Cooper's Clarksburg register. [volume] (Clarksburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1851-1861, 1855-08-08
What we Should Eat and Drink.


We dined lately with an American
who had just made the tour of Europe.
He was something of an epicure, but on
the old~fashioned English model. Roast
beef was his delight, port wine his delec
tation. AS he ate pound upon pound of
one, and drank glass upon glass of the
other, he expatiated on the ignorance of
the peasantry abroad, and especially on
their want of progress. "Would you be-
lieve it, he said, that 1 actually saw
wooden ploughs. Yes. sir, the same
primitive affairs that were used in the
middle ages"
The thermometer was at ninety as he
spoke the whole week had been as sui
try as the desert of Sahara. We could
not help thinking while our friend spoke,
that he was as much the victim of igno.
rance, in scme respects, as the peasantry
he denounced. II they used the rude
plough which their forefathers had en-
ployed in the dark ages, he lived on the
same diet that his ancestors had eaten in
old England. Ofthe two indeed he was
less excusable than the European peas
ant. For if the latter cultivated the same
soil as his progeuitors, without improv-
ment on their method, the former lives on
food, which, however suitable for the cli-
mate of England, was positively Injurious
here.
1t is law Of animal economy, that as
we recede from the poles, less and less
animal food is demanded for our susten-
ance, till on arrival at the tropics, an al
most wholly vegetable diet is the most
healthy. The Esquimaux, for example,
lives entirely on blubber, the BengaIee
altogether on rice. But we Americans,
with an infatuation that rises to insanity,
favor the same dishes that our Saxt0n
ancestors were accustomed to abroad.
In these respects we initiate our British
cousins who devour roast beef on the
banks of the Ganges, or drink porter on
any expedition on the Niger, who act un.
der an equatorial sun as if they were sur
rounded by London fog. Even the
lapse of two centuries has failed to
cure us Of our folly. While common
sense should teach us to chose a diet
similar 10 that of France, where the cli-
mate is hot and dry like our own. we alb
soluteIy reject light wine, and laugh at
light dishes. pronOuncing claret mere
tipple, religiously adheIing to roast beef,
and daily risking an apoplexy or fever
rather than alter one title Of our food.
Tens Of thousands consequently perish
every summer in America, over whom
the coroner's verdict should be "died Of
strong meet and drink"
1t is now the sultry season. The av-
erage difference between the temperature
of July and January is about forty de-
grees. While we melt, at present, un-
der the climate of the West Indies, six
months ago, wo froze beneath that OF
Labrador. Yet how few have altered
their diet People still drink brandy to-
quantities of meat to succumb to cholera.
The house keeper brings home daily the
orthodox amount of meat, the cook pres
pares the ordinary dozen of pies. and the
family eat these Artic dishes with as much
relish as Turk surrenders to the bow
string. Cultivated men, even men Of
superior intelligence, commit these iollies,
as did our dinner friend, as often as the
most ignorant. They violate the lawssof
life in this respect, Just like their fathers
violated them before, ip fact because their
fathers violated them. Yet, such 1ndi-
yiduals, gorging their raw meat on July
day, and washing it down with MADEIRA,
or Port, laugh at the peasant, who uses
the wooden plough. or who goes to mill
with stone on one side, and of horse
and his grist on the other. Verify. it
would be well if we would look at the
bean in our own eye, before We scruti-
nize too closely the mote in brothers..
In nothing do We Americans need
reform more than in our choice of food.
~Mr. Morebead. the Know. Nothing