You may make houses
enchantingly beautiful, hang them with pictures, have them clean and
airy and convenient; but if the stomach is fed with sour bread and
burnt meats, it will raise such rebellions that the eyes will see no
beauty anywhere. The abundance of splendid material we have in America
is in great contrast with the style of cooking most prevalent in our
country. How often, in journeys, do we sit down to tables loaded with
material, originally of the very best kind, winch has been so spoiled
in the treatment that there is really nothing to eat! Green biscuits
with acrid spots of alkali; sour yeast-bread; meat slowly simmered in
fat till it seemed like grease itself, and slowly congealing in cold
grease; and above all, that unpardonable enormity, strong butter! How
one longs to show people what might have been done with the raw material
out of which all these monstrosities were concocted!
There is no country where an ample, well-furnished table is more easily
spread, and for that reason, perhaps, none where the bounties of
Providence are more generally neglected. Considering that our resources
are greater than those of any other civilized people, our results are
comparatively poorer.
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