Food and drink

“ Good food, varied food, well-cooked food, with drink also varied and pure, and the best that can be made, make our public meals a daily joy. We have learned to make all kinds of wine from the grapes in our hot-houses. It is so abundant that every day, all the year round, the People may call for a ration of what they please. ”

“ Infants need little drink. Adults, even, generally drink to cool themselves. Simple water the best drink. Opinions of Dr. Oliver and Dr. Dewees. Animal food increases thirst. Only one real drink in the world. The true object of all drink. Tea, coffee, chocolate, beer, &c. Milk and water, molasses and water, &c. Cider, wine, and ardent spirits. Bad food and drink the most prolific sources of disease. Children naturally prefer water. Danger of hot drinks. Cold drinks. Mischief they produce. ”

“ On the same theory we boil our water, which is our only drink, before we suffer it to come to table. Our children are perfect little Pythagoreans: it would do you good to see them in their nursery, stuffing their dried fruits, figs, raisins, and milk, which is the only approach to animal food which is allowed. ”

“ Prepare your breakfast something like they do in England, bread and butter, a little cheese, a few eggs, food that is light and nutritious, and which does not require so much labor in cooking; and instead of tea, if you cannot drink cold water, make a bowl of water gruel or meal porridge and you will save dirtying three or four dishes, knives and forks, or spoons, to each individual that sits at the table. ”

“ A pan, after being buttered or greased, is dusted with flour, sugar, or even bread-crumbs, to prevent the mixture that is put in it from sticking. Sugar, etc., may also be sprinkled over dishes with a dredger.
DRINKING.
When weary, or cold, or warm, or exhausted, we drink in preference to eating, because we feel the effect instantaneously; while after eating even the most substantial food, we do not feel the effect for some time.
When exhausted and when immediate relief is necessary, the best drinks are broth, chocolate, milk, or water sweetened with sugar. ”

“ one should always drink some kind of fermented liquor with one's food--and especially deeply upon great feast-days; one should go on the water from time to time; ”

“ Chilian meals in no way resemble ours. Among us people drink while eating, in order to facilitate the absorption and digestion of the food; but in America it is quite different—there people eat without drinking. ”

“ Beer, cider, and other family liquors, should be of such strength as to keep till they are ripe, and then they should be used. Persons of a weak and relaxed habit should avoid every thing hard of digestion: their diet requires to be light and nourishing, and they should take sufficient exercise in the open air. Those who abound with blood, should abstain from rich wines and highly nourishing food, and live chiefly on vegetables. Corpulent persons ought frequently to use radish, garlic, or such things as promote perspiration. Their drink should be tea, coffee, or the like ”

“ Choice of the following menus:
[Pg 1116]
Drink one or two glasses of water at each of these meals.
If the breakfast has not digested well, the noon meal should be very light. Bran gems or plain wheat bran may be eaten at each meal until the liver is performing its normal functions.
[Pg 1117]
SUMMER MENU
FOR A SCHOOL TEACHER
ANEMIA—SLUGGISH LIVER—UNDERWEIGHT
NERVOUSNESS
A liberal quantity of water should be drunk at each of these meals. ”

“ Drinking has indeed been sung, but why, I have heard it asked, have we no ‘Eating Songs’?—for eating is, surely, a fine pleasure. Many practise it already, and it is becoming more general every day. I speak not of the finicking joy of the gourmet, but the joy of an honest appetite in ecstasy, the elemental joy of absorbing quantities of fresh, simple food—mere roast lamb, new potatoes, and peas of living green. ”

“ For diet, the vegetarian and farinaceous system is recommended. For drink, water, which should also be applied freely and frequently outside, while intoxicating liquors, tea, coffee, etc., are best left alone. ”

“ Wines we have of grapes, and drinks of other juice, of fruits, of grains, and of roots; and of mixtures with honey, sugar, manna, and fruits dried and decocted; also of the tears and woundings of trees, and of the pulp of canes: and these drinks are of several ages, some to the age at least of forty years. We have drinks also brewed of several herbs or roots, and spices, yea, with several fleshes and wine-meats, whereof some of the drinks are such as they are in effect meat and drink both. So that divers, especially in age, do desire to live with them, with little or no meat or bread ”

