No milk should be put upon the table which has not been boiled. Boiling kills all bacteria; it therefore kills the germs of typhoid fever and tuberculosis which are very commonly found in milk. Indeed, milk is one of the commonest agents by which these two diseases are spread. There are numerous milk boilers in the market, notably those of earthenware with holes in the lid, through which the milk can flow to and fro when in the act of boiling.
What will you take to eat? But in the first place it is no good sitting down to eat solids unless you have good teeth. Bad teeth and absence of teeth are two of the commonest causes of indigestion.
Decayed teeth cause indigestion, because they swarm with germs which secrete poisons which are swallowed with the food and irritate the stomach.
Absence of teeth is the commonest of all causes of lifelong dyspepsia, and the first step in the treatment of any form of long-continued indigestion should be a visit to the dentist.
Also it is no good having sound teeth unless you use them. Teeth were given to you to chew with, and you must chew every morsel of food, and chew it well, giving at least twenty “grinds” to each mouthful.
It is bolting food which causes so much indigestion. It is bolting which causes so many persons to eat too much, and it is bolting which has rendered the go-ahead Yankee the proverbial martyr to dyspepsia.
If you eat slowly, and thoroughly masticate your food, you will lose your appetite when you have eaten enough, and so you will not eat too much without knowing it. But if you shovel in your food like pitching bricks into a cart, the stomach is nonplussed, and you may go on eating and still be hungry long after you have taken sufficient food; and you will not know that you have eaten too much until your unfortunate stomach attempts to digest its contents.
Now back again to our menu. Eggs and bacon is perhaps the commonest breakfast dish in England. And a thoroughly good and wholesome dish it is, too, if properly cooked. Of course if the eggs are stale and the bacon is half raw and swimming in grease, it is indigestible; but properly cooked fresh eggs—preferably poached and underdone—and crisp grilled bacon is a very digestible food. It is curious that although pork is one of the most indigestible of meats, bacon is tolerated by the most delicate and disordered stomachs.
Fried fish is another excellent breakfast dish. Whiting, soles and plaice are the three most digestible of fried fish. Herrings and eels are bilious and difficult to digest.
Hot rolls and butter are proverbially indigestible. But our close wool-like bread is far more difficult to digest than the light, more glutinous bâtons of the French breakfast. Indeed, these light rolls, consisting of little more than holes stuck together, are not so very indigestible. Why we cannot get them in England we do not know.