Thus, by the maxims, habits, and domestic practices and superstitions which centre in and support hospitality—not the hospitality that invites a compeer, but which confers food and raiment upon the destitute—are the inequalities of the human condition moderated; alike prevented from being greatly diverse, the balance is maintained between wealth and numbers, and the classes cemented to each other. As on the one side there can be none absolutely destitute, so can there be none excessively rich; and in all cases riches must flow in benefits around. It is a melancholy fact, that hospitality has disappeared in Christendom—not in practice only, but in every thought—and therefore are our minds a chaos, as well as our condition. Nor is there remedy. Science may be taught, but not simplicity; and duties which we have superseded by legislation, we shall presently prohibit by law.
FOOTNOTES:
[258] When eaten with buttermilk they use spoons, the place of which is here supplied by enormous mussel shells—true cochlearia. The savoury accompaniments are thus absorbed, and the ball acquires that consistency which gives to the dish its zest.
[259] “When he (the Sultan) is intent upon a piece of work, or eager to have it finished, he won’t allow himself to go to his meals, but orders some of his eunuchs or negroes to bring him a dish of kuscoussoo, which he sits down and eats after a brutish manner; for as soon as he has rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, he thrusts his arms into the dish up to his elbows, and bringing a handful from the bottom he fills his mouth, and then throws the rest into the dish again, and so on till he is satisfied.”—Account of Barbary, p. 92, 1713.
[260] They use flour, but not as bread. It is made like porridge, and eaten with milk.
[261] The effect of fermentation on food was not overlooked by the ancients. “Panis azymus, ou sans levain, Celse dit facile à dégirer: les modernes ne sont pas de cet avis.”—Note by Pankoucke to Pliny, l. xviii. c. 27.
[262] “Keep a man on brown bread and water, and he will live and enjoy good health; give him white bread and water only, and he will gradually sicken and die. The brown contains all the ingredients essential to the composition or nourishment of our bodies. Some of these are removed by the miller in his efforts to please the public. The loss by fermentation and refining taken together, is under-estimated at twenty-five per cent. 18,000,000 quarters of wheat are made into bread annually in England and Wales: the waste is, therefore, 4,500,000 quarters, or 3,357,000,000lbs. of bread, or eight ounces per day per man. This is nearly double the quantity of wheat usually imported; and amounts, at 50s. the quarter, to 11,250,000l. sterling.”—Pamphlet on Unfermented Bread.
[263] “Some of our readers may, perhaps, smile at the idea that the poor require much instruction in this art. The first and greatest difficulty with them, they say, is, that they can get very little food to cook. This is too true; but it is equally true that the little food a poor family obtains is not made the best of; and that a greater variety of wholesome, better-flavoured, and more nourishing food may be procured by an improved system of cookery, and without any additional expense. In many cases indeed, the cost would be less than by the present defective method.”—The Family Economist, p. 10.
[264] Humboldt has decided that for maize (Zea maize) the old continent is indebted to the new. If so, it would carry its own name, or receive a descriptive one. Tobacco we can trace as tobacco, or as “smoke” καχνὸς (Tutun). Potatoes by that name, or as “root apples:” not so maize. The Greeks call it Arabic Ἀραποσιτι. The Turks, Egyptian (Missir Bogda). On the Black Sea, it is Cucuruzzi. The Arabs of Egypt call it Doura Shamee, or Grain of Damascus. The Bulgarians call it Callamboki. Throughout the Indian archipelago it is known as Sagung. In one of the Egyptian tombs there is a figure holding a head of Indian corn; but this a learned writer will not admit, “because that grain was introduced into Europe from Virginia.” Is it the ksob of Negroland? the Droueu and Beshna of various parts of north Africa?—See Egyptian Antiquities, Lib. Ent. Knowledge, vol. ii. p. 30; Wilkinson, vol. i. p. 397; Crawford’s Indian Archipelago, vol. i. p. 366; Bradford’s American Antiquities, p. 418; Carette’s Algeria, vol. ii.
[265] Formerly every private soldier cooked in turn for his mess. In this respect, at all events, they preserved the temper and the tone of the heroic ages, where the chiefs did not disdain to use the spit. The revolution of February—the Labour Revolution—comes, and is followed by a new subdivision, the appointment of forty-nine cooks to every regiment.