“ Abstinence from wine—alcoholic stimulants, we would say at present—and from all animal food is the keystone of the Pythagorean system, which also denounced the shedding of blood, and recommended the use of "food which needs no cooking"—fruit, nuts, honey, milk, and the like. ”

“ We will take sauces, we will drink wine, we will drink beer, we will eat pie-crust, we will eat indescribable productions—we will take celery, and cheese, and ale—we will take liqueur—we will take wine and olives and more wine, and oranges and almonds, and any thing else that may present itself, and we will call all that our dinner, and for such the stomach shall accept it. We will eat more than we need, but will compel an appetite. Art against Appetite forever. ”

“ Fifty years ago, in this country, in England, and on the continent of Europe, farm laborers and servants living in the house, expected so many pints or quarts of ale or beer a day, as part of their regular food rations, just as they now would expect milk or tea or coffee. ”

“ They eat more slowly, are more graceful in their deportment at table, and seem to enjoy their meals as a feast, rather than to devour them as a necessary repast. Wine is their principal drink, morning, noon and night ”

“ Beer, for example, can never do what is required of water, nor can wine, or any other alcoholic drink. Tea added to the water also alters its quality. The water alone, and as nearly perfect in purity as it can be got, is the only thing which will do the necessary work. ”

“ I could eat—let me see what I could eat:—I could eat a lobster-salad, and two dozen oysters, and a lump of cake, and a wing and a leg of a chicken—if it was a spring chicken, with watercreases round it—and a Bath-bun, and a sandwich; and in fact I don't know what I couldn't eat, except just that crust in the cupboard. And I do believe I could drink a whole bottle of champagne. ”

“ Water. Salt. Lime.
Perhaps some of you noticed that we had no wine, beer, nor any drink that had alcohol in it, on our bill of fare for dinner. We had no cigars, either, to be smoked after dinner. If these are good things, we ought to have had them. Why did we leave them out?
We should eat in order to grow strong and keep strong. ”

“ But cold water, cold sweet milk, lemonade, and cider fresh from the press, are agreeable to every undepraved palate, and of these and similar beverages we might drink our fill on the hottest day, without any fear of having to repent the gratification of a natural appetite. ”

“ From the soup to the desert, they are not one moment idle: they eat of every thing on the table, and drink in due proportion. Not that I would by any means insinuate that they drink more than is necessary or proper. ”

“ To-day, for instance, I’ll tell you what our food was. Breakfast: good oatmeal with boiled milk and sugar, coffee, war bread, which one of the group toasted before the fire for our table, “bacon” the eternal, which is fried ham, and not very good. Lunch: a kind of meat loaf, rice, with cheese (which we have about every other day) , bread and butter, cocoa, and stewed figs, stewed without sugar. ”

“ Drink no unboiled water except that from deep wells or rain-water; maintain careful and moderate diet, active habits, but avoiding extreme exertions and excitements; a very sparing use of alcoholic drinks, preferably taken with the regular meals, is admissible. ”

“ A succession of flavours leads subtly and cumulatively to a gastronomic climax, drinks are not absorbed with blithe impartiality, but run a faultless scale of stimulation and form a fitting accompaniment to the progressive harmony of the food. ”

“ The drinking should be confined to tea, coffee or water, and never should be taken at mealtime, nor within one hour of a meal. This is peremptory, for food will produce fat much quicker and surer when watered by some good beverage. ”

“ We drink the queen, and the army, and the ladies, and everybody else that is drinkable; and I believe if the supply ran short we should drink our mothers-in-law.
By the way, we never eat anybody’s health, always drink it. Why should we not stand up now and then and eat a tart to somebody’s success? ”

“ It is allowed by all that milk, and the juices of fruits, when taken into the stomach, furnish water that is always pure, and that our bread and vegetable food also supply it in large quantities. There are besides a great variety of agreeable and healthful beverages, made from the juices of fruit, containing no alcohol; and agreeable drinks, such as milk, cocoa, and chocolate, that contain no stimulating principles, and which are nourishing and healthful. ”

