Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1886 — Pleasures of the Table. [ARTICLE]

Pleasures of the Table.

Wonderfully various are the means men have devised for preparing their food to make it easy of digestion, pleasant of taste. In these they ha>e been guided by instinct, and not infrequently enlightened by knowledge, climate, modes of life, tastes. Prejudices di ti er. i Men, and some women, weaken the di- ! destive machinery by self-indulgence ’ and indolence; it therefore needs to I be stimulated into activity by condiments, by high flavors, and by mental : exhilaration. The stimulus of festal I excitement, the merry laugh and good I talk of a well-served dinner, spur the indolent organs of digestion and enable • men to master food which, if eaten in solitude, silence, or sorrow, would produce indigestion and suicidal ideas. Food seems a very simple thing until a j long experience has taught us its com- ' thing till science reveals its metamorphoses in the way of cooking, as with thq Romans, for example, who began with pulse, bread, fruit, vegetables, a few meats, wine, and water; then followed beer. Then followed next, when they became such gourmets as the world has not seen since, the search for rarities —the livers and tongues of nightingales, brains of flamingoes, the tender portions of peacocks, wild boar, blackbirds, oysters, deer, hares, and ingenious modes of pastry. For a feast of Heliegabalus, in a single dish were the brains of 600 ostriches. The Roman gourmands were fond of young and well-fed puppies. Apicius left ten books of recipes.— New York Post.