 
 are confident is just the same thing. The malt flour 
 should be added to the oatmeal porridge (about one 
 part to six of oatmeal) before the pot boils, as the 
 conversion takes place better at a temperature of 
 about 150*^. The quantity of extract should be tested 
 by experiment. Added to pastrj^, rice and similar 
 puddings, and even to pea and lentil soups, their di- 
 gestibility is ensured. 
 
 The question of tea-drinking again arises. One 
 cup of tea or coffee is a chemical decoction which 
 has a potent effect on our nervous system. The 
 liquor we drink is simply a drug. Cocoa is a 
 food. We eat the cocoa itself in its own broth, but we 
 reject the actual tea and coffee. The principle of 
 tea and coffee, called theine and caffeine, are much 
 about the same thing. They stimulate for a time, and 
 then leave the system in a more or less flabby con- 
 dition, craving for "another of the same." Those 
 persons stand the action and reaction best who 
 need them least. The nervous constitution suffers 
 acutely if deprived longer than usual of the custom- 
 ary cup. We hear a great deal about teetotalism 
 but not enough about tea-drunkenness. Tea hath its 
 victories over victims no less conspicuous than rum, 
 though the one is as respectable a vice as the other 
 is disreputable. He is a foolish fellow who uses a 
 crutch when he is able to walk without one. Those 
 
OUK EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 163 
 
 who whine about the headache, the lassitude, the 
 wretched-dowD-iii-the-dumps feeling that comes over 
 them an hour or so before their usual tea-tippling 
 time are very short-sighted if they don't see that they 
 have let the habit master them. The poor wash- 
 woman may be excused for ignorantly believing that 
 her teapot saves money that would otherwise go into 
 the soup-pot. She thinks she needs a stimulant that 
 will enable her to stave off the next meal. She has 
 not been shown that this very toughening of her 
 digestive organs is killing their power to digest any- 
 thing at all by and by. She will some day blame 
 every innocent thing in the house for her "bad 
 health," instead of her guilty teapot. What shall be 
 said of the educated lady, lapped in luxury, who 
 deliberately courts the same fate without the same 
 excuse ? And what shall be thought of the accom- 
 plished dame who recklessly seeks to neutralize the 
 mischief wrought by her never-to-be-discarded teapot 
 by the extra consumption of tonics, pickles, condi- 
 ments and drugs which form a grand conspiracy with 
 their friend the enemy against the well-being of their 
 confiding victim ? 
 
 For those whom tea suits, tea is, for the pres- 
 ent, not particularly harmful. In proportion as it 
 becomes more and more necessary, it is more and 
 more injurious, morally as well as physically. If it 
 sets the nerves jigging, or inspires you to sing, or 
 
164 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 fidget with your fingers, or chatter more volubly, you 
 had better take the hint and set about finding out 
 who is master, you or your teapot. 
 
 Used according to need, as one uses medicines, tea 
 and coffee are blessings. They become curses when 
 used as regular foods, for they are not foods at all. 
 Surely it is but common sense to perceive that if a 
 man's health is at par, it is silly to take that which, 
 by raising him for the moment above par, must 
 necessarily drop him below it by and by. Why 
 destroy the even balance ? Why break the golden 
 mean ? But if a man finds himself below par, through 
 no stupidity of his own, then there is no harm in his 
 taking what will raise him up to par ; because, in 
 that case, there is not the probability of a marked re- 
 action. Keep tea and coffee as valuable crutches, or 
 as dainty extras, but the moment you find them rob- 
 bing you of your proper self-reliance, throw them away 
 until j'-ou regain your mastery over them. I add a 
 modern postscript to Cowper's praise of 
 
 " The cup that cheers but not inebriates," 
 to wit : 
 
 The stomach spoils, our nerves it irritates. 
 
 [A valuable book by Mr. Mat t ieu Williams on " The Chem- 
 istry of Cookery," is i)ublished by Appletou & Co.] 
 
OTJR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 166 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PUBLIC RESTAURANTS AND BARS. 
 
 The Impressions of a Beef-eating Briton Our Lightning 
 
 Lunchings — Beauties of Gluttony— Fat Men's Feeding 
 Clubs— Clambake Gorgings — Frenchified Fancy-feeding— 
 Celebrities at the Bar — Wine-cellar Mysteries — Dr. 
 Abernethy and his Yankee Patient. 
 
 Patty's favorite cousin on her father's side (one of 
 the old Vanderboompje family) had married an 
 Englishman (one of the Lyttleton Bigwigs) and the 
 couple had been over here on a six-months' trip. 
 Being a harmless sort of fellow, and possessing some 
 fancied powers of observation, I suggested that he 
 should include in his inevitable book of "Impressions 
 of the Americanation " (as he called it), a chapter 
 about its eating and drinking peculiarities, if any 
 struck his fancy. To my surprise he handed me the 
 following MS. within a day or two. I read it to 
 Patty, and we agreed that if ever I should write a 
 book about diet, it would be fun to print this young 
 Englishman's paper, just as it was written, and for 
 what it may be worlh. So I will. Here it is. 
 
 The typical New Yorker is, first and foremost, a 
 bon vivcmt. " Man wants but little here below," but 
 
166 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 if he lives in the Empire City he wants it choice, 
 toothsome, and four times a clay. He takes pride in 
 noting his increase in weight and girth. There are 
 more feasting clubs among the two millions of New 
 York than among the four and a half millions of 
 London. The Fat Men's Clubs flourish, if bulk is a 
 sign of grace. The minimum weight per member is 
 200 pounds, and the gifted soul whom his fellows 
 envy tips the scale at 408 pounds. Even these have 
 their j)urpose in the scheme of creation, as proving 
 that elasticity of skin may be cultivated to rival that 
 of conscience. At the Green Turtle Club annual 
 dinner, the ablest member consumed eight plate- 
 fuls of soup, to clear the way for the courses that 
 followed. A talented gentleman, whose name I regret 
 having forgotten, won a large wager by eating two 
 quails per day for forty days in succession, and was 
 proud of his newspaper fame. A young lady of 
 Delaware, Miss Maggie Schruiier, won in an intellec- 
 tual peach-eating competition, by disposing of nine at 
 one quick operation. Not every one can rival these 
 eminent performers, but there seems to be a pretty 
 general training going on. 
 
 The quantity eaten by the average American wo- 
 man and man is an everlasting surprise. The rich- 
 ness of the fare and the swiftness of its consumption 
 make one quake. No wonder we see the twin con- 
 sequences parading the streets as awful warnings to 
 
OUB EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 167 
 
 the sensible, obesity, and dyspepsia. If the public 
 gave a quarter of the common sense to the table that 
 they give to the mirror, the reports of the latter would 
 be much more pleasing than when sundry et ceteras 
 are called in to give them an artful charm. The mighty 
 breakfasts of porridges, meats, vegetables, coffee and 
 ice water and fruits might suffice for a backwoods 
 settler who is going to fell trees all day. The luncheon 
 of meats, or made dishes, with piles of sickly sweet 
 pastry, hot coffee and ice-water is an equally astonish- 
 ing mixture, and dinner or supper, or both, present 
 the same features. At the midday meals in city 
 restaurants everybody drinks tea or coffee, summer 
 and winter, with ice-water for contrast, and huge 
 servings of jjastry, with "hard sauce" made of solid 
 sugar, and soft sauce scarcely less sweet. Much as I 
 like puddings I have never yet been able to demolish 
 one serving, and two or three nibbles at the " hard 
 sauce " make me forswear sweets for a week. 
 
