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Article ENGLISH DIET IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Page 1 of 5 →
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English Diet In The Seventeenth Century.
ENGLISH DIET IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY .
How differently do men conjugate the verb—to dine ! Indeed , so variously and with such a contrast of voluptuousness and squalor , that a vast proportion of the human race can hardly be considered dining animals : they get meals , but dinners they know not . The poor actor who , in Gil Bias , softens his crusts in the fountain , only eats ; Quin dines . When the vicar prays for daily bread , says the caustic Mandevillehe includes in that things unthought of by his
, prayer many clerk ; when Alderman Bottlenose , laying his hand upon his abdomen , speaks of a dinner past or to come , does he allude to a meal made necessary by the infirmity of his nature , or to a glory comprising in it the highest triumphs and the noblest ingenuity of his kind ? The cook is the only chronicler of civilization—the true history of the advancement of the species is to be written in the kitchen ! Thomas Muffett , a doctor in physic , who flourished in the seventeenth
century , enriching his generation with a small golden quarto ( now rare as Phoenix ) called Health ' s Improvement , ' " was the Kitchener to our ancestors-the oracle of the buttery for 1655 . In the present essay , we propose to make certain extracts fro m the invaluable tome , which shall carry back the reader to the penetralia of his forefathers , namely , to their dining parlours ; and shall by painting the stomachs of a by-gone centurymake him deeplgrateful for the kitchen of his own .
, more y AVhen Gibbon records his gratitude for that his lot was cast in a civilized land , he had , we doubt not , inward shudderings at blubber and whaleoil : he might have been born a Greenlander . To begin with Doctor Muffett , and passing his profound labours on diet in the abstract—to
come to ... Pie!—It is , we think , not one of the least delig htful signs of growing intelligence , that Pig—Roast Pig , has outlived the ignominy heaped upon it in the seventeenth century , ancl now cometh sweetly " recommended to our senses , " a dish for the gods . In the days of Muffett , Pig was evidently a felon : hear the doctor on the sins ofthe offender . — " Indeed it p . e . Pig , ~\ is sweet , luscious , and p leasant to wantons , and earnestldesired of distempered stomachs—but it is the mother of
y many mischiefs , ancl was the bane of mine own mother ! A sucking-pig ' s flesh is the moistest flesh simply of all others , engendering crudities , palsies , agues , gouts , apoplexies , and the stone . " Pig , moreover , " weakens the memory , " and , adds the doctor , " the younger they are , the worse they are ! " The ill word of the doctor , nevertheless admits of answer ; a pig , having been the " bane" of his mother , his filial affection , rather than his judgment sentence infant porkarraigning it of
, may pass upon , mortal mischief's : hence , we will not suffer Purpleton , the three bottle banker , to put off his gout upon the weak shoulder of a nursling of the sty—nor forgive the ingratitude , that is , the " weakness of memory , " of an obliged friend , on the shuffling score that he has of late dined very
often upon pig . BRAWN !—The doctor hath , we think , a tooth for brawn : the followin" - lesson seems dictated from the very bottom of his stomach . He
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
English Diet In The Seventeenth Century.
ENGLISH DIET IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY .
How differently do men conjugate the verb—to dine ! Indeed , so variously and with such a contrast of voluptuousness and squalor , that a vast proportion of the human race can hardly be considered dining animals : they get meals , but dinners they know not . The poor actor who , in Gil Bias , softens his crusts in the fountain , only eats ; Quin dines . When the vicar prays for daily bread , says the caustic Mandevillehe includes in that things unthought of by his
, prayer many clerk ; when Alderman Bottlenose , laying his hand upon his abdomen , speaks of a dinner past or to come , does he allude to a meal made necessary by the infirmity of his nature , or to a glory comprising in it the highest triumphs and the noblest ingenuity of his kind ? The cook is the only chronicler of civilization—the true history of the advancement of the species is to be written in the kitchen ! Thomas Muffett , a doctor in physic , who flourished in the seventeenth
century , enriching his generation with a small golden quarto ( now rare as Phoenix ) called Health ' s Improvement , ' " was the Kitchener to our ancestors-the oracle of the buttery for 1655 . In the present essay , we propose to make certain extracts fro m the invaluable tome , which shall carry back the reader to the penetralia of his forefathers , namely , to their dining parlours ; and shall by painting the stomachs of a by-gone centurymake him deeplgrateful for the kitchen of his own .
, more y AVhen Gibbon records his gratitude for that his lot was cast in a civilized land , he had , we doubt not , inward shudderings at blubber and whaleoil : he might have been born a Greenlander . To begin with Doctor Muffett , and passing his profound labours on diet in the abstract—to
come to ... Pie!—It is , we think , not one of the least delig htful signs of growing intelligence , that Pig—Roast Pig , has outlived the ignominy heaped upon it in the seventeenth century , ancl now cometh sweetly " recommended to our senses , " a dish for the gods . In the days of Muffett , Pig was evidently a felon : hear the doctor on the sins ofthe offender . — " Indeed it p . e . Pig , ~\ is sweet , luscious , and p leasant to wantons , and earnestldesired of distempered stomachs—but it is the mother of
y many mischiefs , ancl was the bane of mine own mother ! A sucking-pig ' s flesh is the moistest flesh simply of all others , engendering crudities , palsies , agues , gouts , apoplexies , and the stone . " Pig , moreover , " weakens the memory , " and , adds the doctor , " the younger they are , the worse they are ! " The ill word of the doctor , nevertheless admits of answer ; a pig , having been the " bane" of his mother , his filial affection , rather than his judgment sentence infant porkarraigning it of
, may pass upon , mortal mischief's : hence , we will not suffer Purpleton , the three bottle banker , to put off his gout upon the weak shoulder of a nursling of the sty—nor forgive the ingratitude , that is , the " weakness of memory , " of an obliged friend , on the shuffling score that he has of late dined very
often upon pig . BRAWN !—The doctor hath , we think , a tooth for brawn : the followin" - lesson seems dictated from the very bottom of his stomach . He