36

BROTHS AND SOUPS.

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and, when that is the case, there is no plant more productive.This the Germans know well, and make it into saur kraut, oneof the best antidotes against the scurvy with which we are ac-quainted.

This kind of diet not only saves bread but drink. The labourerwho lives on hasty-pudding and soups, seldom has occasion fordrink ; while he who is burnt up with dry bread and cheese,or salt meat boiled, has a continual thirst, and spends the greaterpart of his earnings in liquor. This, by acting as a powerful stim-ulus, may make him do more work for some time, but it generallycuts him off in the middle of his days. The English labourer,who works hard and drinks hard, seldom lives long, and is an oldman when he should be in his prime.

The roasting of meat is a wasteful mode of cookery, whichought to be avoided by the poorer sort of people, as much of thesubstance, and the most ntitritive parts, are lost by scorching andwhat flies oft* by evaporation.

I know it will be said, that I recommend slops in place of solidfood. They are such slops, however, as the greatest heroes ofantiquity lived upon ; and though I have visited most parts of theisland, I know of no better men than those who live in the mannerdescribed above, nor are the people any where more healthy, orlonger lived.

Broth is not only a dish of great antiquity, but one that can bemade in a great variety of ways. It receives into its compositioianimal and vegetable substances of every .kind that are used ildiet, and it may be seasoned so as to suit every palate. Indeedpeople early accustomed to eat broths properly made, are generally fond of them for their whole lives.

It would be difficult to assign a reason why the inhabitants ofSouth Britain should di?Uke a dish so much relished by othernations. Custom, no doubt, settles all these things ; but how cus-toms arise, is not so clear a matter. If an alteration in diet is tobe introduced with effect, it must begin with children. Whatevermen are accustomed to eat when young, they generally prefer forthe rest ofthsir lives. Were the children in South Britain taughtto eat hasty-pudding, with milk, for breakfast and supper, andbroth, with vegetables and meat boiled in it, for dinner, theywould relish these dishes as long as they lived, would find littleoccasion for bread, and still less for drink ; and would thrive betterthan on their present food.

What parents love themselves, they generally give to their chil-dren, without any regard to its being proper for them or not. Ihave seen a father, who was fond of strong beer, make his son, aninfant, guzzle it at every meal ; and the mother, who delights intea, does not fail to give it to her daughter whenever she takes itherself. By this conduct the son becomes a tippler, and thedaughter sips tea in place of solid food, until she is eaten up withrapours and other nervous disorders.

Count Rumford says, brown soup is the common breakfast ofthe Bavarian peasants, to which they occasionally add bread.This he avers is infinitely preferable in all respects to that perni-cious wash, tea, with which the lower classes of the inhabitants of