 Very few men drink beer at luncheon. When an 
 English lady prefers beer to tea with her chop or 
 steak, the waiters seem to suspect something is wrong. 
 So there is — with the American habit. The wholly 
 unnecessary consumption of ice-water and of tea with 
 meats, explains the leathery look of too many Ameri- 
 can women's faces. The men, many of them, seek to 
 neutralize the mischief to their livers by imbibing, 
 medicinally of course, sundry schnapps and cordials 
 
168 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 between meals, which add to the delights of life, no 
 doubt, if they don't prolong it. 
 
 On the other hand, there are a greater number of 
 thin men than in England. I have noticed that most 
 of those who lunch in the pastry-cooks' shops of New 
 York are thin. They call for immense plates of 
 unsubstantial buns, biscuits or fruit pies, which, with 
 tea, coffee or milk, form the whole meal. There are 
 in London a dozen Vegetarian restaurants where most 
 wholesome and palatable hot meals can be obtained 
 for as little as six cents, and I have never been able 
 to eat more than twenty cents' worth, which in- 
 cludes three courses. There are no such wholesome 
 and frugal meals to be had in New York. If there 
 were, there would be fewer pale-faced young women 
 and men, and a less lamentable ignorance in the im- 
 portant matter of the values and cost of foods. 
 
 The average New York restaurant gives a better 
 meal at the price than those of London. Meat is 
 cheaper, but that is not the only point.. With two 
 exceptions the service is better in New York, but 
 these exceptions are grave ones. The disagreeable 
 German habit of using the same knife to all the dishes 
 in the clerks' restaurants is none the less nasty for 
 the " elegance " of electro-plated blades, and the 
 waiters are, as a rule, inefficient. Their condescending 
 air and frequent inattentiveness — except at tip-time — 
 provoke one to conservatism in that particuhir. 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 169 
 
 Negroes make the best waiters, on the whole. When 
 you look at the New York waiter and observe his 
 lordly loftiness you feel that the offer of a tip would 
 insult his American independence. You learn later 
 that the insult consists in your mistaken respect- 
 fulness. 
 
 The average time for eating a two or three course 
 lunch is fifteen minutes. You feel you must " hurry 
 up/' hurry it down, and hurry out to make room for 
 your betters. It is the height of fashion and good- 
 manners to sally forth chewing your toothpick along 
 the streets. You have the satisfaction of silently 
 bragging that you have really fed, and there's much 
 solace in this when you have nothing better to boast 
 of. This lightning-lunching habit accounts for the 
 non-existence of large cafes, such as the palatial sa- 
 loons of Gatti and Monico, in London, where you can 
 rest for hours, if you please, even though your only 
 outlay is for a cup of coffee. A fortune awaits the man 
 who will extend this bit of high civilization to New 
 York. The tea served in restaurants and the Dairy 
 Kitchens with what they distinguish as ^'English 
 breakfast tea," is very inferior to home-made tea in 
 England. The coffee is generally very good, but in 
 many places the cups are quarter of an inch thick and 
 without handles. But civilization will extend; give 
 it time. The cake and pastry menus are highly 
 poetical affairs. Sponge cake is "Angel cake," and I 
 
170 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 read of Divine pudding, Heavenly sauce, Fairy frit- 
 ters, Graham gems, Dewdrop cakes, and so on. But 
 the American is nothing if not rhetorical. Tomatoes 
 are sometimes eaten with sugar. Cob corn munched 
 in the fingers. Most "elegant" folk scoop their 
 food into their mouths with their knife blades. In 
 society this is not so, of course. 
 
 The toffee shops, or "taffee and candy stores," are 
 magnificent concerns. The mind of the male stranger 
 mistakes them for millinery depots, so gorgeous are 
 the gewgaws of satins and silks in their windows. 
 Pretty girls of all ages ladle the " elegant " sweet- 
 stuffs all day long and far into the late night hours, 
 sweetstuffs made of rainbow hues and of every incon- 
 ceivable shape, for beaux to buy for their belles, and 
 the belles to crunch from morn till bedtime and after. 
 That the girls and ladies of New York are not pet- 
 rified into pillars of saccharine is one of the few mira- 
 cles vouchsafed to us in these degenerate days. In 
 summer they wade in ice-creams. One eloquent ad- 
 vertisement makes a leading feature of its ice-cream 
 blocks, apparently for taking with j^ou to church ! 
 " Snooks's Patent Super-frozen Bricks of Ice-cream 
 for Churches," etc, warranted not to melt until the 
 sermon w^axes watery. That is by no means the only 
 luxurious indulgence in the eating department. Not 
 to mention the Clam Chowder Clubs and their great 
 feasts, here is an annual "clambake " given, for a 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 171 
 
 dollar a head, by a sporting publican, hi the " bake/' 
 to give the poor clams the sense of sociability, there 
 were 2,000 lobsters, 15 barrels of potatoes, 5,000 
 pounds of fish, 12,000 oysters, 18,500 clams, 1,260 
 spring chickens and 842 yards of tripe. Eleven 
 hundred gentlemen daintily dined. When a banker 
 recently employed a certain lawyer, famed equally 
 for his power of jaw in talk or at table, he treated 
 the man of law to several dinners at Delmonico's. 
 When the lawyer's bill came in one item was "to 
 attendance on five dinners, $2,000 each ; $10,000." 
 It was not disclosed how much was paid to each of 
 the persons concerned in carrying off the clambake. 
 Talking of baking reminds me that it is very rarely 
 one sets roast beef that has been roasted. The best 
 substitute is but a poor apology for a cut from a suc- 
 culent English sirloin. I agree with English breeders 
 and diners who declare that the flavor of American 
 beef and mutton is markedly inferior to English. So 
 are their oysters. They run large as a rule, but the 
 larger they are, the poorer the flavor, and their best 
 small ones are not to be named beside an English 
 "native." But they are no doubt quite as nutritious, 
 and much cheaper. They average a cent each on the 
 half shell, or if sent to your house opened ; whereas 
 the little Colchester " native " costs seven cents each, 
 taking a dozen. The delicious sole does not take to 
 American waters, and of the vast variety of fish served 
 
172 DINNEROLOGY: 
 
 on American tables none linger in the memory as a 
 dream of delight. Much fuss is made over the shad, 
 a fish whose only claim to distinction lies in the fact 
 that if he had ten more bones to the square foot there 
 would not be an inch of room for his flesh. 
 
 A new occupation has been discovered for women, 
 which is to imitate and rival the men who chew 
 tobacco. Instead of tobacco, " chewing gum " is pro- 
 vided, and it is quite a treat to see in the cars and on 
 the streets so much apparent vigorous talking which 
 cannot be heard. 
 
 The " Ichthyophagous Club " exists and dines, to 
 prove to epicures that there are as good fish uncooked 
 as cooked. They eat a sumptuous dinner annually, 
 consisting of as many outlandish and low-caste fish as 
 can be got by hook or crook. Squid, skate, sea robin, 
 and salamander are among the club dainties. 
 
 The Boston baked bean is a great dish, though New 
 York is jealous and sneers. Philosophers can flourish 
 on this humble but most nutritious of dishes, though, 
 by the way, Pythagoras, the vegetarian, found it ad- 
 visable to forbid his disciples to indulge in this or 
 any branch of the bean family. 
 
