Chapter XLI: Conclusion

But I must conclude this long essay. There is one consideration, however, which I am unwilling to omit, although, in deciding on the merits of the question before us, it may not have as much weight--regarded as a part of the moral argument--on every mind, as it has on my own.

Suppose the great Creator were to make a new world somewhere in the regions of infinite space, and to fit it out in most respects like our own. It is to be the place and abode of such minerals, vegetables, and animals as our own. Instead, however, of peopling it gradually, he fills it at once with inhabitants; and instead of having the arts and the sciences in their infancy, he creates every thing in full maturity. In a word, he makes a world which shall be exactly a copy of our own, with the single exception that the 800,000,000 of free agents in it shall be supposed to be wholly ignorant in regard to the nature of the food assigned them. But the new world is created, we will suppose, at sunrise, in October. The human inhabitants thereof have stomachs, and soon, that is, by mid-day or before night, feel the pangs of hunger. Now, what will they eat?

The world being mature, every thing in it is, of course, mature. Around, on every hand, are cornfields with their rich treasures; above, that is, in the boughs of the orchards, hang the rich russets, pippins, and the various other excellent kinds of the apple, with which our own country and other temperate climates abound. In tropical regions, of course, almost every vegetable production is flourishing at that season, as well as the corn and the apple. Or, he has but to look on the surface of the earth on which he stands, and there are the potatoe, the turnip, the beet, and many other esculent roots; to say nothing of the squash, the pumpkin, the melon, the chestnut, the walnut, the beechnut, the butternut, the hazelnut, etc.,--most of which are nourishing, and more or less wholesome, and are in full view. Around him, too, are the animals. I am willing even to admit the domestic animal--the horse, the ox, the sheep, the dog, the cat, the rabbit, the turkey, the goose, the hen, yes, and even the pig. And now, I ask again, what will he eat? He is destitute of experience, and he has no example. But he has a stomach, and he is hungry: he has hands and he has teeth; the world is all before him, and he is the lord of it, at least so far as to use such food in it as he pleases.

Does any one believe that, in these circumstances, man would prey upon the animals around him? Does any person believe--can he for one moment believe--he would forthwith imbrue his hands in blood, whether that of his own species or of some other? Would he pass by the mellow apple, hanging in richest profusion every where, inviting him as it were by its beauties? Would he pass by the fields, with their golden ears? Would he despise the rich products of field, and forest, and garden, and hasten to seize the axe or the knife, and, ere the blood had ceased to flow, or the muscles to quiver, give orders to his fair but affrighted companion within to prepare the fire, and make ready the gridiron or the spider? Or, without the knowledge even of this, or the patience to wait for the tedious process of cooking to be completed, would he eat raw the precious morsel? Does any one believe this? Can any one--I repeat the question--can any one believe it?

On the contrary, would not every living human being revolt, at first, from the idea, let it be suggested as it might, of plunging his hands in blood? Can there be a doubt that he would direct his attention at first--yes, and for a long time afterward--to the vegetable world for his food? Would it not take months and years to reconcile his feelings--his moral nature--to the thought of flesh-mangling or flesh-eating? At least, would not this be the result, if he were a disciple of Christianity? Although professing Christians, as the world is now constituted, do not hesitate to commit such depredations, would they do so in the circumstances we have supposed?

I am sure there can be but one opinion on this subject; although I confess it impossible for me to say how it may strike other minds constituted somewhat differently from my own. With me, this consideration of the subject has weight and importance. It is not necessary, however. The argument--the moral argument, I mean--is sufficient, as it seems to me, without it. What then shall we say of the anatomical, the physiological, the medical, the political, the economical, the experimental, the Bible, the millennial, and the moral arguments, when united? Have they not force? Are they not a nine-fold cord, not easily broken? Is it not too late in the day of human improvement to meet them with no argument but ignorance, and with no other weapon but ridicule?

FOOTNOTES:

[21] For proof that arsenic or ratsbane is sometimes added to cheese, see the Library of Health, volume ii., page 69. In proof of the poisonous tendency of milk and butter, see Whitlaw's Theory of Fever, and Clark's Treatise on Pulmonary Consumption.

[22] See Dunglison's Hygiene, page 250.

[23] The Young Housekeeper.

[24] Or, more nearly, perhaps, a year and a half, in this country. In England, it is one year and five-sevenths.

