Indian meal alone, baked in cakes by the fire, if eaten only in small quantities, is a very nutritious and by no means unwholesome bread. But its sweetness, and the general fondness which people who are accustomed to its use have for it, lead them to eat it in too large proportions, if they use it while it is warm. In these circumstances, it proves itself too active for the stomach and bowels. If warm, six ounces is as much as a hearty adult ought to eat of it at once; and children should of course take much less. It is less active on the bowels, and scarcely less agreeable, as soon as we become accustomed to it, if eaten when it is cold—even if baked in loaves, in the oven.
Potatoes, added to unbolted wheat flour, make excellent bread; and so, as I am informed, does rice. Of the latter, however, I have never eaten. Oats and barley, and many other grains and substances, will make bread; but it is of an inferior kind.
The question may again recur, after this extended series of remarks, whether I intend to confine the young almost exclusively to bread, in one or another of its forms. We shall see how this is, presently.
While bread, therefore, should constitute a part, at least, and sometimes the whole of a meal, a great variety of other articles are not only admissible, but desirable. Among these may be mentioned plain puddings.
One of the most wholesome puddings is made of Indian meal, enclosed in a bag and boiled. Nearly allied to this is the common hasty pudding; but the last is less wholesome, because it requires less chewing; and it ought to have been observed, before now, that after weaning, any food is digested better which has undergone the process of thorough mastication.
Boiled rice, though hardly to be regarded as a pudding, is very nutritious, and very easy of digestion. I am not without doubts, however, in regard to the utility of a large proportion of rice, as food. A dinner of it, two or three times a week, I believe to be wholesome; but used too frequently, it seems to me not active enough for the stomach and bowels; having in this respect precisely a contrary effect to that of warm Indian cakes. The common notion that rice has a tendency to make people blind, is entirely unfounded. Its worst effect is when eaten without being boiled through. In such cases, I have known it to do mischief; perhaps because it was swallowed without much chewing. Some grind it, and use the flour; but I cannot recommend it to be used in this manner.
The best pudding in the world is a loaf of bread, (What!—you will say—bread again?) three or four or five days old, boiled, or rather steamed, in milk. All kinds of bread are excellent for this purpose, but wheat and Indian are the best. They are excellent even without milk—that is, simply steamed.
Puddings made of the flour of wheat, rye, buckwheat, &c., are less wholesome than those which have been already mentioned. And all sorts of puddings are less wholesome, when eaten as hot as our unreasonable fashions require, than when their temperature is quite below that of our bodies. I would not have them so cold as to chill us, for this would be to go to the other, though less dangerous extreme; but they ought to be cool. Too much heat is an unnatural stimulus, likely to leave more or less debility behind it. In addition to this, those who eat hot food are more exposed to take cold, in consequence of it.
With none of these puddings ought we to mix any fruits, green or dried—not even raisins. Some of the more important properties of nearly every kind of fruit or berry are lost by boiling, unless we eat the water in which they are boiled, and save the vapor which would otherwise escape. I am not in favor of boiled fruit generally, especially if boiled in puddings.
Puddings, like most other kinds of food—even bread—may be slightly salted: not that this is indispensable, but because the balance of human testimony is in its favor. The argument that we evidently need salt because the other animals require it, is without much weight. The other animals do not generally require or use it.[Footnote: Some considerable savage nations use no salt, and a few have a strong aversion to it.] The cases so often triumphantly mentioned, where animals appear to thrive better from the use of it, are only exceptions to the general rule, nor are they very numerous in comparison with the whole race of animals. Still I have no objections to its moderate use. It may be useful in preventing worms; though there are doubts even of that. In large quantities, it is unquestionably hurtful.