 What shall I say about the drinks and drinkers 
 of New York ? Its two millions of men, women, 
 children and babies drink 3,895,000 barrels of beer 
 every jeB,i\ The more of this light, wholesome bever 
 age and the less of the generally bad, ardent spirits the 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 173 
 
 people consume the better for public health, peace, 
 and morals. The name of " drinks " is legion ; from 
 the gay-colored lemon-water for the children up to 
 the insane mixtures tippled by dandified clerks, there 
 is not a slow or fast liquor poison known to man that 
 cannot be obtained at a New York bar. Their native 
 whiskies are a slander on their grand old Irish or 
 Scotch ancestors. Massachusetts rum is excellent, 
 and is the only spirit to be trusted, begging the Pro- 
 hibitionists' pardon. The innumerable concoctions 
 that have a basis of soda-water, are good to lower the 
 tone of stomachs that are fed too richly, but otherwise, 
 they are more than unnecessary to a healthy man 
 of sense. Going along Broadway one day, I over- 
 heard what New Yorkers call "a dood" urging his 
 friend to " come along and try my new drink, it's 
 the best after dinner tonic you ever tasted !'' 
 
 The high estimate which not only the dude tribe 
 but otherwise sensible people have for superfine fancy 
 drinks may be inferred from the following. I cut 
 this out of a leading daily paper of New York, which 
 finds it pays, even in busy political times, to devote 
 more than half a column to this sort of purely intel- 
 lectual literature : 
 
 DRINKS OF THE SEASON. 
 
 A BAR CONCOCTION THAT COSTS MORE THAN ANT 
 OTHER SINGLE MIXED DRINK. 
 
 Mr. W. S., the clever and artistic bartender near 
 
174 DINNEIIOLOGY: 
 
 the entrance to the big bridge, made his reputation 
 with the gin fizz, which The Sun explained to the 
 public last week, but, like every other genius, he thinks 
 the world has overlooked something better than what 
 it praises him for. His idea is that the best mixed 
 drink he makes, and the best one in the business, is 
 the mint julep. He was kind enough to make one 
 while the reporter of The Sun looked on yesterday. 
 As his flow of language is more lasting than that of 
 his beverages, and his sayings are sharper than lemon 
 juice and stronger than liquor, he had better be left 
 to describe the genuine julep as he makes it. 
 
 When he began his discourse he was blending the 
 ingredients of two Manhattan Club cocktails, and it 
 would have opened the reader's eyes wide to have seen 
 the obelisk of glasses filled with crushed ice which he 
 had reared as a pedestal for his work. It would have 
 interrupted any man's breathing to have seen how he 
 lifted the cocktails far above his head to pour them 
 into the two glasses which he held below the edge of 
 the bar, 
 
 " The mint julep, when properly made, costs a 
 dollar," he said, ^' if one estimates the amount of 
 time and the cost of the materials that enter into its 
 make-up. You can get a mint julep for fifteen cents, 
 but it will be a scandal and a travesty upon the 
 reputation of the monarch of mixed drinks. The 
 mint julep is the proudest relic of the era of luxury 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 175 
 
 in the old slave States. When properly made it was 
 to Southern hospitality what a necklace of diamonds is 
 to a finely dressed lady. Now please observe what I 
 do to make the perfect julep, and remember, please, 
 that this mint has to be fresh from the garden and 
 cut with such long sprigs that it will stand upright 
 above the tallest glass used in a barroom, or club, or 
 house. Perhaps I should have left out the word 
 barroom, for the genuine julep is not a barroom bever- 
 age. It costs too much. It can only be made at home, 
 or in your club.'^ 
 
 As William spoke he selected half a dozen long 
 sprigs of luxurious mint and put them, stems down, 
 in a very tall glass. Then he took five less perfect 
 sprigs, and stripping them, emptied their leaves in a 
 smaller glass, a full sized goblet. They nearly filled 
 it. He poured upon the mint about a finger of seltzer 
 water and a table-spoonful of powdered sugar. 
 Squeezing in the juice of half an orange and of a slice 
 of pineapple, he took up his " muddler," or squeezing 
 stick, and pressed the leaves and the liquid until only 
 a crushed mass of leafy pulp was left beneath a dark 
 green fluid, the essence of the mint. He then poured 
 into the same big glass a strong finger of the very 
 best brandy and a lot of crushed ice. Mixing the 
 whole with a long-handled spoon, he clapped a 
 strainer on the glass and emptied it into the big 
 glass standing ready with its bouquet of mint 
 
176 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 leaves protruding above it like the foliage of a toy 
 tree. He now filled the great glass almost to the top 
 with crushed ice. Around the sides he put two thin 
 slices of banana, a slice of orange, and one of 
 pineapple. He poured in a taste of Jamaica rum, for 
 coloring and flavor, and then added a heaping spoon- 
 ful of ice cream, which he studded with strawberries 
 and raspberries. Deftly handling his bar spoon he 
 threw a heavy dust of powdered sugar as of snow 
 all over the leaves of mint. As he did so he re- 
 marked : " This is a drink that must captivate the 
 eye as well as the taste." 
 
 He inserted two straws in this singular work of 
 art, and as he pushed it with a gallant motion to-- 
 ward his student, it was noticed that a small, long- 
 handled spoon had been left in the glass to move the 
 ice with when the straws failed to yield the last of 
 the beverage. ^^ That is a noble drink," said William, 
 " and far too expensive for barroom purposes. It is 
 rather intended to beautify a room at home or in a 
 club house. It is a wholesome drink, if any alcoholic 
 beverage ever was, for it gives a brisk tone to the 
 stomach, and creates a splendid appetite. Too often 
 the cheap mint julep of the barroom is made with 
 poor whiskey, orange, sugar and mint, and if you 
 change the whiskey to brandy jou have all that the 
 trade can afford to sell as a good julep. But I have 
 shown you how it ought to be made," 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 177 
 
 For a few weeks in the spring of 1887, New 
 York was attacked with a spasm of Sabbatarianism. 
 All the hotel bars and beer saloons were rigidly closed 
 by the (for this time only) vigilant police. The 
 joke is that the law of the State orders Sunday clos- 
 ing all the 3'ear round, but, as usual, the law is never 
 enforced. It was lamentable to see the Herald and 
 TFor/f? bewailing in capital headlines the "Dry Sun- 
 day," "Dinners without Wine," "Not a Drop to 
 Drink," "Mournful Champagne Bottles," "The Gur- 
 gle of Beer only a Memory," and such like maunder- 
 in gs by the column, as if the chief end of man is to get 
 drunk every Sunday. 
 
 Yet there are fewer drunkards visible in the streets 
 of New York than in our English towns. Partly, 
 perhaps, because the beers are less potent and the 
 whiskies dearer, and partly because what drunken- 
 ness there is does not show itself in force until near 
 midnight. 
 
 What struck Patty and myself most of all ware the 
 observations upon drinks. And yet it ought not to 
 have surprised me, who used to do my share of that sort 
 of thing with the best of them. Sociability is all very 
 well, but what about the sanity of swallowing the 
 causes oi dyspepsia under the delusion that they are its 
 cures? Of course I am no total abstainer. Not I. 
 For the present enough is better, in my judgment, 
 than either too little or too much. No telling what 
 
178 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 I may come to when I reach my dotage. But if we 
 must " tak' a cup o' kindness yet, for auld lang syne," 
 or for the cold, or the heat, or the joys or the sorrows 
 of the hour, why take vitriolic spirits when soothing 
 wine would be better ? 
 