OUTLINES

OF A

NEW SYSTEM OF FOOD AND COOKERY.

In the work of revising and preparing the foregoing volume for publication, the writer was requested to add to it a system of vegetable cookery. At first he refused to do so, both on account of the difficulty of bringing so extensive a subject within the compass of twenty or thirty pages, and because it did not seem to him to be called for, in connection with the present volume. But he has yielded his own judgment to the importunity of the publishers and other friends of the work, and prepared a mere outline or skeleton of what he may hereafter fill up, should circumstances and the necessary leisure permit.

But there is one difficulty to be met with at the very threshold of the subject. Vegetable eaters are not so hard driven to find whereon to subsist, as many appear to suppose. For the question is continually asked, "If you dispense wholly with flesh and fish, pray what can you find to eat?" Now, while we are aware that one small sect of the vegetarians--the followers of Dr. Schlemmer--eat every thing in a raw state, we are, for ourselves, full believers in plain and simple cookery. That a potato, for example, is better cooked than uncooked, both for man and beast, we have not the slightest doubt. We believe that a system of preparing food which renders the raw material more palatable, more digestible, and more nutritious, or perhaps all this at once, must be legitimate, and even preferable--if not for the individual, at least for the race.

But the difficulty alluded to is, how to select a few choice dishes from the wide range--short of flesh and fish--which God and nature permit. For if we believed in the use of eggs when commingled with food, we should hardly deem it proper to go the whole length of our French brethren, who have nearly seven hundred vegetable dishes, of which eggs form a component part; nor the whole length even to which our own powers of invention might carry us; no, nor even the whole length to which the writer of an English work now before us, and entitled "Vegetable Cookery," has gone--the extent of about a thousand plain receipts. We believe the whole nature of man, and even his appetite, when unperverted, is best served and most fully satisfied with a range of dishes which shall hardly exceed hundreds.

It is held by Dr. Dunglison, Dr. Paris, and many of the old school writers, that all made dishes--all mixtures of food--are "more or less rebellious;" that is, more or less indigestible, and consequently more or less hurtful. If they mean by this, that in spite of the accommodating power of the stomach to the individual, they are hurtful to the race, I go with them most fully. But I do _not_ believe that _all made dishes, to all persons_, are so directly injurious as many suppose. God has made man, in a certain sense, omnivorous. His physical stomach can receive and assimilate, like his mental stomach, a great variety of substances; and both can go on, without apparent disease, for a great many years, and perhaps for a tolerably long life in this way.

There is, however, a higher question for man to ask as a rational being and as a Christian, than whether this or that dish will hurt him directly. It is, whether a dish or article is _best_ for him--best for body, mind, and heart--best for the whole human nature--best for the whole interests of the whole race--best for time, and best for eternity. Startle not, reader, at this assertion. If West could properly say, "I paint for eternity," the true disciple of Christ and truth can say, "I eat and drink for eternity." And a higher authority than any that is merely human has even required us to do so.

This places the subject of preparing food on high ground. And were I to carry out my plan fully, I should exclude from a Christian system of food and cookery all mixtures, properly so called, and all medicines or condiments. Not that all mixtures are equally hurtful to the well-being of the race, nor all medicines. Indeed, considering our training and habits, some of both, to most persons, have become necessary. I know of many whose physical inheritance is such, that salt, if not a few other medicinal substances, have become at least present necessaries to them. And to those mixtures of substances closely allied, as farina with farina--meal of one kind with meal of another--I could scarcely have any objection, myself. Nature objects to incompatibles, and therefore I do; and medicine, and all those kinds of food which are opposed one to another, are incompatible with each other. When one is in the stomach, the other should not be.

I have spoken of carrying out my plan, but this I cannot now fully do. It would not be borne, till, as Lord Bacon used to say, "some time be passed over." But, on the other hand, I am unwilling to give directions, as I did ten or twelve years ago, in my Young Housekeeper, such as shall pander to a perverted--most abominably perverted--public taste. Man is made for progress, and it is high time the public standard were raised in regard to food and cookery.

Although grains and fruits are the natural food of man, yet there are a variety of shapes in which the grains or farinacea may be presented to us; and there are a few substances fit for food which do not properly belong to either of these classes. I shall treat first of the different kinds of food prepared from grain or farinaceous substances; secondly, of fruits; thirdly, of roots; and fourthly, speak of a few articles that do not properly belong to any of the three.