“ A. No; it is not. Wine is very hurtful to the health, the intellects, and the happiness of man.
Q. Wine as a medical potion, comforts the sick, and strengthens the weak; but does it afford any real strength or nourishment to the healthy?
A. No: it only over-heats, without procuring real strength; for it cannot be converted into good blood, flesh, or bone.
Q. Does wine contribute to the digestion of our meals?
A. No; it does not. Those that drink water eat with a better appetite, and digest better, than those that drink wine. ”

“ Now-a-days, Babies are brought to table after Dinner by Children of larger growth—to drink Wine,—which has as bad an effect on their tender susceptible stomachs, as the like quantity of Alcohol would produce upon an Adult. ”

“ A cup of coffee with breakfast, and a cup of tea with supper, serve as a mild stimulant for an adult, and form a valuable food adjunct, but should never be found in the dietary of a child or dyspeptic. ”

“ Food became my favorite mind-game as my stomach gradually healed. We pursued the canteen route quite frequently throughout the day, and each time I would gaze at the treats, yearning for a taste of something. ”

“ Shivering and but half awake, one swallows a weird sequence of food, made bearable only by the hot tea with which it is washed down. Only the entreaties of my guides ever make me attempt to eat in the early morning hours. ”

“ The slow mastication of a meal in the presence of cheerful company is said to promote healthy digestion—moreover, custom and habit make even the most incongruous things acceptable, therefore the display of tables, crowded with food-stuffs and surrounded by eating, drinking, chattering and perspiring men and women, does not affect us to any sense of the ridiculous or the unseemly. ”

“ She has a good appetite, drinks tea and coffee moderately and eats always the simplest food, cereals, bread and butter, vegetables, eggs, milk, a little meat once a day, plenty of fruit at every meal, whatever is in season, and never can be tempted by rich salads, desserts or fancy dishes. ”

“ The Vehicles which it is to be mixt with, and to be taken in, are Wine, Ale, the warm Broath of Flesh, Syrups, Conserves of Roses, fresh Butter, roasted Apples, and such like. Neither is it amiss to make a light Supper, and feed upon easily digestable Food, and which may make the Stomach more apt and fit for purging, the night afore you are to take the Medicine the next morning: And those are Prunes, Raysons, and other such like Food, as by their laxative property make the tough and viscous humours slippery and softer ”

“ To the simplicity of their cooking corresponds the still greater simplicity of their drinks which are—of the singular number.
[118] The inhabitants of the forest drink nothing but water but this they require clear and fresh. Should it not be perfectly pure in colour and taste they will not drink it. They always seek a spring to satisfy their thirst and supply their families with the necessary liquid. ”

“ They must drink something—some kind of liquid—to make up the quantity of water that is absolutely required by the system in the course of twenty-four hours. Some persons take it in the form of tea and coffee; others drink beer and wine ”

“ Living on cereals, vegetables, and fruits, and abstaining from alcoholic drinks, the same persons would probably enjoy the temperature, and be free from the thirst which is the natural result of consuming needlessly heating food.—Sir Henry Thompson. ”

“ At breakfast one should drink little; supper should be taken an hour before sunset, when more may be drunk than in the morning. Clear light wine, mixed with a fifth or six part of water, should be used as a beverage. Dried or fresh fruits, with wine, are not injurious, but highly so without it. ”

“ Pure air and the restfulness of order are favourable and refining to appetite.
To allow fruit or any kind of food to stand in the dining room is a poor custom. Such things attract flies, create an odour of food in the room, and encourage the indulgent habit of eating bits now and then between meals. ”

“ When food is well prepared it delights the eye, it intoxicates the nose, it pleases the tongue, it stimulates the appetite, and prolongs the healthy craving which it finally satisfies, even as the song of the mother charms the child which it gradually composes for slumber. ”

“ We must save every pound of bread we can to get over our critical weeks—not by saving the quartern loaf that beer is taking every month from every British cupboard now, but by going hungry so that drinkers may not thirst. ”

“ Reflecting on this subject, I have been struck with a curious fact that has hitherto escaped notice, viz. that in the country which over all others combines a very large population with a very small allowance of cleanliness, the ordinary drink of the people is boiled water, flavoured by an infusion of leaves. ”