 And this tempts me to talk for a moment about the 
 delusions that gather around the wine bottle. Delu- 
 sions of price, of quality, of bouquet, of virtue. I. 
 shall draw again upon the facts adduced by Mattieu 
 Williams. He declares that the average price of the 
 average quality of good new-made wine in the wine dis- 
 tricts of Europe does not exceed twelve cents a gallon, 
 which is two cents a bottle. In Sicily and Calabria 
 he paid one cent for a half pint glass of wine, thin 
 but genuine. The same in Spain. The dollar and a 
 quarter bottle of rich port, specially prized by " con- 
 noisseurs " who don't know more than is told them, 
 costs two cents for the original wine, two cents more for 
 cost of storage and labor, twelve cents for duty and 
 carriage to England, and four cents for bottling, mak- 
 ing a total of twenty cents, the balance being spent 
 on what he calls " cookery " of the wine, and trade 
 profits. 
 
 Be this as it may we all know that whines whicli 
 used to be matured by age, are now " cooked " by chem- 
 ical processes that " age " them in a month. Dry 
 sherries are the most dangerous wines, especially for 
 gouty persons. The secrets of its sophistication, and 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 179 
 
 « 
 that of all wines, can be ascertained by those who 
 
 really wish to know. The secrets are tolerably open 
 secrets now. Wines can be made, and are every day 
 made, to suit the whims and fashions of the hour, but 
 an honest, natural grape wine will never vary its 
 natural appearance to suit the eye, nor need it ever 
 be an exjDensive luxury. The wine merchant, if he 
 cares to, can supply an honest wine at a seemingly ab- 
 surd low price, and clear a larger profit than by selling 
 the " cooked " fashionable substitute for honest wine. 
 Try him on. 
 
 We laugh at the boys and girls who are fascinated 
 by the magenta and purple-tinted lemonades sold at 
 the street stalls, scented in the bargain, all for a cent 
 a glass. And then we, "connoisseurs," gravely wend 
 our way to our wine merchant's office, solemnly sample 
 some of his " biggest ^' importations, smack our lips 
 knowingly over its " tawny " flavor, wax eloquent 
 over its color, rave over its bouquet, and experience 
 the acme of bliss on learning that it will cost just five 
 dollars fifty per bottle ! " Dear to drink ? Ah, but 
 dirt cheap, my boy, to talk about ! " 
 
 We take our wines slowly, but, says our English 
 critic, we do our eating rapidly enough. Well, that's 
 no new discovery, anyway. Now, here is a piece my 
 father cut out of an Edinburgh newspaper, on his first 
 trip to Europe, more than fifty years ago. 
 
 The Hon. Alden G — , an American gentleman, was 
 
180 DIKNEROLOGY : 
 
 a dyspeptic, suffering much uneasiness after eating. 
 He went to the famous, but eccentric, Dr. Abernethj 
 for advice. 
 
 "What's the matter with you ? '' says he. 
 
 " Why," says Alden, " I presume I have the dys- 
 pepsia." 
 
 " Ah ! " said he, " I see ; i Yankee swallows more 
 dollars and cents than he can digest." 
 
 " I am an American Citizen,'' says Alden, with 
 great dignity ; " Pm Secretary to your Legation at 
 the Court of St. James's." 
 
 " The devil you are," said Abernethy, " then you'll 
 soon get rid of your dyspepsia." 
 
 " I don't see that inference," says Alden ; " it don't 
 follow from what you predicate at all ; it ain't a nat- 
 ural consequence, I guess, that a man should cease to 
 be ill, because he is called by the voice of a free and 
 enlightened people to fill an important office." (The 
 truth is, you could no more trap Alden than you 
 could an Indian. He could see other folks' trail, and 
 made none himself ; he was a real diplomatist, and, I 
 believe our diplomatists aro allowed to be the best in 
 the world.) 
 
 "But I tell you it does follow," said the doctor ; 
 " for in the company you'll have to keep, you'll have 
 to eat like a Christian." 
 
 It was an everlasting pity Alden contradicted him, 
 for he broke out like one raving distracted mad. 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 181 
 
 ^a'll be d— d/' said he, "if ever I saw a Yankee 
 that didn't bolt his food whole, like a boa-constrictor. 
 How the devil can you expect to digest food, that 
 you neither take the trouble to dissect, nor time to 
 masticate ? It's no wonder you lose your teeth, for 
 you never use them; nor your digestion, for you over- 
 load it ; nor your saliva, for you expend it on the 
 carpets instead of your food. It's disgusting ; it's 
 beastly. You Yankees load your stomachs as a Devon- 
 shire man does his cart, as full as it can hold, and as 
 fast as he can pitch it in with a dung fork, and drive 
 off ; and then you complain that such a load of com- 
 post is too heavy for you. Dyspepsia, eh ! infernal 
 guzzling, you mean. I'll tell you what, Mr. Secretary 
 of Legation, take half the time to eat that you do to 
 drawl out your words, chew your food half as much 
 as you do your filthy tobacco, and you'll be well in a 
 month." 
 
182 DINNEROLOGY 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 betweejst-meal aids to health. 
 
 Our Talented Editor Elicits our Opinions. — What we think 
 about Interviewing, Drinking, Fast-Eathig, Smoking, 
 Exercise, Dressing, Housekeeping. 
 
 Editor Quillcraft dropped in the other evening 
 to ask me if I would consent to be " interviewed" on 
 the new-fangled diet notion which was setting every- 
 body talking. Now, I hold peculiar views about this 
 interviewing business, much more peculiar than my 
 common-sense ideas upon food. I am old-fashioned 
 enough to think that the training of well-bred young 
 men to fawn and play the flunkey before the ill-bred 
 vulgarian who happens to iiave boodled his way into 
 political position, is a degrading danger to social life, 
 and that his supposed success in this line is the true 
 measure of his failure as a journalist. The back-door 
 pryings, brazen button-holings, ignominious trackings, 
 and the idiotic balderdash that is substituted for 
 news are a literal copy of the newspapers and news- 
 paper methods of the last century. Have American 
 editors never heard of one Sheridan who drew the 
 picture of a typical reporter of the period under the 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 183 
 
 name of Snake ? If Paul Pry is to be the revered 
 patron saint of the newspaper fraternity, then, I 
 think, self-respecting citizens who mean to be free 
 men in this free land will have to sit down hard on 
 those who brazenlj^ invade our privacy to scrape in a 
 dollar by selling our secrets to the public. I know 
 very well that the only thing that makes us tolerate 
 the degradation is our vanity. We are flattered by 
 the advertisement ; we fancy we are " somebody '^ 
 when the newspaper sets our neighbors laughing at 
 our conceit in fancying that anybody cares a banana 
 peel what our opinion is upon Smith's view of Brown's 
 objection to Jones's amendment to Robinson's motion 
 on Snooks's spat with the Hon. Bill Buggins. So 
 you will guess that I did not receive Mr. Quillcraft as 
 a disinterested benefactor. 
 
 " Come right in," I said to him, " sit down ; here's 
 a first-rate cigar, and now please favor me by con- 
 sidering yourself as having been kicked out into the 
 gutter, where some interviewers find themselves per- 
 fectly at home ! " 
 
 "Why, this seeming inhospitality ?" 
 
 " For Quillcraft, the man, I have the profoundest 
 respect — ^you are welcome as my hearty old friend and 
 neighbor, but to Quillcraft, the professional Paul 
 Pry, I can only administer the most masterly meta- 
 phorical kick a sprained ankle can rise to. This is gen- 
 uine seven-year-old Irish — not a headache in a hogs- 
 
184 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 head of it, so tliej say way down Blarneyj where it 
 came from." 
 