While, therefore, as will be seen by the remarks already made, I have many things to say that the community cannot yet bear, it need not escape the observation of the most careless reader, that I aim at nothing less than an entire ultimate subversion of the present system of cookery, believing it to be utterly at war with the laws of God, and of man's whole nature.

CLASS I.--FARINACEOUS, OR MEALY SUBSTANCES.

The principal of these are wheat, oats, Indian corn, rice, rye, barley, buckwheat, millet, chestnuts, peas, beans, and lentils. They are prepared in various forms.

DIVISION I.--BREAD.

The true idea of bread is that coarse or cracked and unbolted meal, formed into a mass of dough by means of water, and immediately baked in loaves of greater or less thickness, according to the fancy.

Some use bolted meal; most raise bread by fermentation; many use salt; some saleratus, or carbonate of potash; and, in the country, many use milk instead of water to form the paste. I might also mention several other additions, which, like saleratus, it is becoming fashionable to make.

All these things are a departure, greater or less, from the true idea of a bread; and bread made with any of these changes, is so much the less perfectly adapted to the promotion of health, happiness, and longevity.

Bolting is objectionable, because bread made from bolted meal, especially when eaten hot, is more apt, when the digestive powers are not very vigorous, to form a paste, which none but very strong stomachs can entirely overcome. Besides, it takes out a part of the sweetness, or life, as it is termed, of the flour. They who say fine flour bread is sweetest, are led into this mistake by the force of habit, and by the fact that the latter comes in contact, more readily than coarse bread, with the papillæ of the tongue, and seems to have more taste to it because it touches at more points.

Raising bread by inducing fermentation, wastes a part of the saccharine matter; and the more it is raised, the greater is the waste. By lessening the attraction of cohesion, it makes it more easy of digestion, it is true; but the loss of nutriment and of pleasure to the true appetite more than counterbalances this. Bakers, in striving to get a large loaf, rob the bread of most of its sweetness.

Salt is objectionable, because it hardens the bread, and renders it more difficult of digestion. Our ancestors, in this country, did not use it at all; and many are the families that will not use it now.

Those who use salt in bread, tell us how _flat_ it would taste without it. This idea of flatness has two sources. 1. We have so long given our bread the taste of salt, as we have most other things, that it seems tasteless without it. 2. The flatness spoken of in an article of food is oftentimes the true taste of the article, unaltered by any stimulus. If any two articles need to be stimulated with salt, however, it is rice and beans--bread never.

If saleratus is used in bread where no acidity is present, it is a medicine; or, if you please, a poison both to the stomach and intestines. If it meets and neutralizes an acid either in the bread-tray or the stomach, the residuum is a new chemical compound diffused through the bread, which is more or less injurious, according to its nature and quantity.

Milk is objectionable on the score of its tendency to render the bread more indigestible than when it was wet with water, and perhaps by rendering it too nutritious. For good bread without the milk is already too nutritious for health, if eaten exclusively, for a long time. That man should not live on bread alone, is as true physically as it is morally.

No bread should be eaten while new and hot--though the finer it is, the worse for health when thus eaten. Old bread, heated again, is less hurtful. But if eaten both new and hot, and with butter or milk, or any thing which soaks and fills it, the effect is very bad. Mrs. Howland, in her Economical Housekeeper, says much about _ripe_ bread. And I should be glad to say as much, had I room, about ripe bread, and about the true philosophy of bread and bread-making, as she has.

SECTION A.--_Bread of the first order._

This is made of coarse meal--as coarse as it can well be ground, provided the kernels are all broken. The grain should be well washed, and it may be ground in the common way, or according to the oriental mode, in hand-mills. The latter mode is preferable, because you can thus have it fresh. Meal is somewhat injured by being kept long ground.

If great pains is not taken to have the grain clean when ground, it needs to be passed through a coarse sieve, that all foreign bodies may be carefully separated. The hulls of corn, and especially the husks of oats and buckwheat, should also be separated in some way. In no case, however, should meal be bolted. Good health requires that we eat the innutritious and coarser parts as well as the finer.

RECEIPT 1.--Take a sufficient quantity of good, recent wheat meal;[25] wet it well, but not too soft, with pure water; form it into thin cakes, and bake it as hard as the teeth will bear. Remember, however, that the saliva aids the teeth greatly, especially when you masticate your food slowly. The cakes should be very thin--the thinner the better. Many, however, prefer them an inch thick, or even more.