 Having gotten well rid of the interviewing ogre, I 
 had a very delightful hour or so with the brilliant 
 editor. All newspaper writers are "brilliant," at 
 least, every one says all the others are. Our conver- 
 sation rambled easily along through the pleasant 
 paths leading to my favorite studies. He was really 
 what they call a " charming conversationalist." He 
 let me do all the talking. I don't know about his ear 
 for music, but he certainly had two extraordinary 
 long ones for listening. Of course, our chat was 
 quite private. If I had the least suspicion that any 
 of it was being treasured up for print it would not 
 have come off, that's certain. I confess it pleased me 
 to learn that my opinions were highly valued by a 
 person so acute as my worthy friend Quillcraft. It 
 does a man good to know that his qualities are most 
 appreciated hy his cleverest friends. I felt that in 
 impressing some of my well-pondered conclusions 
 upon a public instructor of Mr. Quillcraft's eminence, 
 I might be beneficially influencing thousands upon 
 thousands who are more or less swayed by his 
 masterly pen. This led me to speak with a sense of 
 freedom and confidence that can never be enjoyed 
 by one who condescends to be " interviewed " for 
 print. Remarking that the whiskey was wonder- 
 fully quiet, considering it came from the turbulent 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 185 
 
 " gim of the say," my friend asked what I thought of 
 the drinking customs of society. 
 
 Well, I said, I regard what is called the temper- 
 ance question as a question of diet on the one side 
 and morals on the other. We all agree that exces- 
 sive indulgence is an immorality, but so is excessive 
 indulgence in eating, only we feel a delicacy in con- 
 demning ourselves for our favorite sin. For one 
 drunkard who drinks himself to death there are a 
 hundred unconscious gluttons who munch themselves 
 nlong the path of dyspepsia into a grave that is hidden 
 under the alias of some disease. Over-fill a balloon 
 with gas and it bursts, over-load a ship and it sinks, 
 over-crowd a street car and somebody's toes get trodden 
 upon. Give any organ in the human frame too much 
 to do and it weakens or breaks under the strain. 
 Keep on over-straining it and it will give way, slowly, 
 if you overstrain it but little at a time, but surely, if 
 3^ou keep doing it for years. The advantage of in- 
 toxicants is that they ring their own alarm bell, let- 
 ting you, and all around 3^ou, know when you are 
 "full." It's a pity pies, puddings, and all our foods 
 don't have some automatic signal in them, to serve 
 the same useful purpose ; there would not be nearly so 
 much over-eating then. I wonder our teetotal friends 
 don't go about chanting the praise of alcohol for pro- 
 claiming its dangers so philanthropically. We drink 
 from necessity, and we drink for pleasure. The more 
 
186 DTNNEROLOGY : 
 
 fresh fruit we eat the less our thirst. I believe the drink- 
 ing of impure water, iced with impure ice, Lreeds more 
 disease than water into which a little good whiskey is 
 put to kill the bacteria germs. Excess either way is 
 bad, especially in entertaining animalculse in our in- 
 sides unawares. I believe in temperance, not in in- 
 temperate teetotal intolerance. Given self-control 
 and self-respect, a man should be free to act on his 
 own judgment, liable to be punished if he interferes 
 with the rights of any other free man. For m^^self, 
 friend Quillcraft, I try to strike the golden mean ; 
 not whiskey only, not water only, but a gracious blend 
 of both these good gifts of Providence. 
 
 He asked me whether I had any views upon the 
 alleged habit Americans have of eating too fast. I 
 told him there was no disputing the fact. A visit to 
 any down-town restaurant settles the question. For 
 those who like dyspepsia nothing could be more 
 successful than this hurry-up way of hurrying down 
 victuals. ' It is not dining, nor is it eating, for these 
 belong to the fine arts. It is hog-feeding on two legs. 
 The contrast between the dandyism of these men in 
 their clothing and their boorishness in eating is one 
 of those m^^steries I hope to see explained on the 
 Judgment Day. The exquisite manners exhibited by 
 the back-country holiday maker, who goes through 
 the streets chewing a toothpick to advertise that he 
 has been able to afford a fifty cent lunch, are another 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 187 
 
 puzzle. When I look at him I fancy he must have 
 the uneaten remains stowed away in his hat, ready 
 to begin again when he reaches a doorstep, for a gen- 
 tleman never parades his toothpick outside his dining 
 room. 
 
 " How if he carries a cigarette in his lips ? " 
 A capital disinfectant for his toothpick manners. 
 The virtuous vice of smoking needs no defence in this 
 free country, but the right to expectorate on your 
 neighbor's shoes or his wife's silk dress is quite a pop- 
 ular delusion. There is no such right, nor even the 
 right to soil and disfigure the public sidewalks where 
 ladies promenade. There are no such rights for gen- 
 tlemen ; others claim them, and we ought to thank 
 them for marking the distinction so clearly. If a man 
 is so miserably organized that he cannot let his salivary 
 glands do their natural work in their natural way, he 
 has far too little of the Man in him to trust himself with 
 a cigar. So that, either the gentlemanliness or the vir- 
 ility of the spitting smoker is all wrong, or perhaps 
 both. I think of inventing a neat portable cuspidor, to 
 be worn like a respirator, for saliva-stricken smokers. 
 Hygienically and artistically I guess it would be a 
 sweet boon. The ease with which it might display an 
 enamelled coat-of-arms or monogram in gold would 
 reconcile the most fastidious to its adoption. Public 
 decency might suffice for others. 
 
 Talking of the cigarette, have you noticed how cer- 
 
188 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 tain newspapers have been paid of late to head their 
 frightfullest paragraphs like this — " Suicide through 
 cigarette smoking," " Sudden Death through " ditto ; 
 "Awful Railroad Disaster through " ditto ; "Terrible 
 Mortality in the Infant Asylum through" ditto ; "A 
 Nonagenarian's Career cut short through " ditto / 
 " A Fearful Earthquake in Timbuctoo through " ditto, 
 etc. When you see any more of these exquisite jokes 
 just reflect how hard the wicked cigarette is upon the 
 cigar-maker's business. He must figure up whether 
 he had better give up, change his factory system and 
 make cigarettes, or "pull" the pullable papers. The 
 wise cigar-maker keeps on making his good cigars 
 better than ever before, and holds his tongue. A cigar 
 has, say ten times as much deleterious nicotine in it 
 as an ordinary cigarette. Which is the stronger? 
 The cigar has a leaf that has been soaked in dirty 
 liquor, fingered by dirty hands, pasted with dirty 
 paste, and this we suck in our mouths. The cigarette 
 has a bit of clean paper. Which is the nicest ? The 
 sucking of a cigar end will yet be commonly confessed 
 to be the filthiest performance in the vegetable-chew- 
 ing line an ordinary eater does in a life-time. It is 
 harmful as well, but the other objection is the stronger 
 one. If mouth-tubes were used this objection would 
 die. Dr. Wm. A. Hammond, late Surgeon-General of 
 the army, says, in a recent article on smoking, "As 
 to cigarette smoking, properly practiced and with due 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 189 
 
 regard to moderation, and provided also that pure 
 tobacco be used, I cannot see how it is more injurious 
 than cigars or pipes." 
 
 A clean pipe, or better still, a succession of clean 
 pipes, is by far the best plan for strong smokers. 
 Lunatics who chew the cigarette by the score or hun- 
 dred a day are as well shelved by that as by any other 
 stupidity. But the cigarette is and always will be 
 the safest, cleanest, least harmful, and most conve- 
 nient way of using tobacco for temperate men. The 
 sturdy Turk, bravest of all brave soldiers, hardiest of 
 all hardy toilers, is a cigarette smoker from his cradle 
 to his grave. So are Spaniards, Frenchmen, Greeks 
 — but why enumerate almost all the nations ? I have 
 been a smoker of cigarettes and nothing else ever since 
 my college days, and still my patriarchal form is not 
 bowed before the storm of the jealous cigar trade. 
 Prove all things, hold fast that which is good, i. e. 
 the cigarette made of the best tobacco by your own 
 hands, smoked while fresh, and always through a 
 a mouthpiece. I have spoken. 
 
 " Don't you think exercise has a deal to do with 
 the good or bad effects of our eating, drinking, and 
 smoking habits ? " 
 
 Exercise is the alpha and omega of the dietetic 
 alphabet. It is more than a cure, because it can be a 
 preventive of almost every trouble these things cause. 
 Let us think of it squarely. Our bodies are machines 
 
190 DINNEROLOGY ; 
 
 driven hj steam power. Our stomachs are the engine 
 boilers. We feed the furnaces with a certain, or, 
 rather, with an uncertain quantitj^of fueh The boiler 
 does its work in making the steam, which the engine 
 takes up and uses to make its wheels go round. But 
 it passes the power along to the machine it is sup- 
 posed to drive. Then all goes well. But if the ma- 
 chinery of our limbs and organs is allowed to stag- 
 nate with disuse, it is not only a waste of power but 
 a positive injury to the whole structure, to go on cram- 
 ming the boiler-furnace with more fuel than it uses. 
 If we eat we must work, and in real earnest if we eat 
 freely or stimulatingly. We see people every day, 
 women, men, and even children, whose wizened faces 
 show that they prefer to let off their steam in over- 
 working their nerves rather than in reasonably work- 
 ing their muscles. Well, it's a free country to this 
 extent at least, we needn't be sensible if we don't 
 want to. Think what lessons and " awful examples " 
 we should lose if the tribe of obliging fools were to 
 die out ! 
 
 There are shrewd people wdio trade upon this prev- 
 alent or fashionable aversion to common sense exer- 
 cise. They furnish elegant parlor inventions for 
 playing at w-ork. You catch hold of handles and 
 watch a gilded seven or ten pound weight slide up and 
 down over a pulley as you tenderly move your muscles. 
 Nothing could be nicer than this mild apology for 
 
OUE EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 191 
 
 health exercise. It is quite as delightful as writing 
 an erotic shocker under the flattering delusion jou are 
 exerting a brain. 
 
 There is only one way of exercising, and that is the 
 way of nature. It gives each muscle and organ a voice 
 that asks us to give it work when it needs it. Listen, 
 obey, and you will need no books nor rigmarole 
 articles by advisers who have advice or inventions to 
 sell. The first and best exercise is that of walking, 
 which brings every part into play just enough and 
 none too much. If our women, young and old, would 
 cultivate sufficient sense and strength of mind to defy 
 custom, wear sensible flat-footed shoes, and loose 
 clothes, and make up their minds to take a good, free, 
 swinging five-mile walk every morning for a month, 
 they would find that kind Mother Nature would free 
 their bodies from aches and pains, and reward their 
 confidence in her health-giving powers by painting 
 their prettj'- faces with an exquisite bloom utterly be- 
 yond the alchemy of the quack face-disfigurers. 
 After a year or two of honest walking exercise, (never 
 to be mechanically done when disinclined or ailing) it 
 will be time enough for every-day folk, such as most 
 of us are, to consider the needless risks of the more 
 violent and less natural strainings of the gymnasium. 
 
 Better to roam the fields for health unboiight 
 Than fee the doctors for a nauseous draught, 
 The wise, for cure, on exercise depend ; 
 God never made His work for man to mend. 
 
192 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 "You spoke of ladies' clothing — " 
 
 Yes, or, to speak more accurately, their dress, for 
 it is not always clothing. They are giving more at- 
 tention of late years to the question of how to combine 
 ease, comfort and elegance, and, so far as the first 
 layer, there have been some successful improvements. 
 But the unseen has still to play second fiddle to the 
 seen, and is likely to do until fashion reverts, perhaps, 
 to one of the primitive modes, in which the simplicity 
 had a tendency to drive all other artistic considera- 
 tions out of sight. The Queen Anne farthingale 
 appears to contemplate its own resurrection, a highly 
 convenient waist-shelf for ladies who like to turn 
 themselves into a walking tea-table for the company. 
 At present, aspirants are only able to carry one small 
 tray, and that not in the place of honor in the van. 
 Tight lacing does not exist. Everj^ lady assures me it 
 does not, unless it be in the next house. When it did, 
 somewhere back in the earlj'- years of the century, it was 
 a riddle of the period to ask why a wasp-waist either 
 caused or was caused by a cherry-nose. Nobody could 
 guess, every woman gave it up, and a mystery it re. 
 mains unto this day. I know there are no artificial 
 wasp-waists now, because there are no cherry-tipped 
 noses — unless the puff slipped that way. There is 
 not a sensible woman in the land to-day who does not 
 keenly realize that extremes in any direction have a 
 reaction of ridicule, or loss, or physical suffering of 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 193 
 
 some sort. In clothing, both of women and men but 
 particularly of the former, the golden mean is again 
 the path of safety in every sense. Fabrics chosen for 
 warmth, lightness and softness rather than pattern or 
 fashion, and made to give comfort rather than to ape 
 French pictorial impossibilities, this is the wise 
 woman's chief concern. 
 
 " Would you advise ladies to share the duties of the 
 kitchen to any extent with their help ? '' 
 
 Certainly, and to a considerable extent. First, 
 because the " help " need a great deal more real help 
 than they get, or sometimes give, help in mastering 
 the meaning of cookery, help in acquiring correct 
 ideas of taste in dress, and help in overcoming the 
 pitiable pride that makes them ashamed to admit that 
 they are servants, doing the honorable duty of serving 
 those who pay them for service. You are a servant, 
 I am a servant, the President is a servant, and we 
 don't blush with shamefacedness when we talk of 
 serving our employers. We don't merely " help," we 
 do the grander thing, we serve and minister to our 
 masters. Tliis cant of false sentiment strikes me as 
 .thoroughly and disgustingly, un-American, yes, un- 
 womanly and unmanly. So I would have a republic 
 in each household, all being on an equality as regards 
 their duties, rights and responsibilities to the domes- 
 tic government, but all with a clear appreciation of 
 their several aptitudes and qualifications, which is 
 
194 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 nature's own way of classifying us all, according to 
 our native worth. On this understanding, the Presi- 
 dent and Presidentess would interchange views and 
 experiences with their officers and ministers, for the 
 common welfare, and tliese would no longer feel that 
 honorable service loses its dignity by being service. 
 But I only intended to remark that if housewives 
 would regard and treat their servants as royalties and 
 presidents regard and treat their ministers and officers, 
 there would be a great deal less friction and a good 
 deal more home-likeness in our homes. It is for our 
 wives to start the reformation. 
 