RECEIPT 2.--Oat meal prepared in the same manner. Procure what is called the Scotch kiln dried oat meal, if you can. No matter if it is manufactured in New England, if it is well done.

RECEIPT 3.--Indian meal cakes, otherwise called hoe cakes, or Johnny cakes, are next in point of value to bread made of wheat and oats. They are most healthy, however, in cold weather.

RECEIPT 4.--Rye cakes come next. Warm instead of cold water is often used to wet all the above. Some even choose to scald the meal. Fancy may be indulged in this particular, only you must remember that warm water in warm weather may soon give rise, if the mass stands long, to a degree of fermentation, which, for the best bread, should be avoided.

RECEIPT 5.--Barley meal bread comes next in order in the unleavened series. In regard to this species of bread, however, I do not speak from experience, but from report.

RECEIPT 6.--Of millet bread I know still less. Cakes made of it, as above, must certainly be wholesome.

RECEIPT 7.--Buckwheat cakes are last in the series of the best breads. The meal is always too fine, and hence makes heavy bread, except when hot. Few use it without fermentation.

Unleavened bread may be made as above, of all the various kinds of grain, finely ground; but it is apt to be heavy, whereas, when made properly, of coarse meal, it is only firm, never heavy; that is, it never has a lead-like appearance. They may make and use it who have iron stomachs.

SECTION B.--_Bread of the second order._

This consists essentially of mixtures of the various coarse meals. True it is, that made or mixed food is objectionable; but the union of one farinaceous substance with another to form bread, can hardly be considered a mixture. It is, essentially, the addition of farina to farina, with some change in the proportion of the gluten and other properties.

RECEIPT 1.--Wheat meal and Indian, in about the proportion of two parts of wheat to one of Indian.

RECEIPT 2.--Wheat meal and oat meal, about equal parts.

RECEIPT 3.--Wheat meal and Indian, equal parts.

RECEIPT 4.--Wheat meal and rye meal; two parts, quarts, or pounds of the former to one of the latter.

RECEIPT 5.--Rye and Indian, equal parts of each.

RECEIPT 6.--Rye, two thirds; Indian, one third.

RECEIPT 7.--Wheat meal and rice. Three quarts of wheat meal to one pint of good clean rice, boiled till it is soft.

RECEIPT 8.--Three parts of wheat meal to one of Indian.

RECEIPT 9.--Four parts of wheat to one of Indian.

The proportion of the ingredients above may be varied to a great extent. I have inserted some of the best. The following are _irregulars_, but may as well be mentioned here as any where.

RECEIPT 10.--Two quarts of wheat meal to one pound of well boiled ripe beans, made soft by pounding or otherwise.

RECEIPT 11.--Seven pounds of wheat meal and two and a half pounds of good, mealy, and well boiled and pounded potatoes.

RECEIPT 12.--Equal parts of coarse meal from rye, barley, and buckwheat. This is chiefly used in Westphalia.

RECEIPT 13.--Seven parts of wheat meal (as in Receipt 11), with two pounds of split peas boiled to a soup, and used to wet the flour.

RECEIPT 14.--Wheat meal and apples, in the proportion of about three of the former (some use two) to one of the latter. The apples must be first pared and cored, and stewed or baked. See my "Young Housekeeper," seventh edition, page 396.

RECEIPT 15.--Wheat meal and boiled chestnuts; three quarts of the former to one of the latter.

RECEIPT 16.--Wheat meal, four quarts, and one quart of well boiled and pounded marrow squash.

RECEIPT 17.--Wheat, corn, or barley meal; three quarts to one quart of powdered comfrey root. This is inserted from the testimony of Rev. E. Rich, of Troy, N. H.

RECEIPT 18.--Wheat meal, three pounds, to one pound of pounded corn, boiled and pounded green. This is the most doubtful form which has yet been mentioned.

RECEIPT 19.--Receipt 7 describes rice bread. Bell, in his work on Diet and Regimen, says the best and most economical rice bread is made thus: Wheat meal, three pounds; rice, well boiled, one pound--wet with the water in which the rice is boiled.

I wish to say here, once for all, that any kind of bread may be salted, if you will _have_ salt, except the patented bread mentioned in the beginning of the next section, which is salted in the process. Molasses in small quantity may also be added, if preferred.