 " Then I understand, that you want the ladies to 
 share some part of the household duties, manual labor, 
 more or less ? '^ 
 
 By all means, the more the better. Because of all 
 forms of exercise, the everj^day work of the home is 
 about the best a woman can do, in the way of actual 
 work. The wives of farm laborers and cottagers, in 
 humble circumstances, are, as a rule, healthier and 
 more robust than the wives of the rich, notwithstand- 
 ing their plain, if not scant}^, food ; lam inclined rather 
 to say because of it. The making of beds, sweep- 
 ing of carpets, and moving of tables and chairs is the 
 best gymnastic training any woman could have. An 
 occasional trot up and down stairs would prevent or 
 probably do much to cure dyspepsia. That's why 
 women prefer to live in houses with elevators. 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 195 
 
 You are not going already, are you, Quillcraft ? 
 Well, if you must, you must, I suppose, but I've en- 
 joyed our talk immensely, my friend. It does any of 
 us good to hear a sensible man talk sense, you know. 
 Well, good-night ; be sure and do the good Samaritan 
 by that interloping interviewer I kicked into the gut- 
 ter there — he's one of your own gang, don't you know. 
 Ha ! you don't catch me giving into Mr. Paul Pry 
 Interviewer ! Oh, no, not much ; good-night, good- 
 night I 
 
196 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE RETURN TO SIMPLICITY. 
 
 We Review our Experiences— We have Profited in Health and 
 Pocket.— National Losses and Dangers from Individual 
 Luxury.— Wliy Buy from Foreigners the Foods We 
 Ought to Grow for Ourselves ?— Personal, Commercial, 
 Patriotic Reasons for a Return to Plain Living and 
 National Health. 
 
 Talking over the results of our second year's experi- 
 ment in simple, but practically unrestricted living, 
 Patty and T cordially agreed that we had managed to 
 strike the golden mean we used to aim at. We were 
 hoth in perfect health, we were able to walk our ten 
 miles a day with nothing but pleasure and benefit, 
 and we did it perhaps twice a week the year round, 
 besides a minimum of five every day, as a duty. We 
 had reduced every superfluous ounce of flesh. The 
 children looked models of physical beauty, a thing we 
 were far prouder of than mere doll prettiness. We 
 enjoyed all we ate and we ate all we wanted in the 
 way of dainties, both of food and drinks. The kitchen 
 folk were as content as we were, and our friends 
 seemed to enjoy our little dinners and suppers more 
 than ever. And the best of it was, speaking now from 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 197 
 
 the financial stand point, we had 1700 in hand, clear 
 saving, to start the new year, there were $28 more, 
 which enabled Patty to thank our cook and housemaid 
 for their co-operation in her own tasteful way. Of 
 course we decided to keep on so good a track, the 
 experimental stage was over. We were often urged by 
 our friends to make a little book of our experiences. 
 
 " Adcentures in a Dining-Boom ! Oh ! wouldn't 
 it be fun, just ! George, dear, you shall write a book ! 
 You know you are longing to show " 
 
 "Patty ! " 
 
 In some of my moods levity distresses me. This 
 was one of them. The reflections our calculations had 
 stirred in my mind were soaring to loftier regions than 
 those of after-dinner frivolity. If ever a person of in- 
 telligence does deviate into imbecility, it is when he 
 stands up to chatter to the clinking of his friends' 
 glasses. Patty never got to that. She kept her seat, 
 the next wisest thing to keeping one's post-prandial wit 
 
 "to one's self. 
 
 "Patty you know, in your lucid intervals, that, 
 
 neither you nor I have the least fitness in the world 
 for authorship. It's one thing to talk,— some of us 
 excel in that ;— it's another thing to utter consecutive 
 thoughts in an effective way for an hour, a few have 
 that gift, but neither of us could— and I'm quite 
 sure we won't— go into the ' popular ' book-making 
 business." 
 
198 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 " Bless its ruffled feathers ! it was only being encour- 
 aged to try a flutter out of its gilded cage, poor dear 
 magpie ! — Now George, kiss me and stop my nonsense. 
 — There, now go ahead with your — ' Heflections on 
 Things in General ' / " I did. She was good as 
 gold in a minute. 
 
 " Hasn't it struck you, my dear Patty, how this 
 simple experiment of ours bears upon some of the 
 gravest problems of our commonwealth ? Wherever 
 we look we see social convulsions, evolutions, perhaps 
 revolutions in process. As our people multiply, and 
 invite foreign immigrants to come and settle perma- 
 nently here, they are finding out that three are 
 scarcely so comfortable as two, unless, or until, the 
 two acres that feed them grow into three or yield a 
 third more. The town laborers are making a similar 
 discovery in the matter of wages. The employers are 
 discovering that there are limits to production, because 
 there are limits to purchasing power and therefore to 
 profits. The prosperity everybody has been enjoy- 
 ing makes it hard to lop off our indulgences, reason- 
 able though they may have been. Harder still for 
 the toilers to see their comforts pinched while luxury 
 flaunts itself more exultingly than ever in the face of 
 poverty. Luxury, too, which surpasses the wildest 
 fancies of our ancestors. Just about the time when 
 the Pilgrim Fathers stepped on to Plymouth Eock, 
 old George Wither was satirizing the mischievous 
 
OUR EXPEKTMENTS IN DIET. 190 
 
 growth of luxiuy, which Goldsmith a hundred yenvs 
 later rebuked so pathetically in the Deserted Vil- 
 lage. The picture drawn by Wither has a histori- 
 cal interest and, perhaps, a present moral that justify 
 its repetition here. 
 
 The Diet we are grown unto of late 
 
 Excels the Feasts that men of high estate 
 
 Had in times past, for there's both flesh and fish, 
 
 With many a new devised disli. 
 
 For bread they can compare with Lord and Knight, 
 
 They have both ravel' d, manchet, brown, and white, 
 
 Of finest wheat; their drinks are good and stale, 
 
 Of perry, cider, mead, metheglin, ale, 
 
 Of beer they have abundant, but then 
 
 This does not serve the richer sort of men ; 
 
 They with all sorts of foreign wines are sped, 
 
 Their cellars are oft fraught with white and red, 
 
 Be it Italian, French, Spanish, if they crave it, 
 
 Nay, Grecian or Canarian, they may have it, 
 
 Cete, Pument, Yervage, if they so desire, 
 
 Or Romney, Bastard, Capricke, Osey, Tire, 
 
 Muscadell, Malmsey, Clarcy — what they will, 
 
 Both head and belly each may have their fill. 
 
 Then if their stomachs do disdain to eat 
 
 Beef, mutton, lamb, or suchlike butcher's meat, 
 
 If that they cannot feed of capon, swan, 
 
 Duck, goose, or common household poultry, then 
 
 Then their storehouse will not very often fail 
 
 To yield them partridge, pheasant, plover, quaile, 
 
 Or any dainty foul that may delight 
 
 Their gluttonous and beastly appetite. 
 
 So they are pampered while the poor man starves, 
 
 Yet there's not all; for custards, tarts, conserves, 
 
 Must follow too, and yet they net be lot 
 
 For suckets, march-panes, nor for marmalet, 
 
 Fruits, Florentines, sweet sugar- meats and spices, 
 
 With many other idle, fond devices 
 
200 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 Such as I cannot, name, nor care to know; 
 
 And then, besides the taste, this made for show, 
 
 For they must have it colored, gilded, printed 
 
 With shapes of beasts and fowls, cut, pinched, indented, 
 
 So idly, that in my conceit 'tis plain 
 
 They are both foolish and exceeding vain, 
 
 And howsoe'er they of Religion boast, 
 
 Their belly is the God they honor most. 
 
 The fare that was luxurious two hundred and fifty 
 years ago is ahuost sneered at by the professional 
 ward jDolitician of our day, and the change is proudly 
 instanced as evidence of national prosperity. I sup- 
 pose tlie miles of columns of advertisements of quack 
 nostrums for curing dyspepsia point the same noble 
 moral. So do our Sybarite banquets in the halls of 
 Dives, decked with " floral pieces " nineteen feet in 
 circumference, and a centre Cake eight feet high, that 
 cost a thousand dollars, at which each cup of concocted 
 wine is worth a dollar and a half, and each " favor " 
 bestowed upon the guests is a jeweled gold toy worth 
 fifty. 
 
 Patt}^ ! when I read of atrocities like this in the 
 papers I think of 
 
 The grandeur that was Greece, 
 And the glory that was Rome," 
 
 and of old France, now celebrating another '89. 
 
 Look at the toothsome preliminaries to the making 
 of the loathsome Pates de Foie Gras, as lovingly 
 dwelt on by the elder Alexandre Dumas, in his 
 DictioQinaire de Cuisine. He lays it down that the 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 201 
 
 liver of the bird can only be fattened by the tumefac- 
 tion of that organ, and that for pie-making purposes 
 the goose livers should be ten or twelve times the 
 normal size. To secure this torture he says that the 
 wretched bipeds are nailed by their web-feet to boards, 
 in a heated room, that their eyes are put out, and that 
 they are incessantly stuffed with pounded nuts, 
 and deprived of water. The earthy truffles that ac- 
 company these swollen livers in the pie remind me 
 that in a district fitly-named Solitude, in Ashe 
 County, N. C, there are people who find a delicacy in 
 eating the clay itself. A recent visitor records his 
 talks with these primitive American Hottentots. He 
 describes them as lean and lank-visaged specimens of 
 humanity. He handled some of their "eatin clay," 
 taken from a bank near the shanty. It had "an oily 
 feeling, inodorous and rather insipid, the chemical 
 compounds of which were water, silica and alumina, 
 firm and compact, slightly tinged with the color of 
 iron." One winter, the tribe practically subsisted on 
 this clay for three weeks at a stretch. Which is the 
 savage, the clay eater or the goose torturer ? 
 
 We have viewed what we call " The Eeturn to Sim- 
 plicity" in living, at least as regards diet, from the 
 Personal standpoint, and we have proved its immense 
 advantage. We have included in that its Economical 
 gain to ourselves, but we should also consider its 
 Commercial aspect. 
 
202 dinnerology: 
 
 Luxurious eating and drinking means an extensive 
 importation of foreign products. In proportion as we 
 import, we cease to produce. Middle-men profit by 
 importing goods, but our home producers and makers 
 don't. Now, consider this, if you buy goods which 
 are grown or made by our own working-people, you 
 are helping them to earn their living. The soil is the 
 ultimate source of all men's support, and agriculture is 
 the direct support of an immense proportion of our 
 people — about ten millions. With all our millions of 
 untilled acres, (540,000,000 acres of farmed land in 
 1880, out of 1,815,000,000) and with five hundred 
 thousand immigrants pouring into our country every 
 year, it seems strange, it seems wrong, and perilous, 
 that we have to import from foreign countries food- 
 stuffs which can and should be raised by ourselves. 
 
 In the year ending June 1887 we imported 
 
 Eggs 14 million dozens. 
 
 Lake and kiver fish 28 " pounds. 
 
 Barley 10 " bushels. 
 
 Plums and prunes . 71 " pounds. 
 
 Hops 17 " " 
 
 Eice 90 " " 
 
 Cheese 7 '• " 
 
 Potatoes iK " bushels. 
 
 If it is "prosperity" that has turned the peoplj 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 203 
 
 against that best of flesh-and-muscle-formiiig foods — 
 Cheese, they may yet live long enough to thank the day 
 of adversity for reconciling them again to one of the 
 three truest friends a poor or a rich man can have. 
 This country produced in 1860, 103, 663,927 lbs. ; in 
 1870, 53,492,153 lbs. 5 in 1880, 27,272,489 lbs., or 
 only one-tenth of what it produced twenty years be- 
 fore, allowing for the increase of population. Which 
 shows that in the multitude of feeders there is not 
 always wisdom, nor does common' sense necessarily 
 increase with the years. I am inclined to think that 
 if the people as a whole were to drop fancy-feeding 
 for plain living, there would arise so great a demand 
 for the health-giving products of our own home farms, 
 that surplus capital and labor would combine to force 
 our American earth to yield her increase, and there 
 would be food and work for all. 
 
 But the Personal and the Commercial blend and 
 expand into the Patriotic argument for the Return 
 to Simplicity. We love to boast of our greatness, of 
 the vastness of our territory, of its infinite possibili- 
 ties, of our material prosperity and our national pro- 
 gress. Perhaps some of our boasting is premature. 
 What is gained by proclaiming that "the entire 
 wheat crop of the United States could be grown in 
 that part of Texas " which would be left as a margin 
 if the entire German Empire were placed in it, when, 
 as a fact, the whole of the United States . fail to grow 
 
204 DINNEROLOGY : 
 
 enough potatoes, barley, rice and hops to feed our 
 people ? 
 
 Mr. I. Eichard Dodge, of the U. S. A. Department 
 for Agriculture, cautions us against drawing false con- 
 clusions because we export a surplus of some of our 
 farm products. '^ No doubt it is well to swell the 
 plethora of national wealth while relieving needy 
 nations ; but on the other hand, it tends to the over- 
 production of certain crops, with the inevitable result 
 of reducing prices for the benefit of the foreign pur- 
 chaser without any corresponding advantage to the 
 producer.'^ Mr. Dodge says that our surplus is gen- 
 erally exaggerated. He puts the value of our agri- 
 cultural exports, at farm prices, at $400,000,000, 
 while we have to import $375,000,000 to supply our 
 deficiency. " This is the net result of our boast of 
 feeding the nations (he says) ; we feed them just a 
 little more than they feed us." The lesson he draws 
 from these facts is that we cannot afford to have a 
 deficiency of the raw products of agriculture. We 
 should try to sup|;ly our deficie'icies rather than swell 
 surplus crops, to meet our present domestic wants and 
 create i;ew wants b}'' producing a greater variety of 
 edible products, especially fruits. After we have done 
 this national duty to ourselves, then it wiil be early 
 enough to begin selling our surplus crops to foreign- 
 ers at a loss to our farmers. 
 
 True patriotism should make us well-wishers of our 
 
OUR EXPERIMENTS IN DIET. 205 
 
 fellow citizens as well as of our institutions. They 
 have bodies as well as votes, and we must not expect 
 impure or imperfect feeding to produce perfect health, 
 nor an ailing body to develop a philosophic mind, 
 either in a politician or any of his followers. The 
 cultivation of simplicity of life clears both mind and 
 body of hampering distractions that have no compen- 
 sations for the delights they destroy. The silly craze 
 for the costly becaiiseit is costl}', for the incongruous 
 or the outrageous because our rich neighbor, whom it 
 befits, possesses it, these are the cankers that eat the 
 heart out of any stupid society that persists in mis- 
 taking apishuess for progress, and inflation for happi- 
 ness. Greater is the happiness, purer the ambition, 
 profounder the common sense of the man who can 
 say — " My richness consists, not iu the extent of my 
 possessions, but in the fewness of my wants. ^^ 
 
 " See here, George, if you don't say all this right 
 over to me again to-morrow, so that I can take down 
 notes and make a book of it — all by my own self, I 
 shall think you are real mean!'' 
 
 But I guess I won't, all the same. 
 
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