Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1878-07-16
Summer Diet.

1t has frequently been said of us as
people, says the Baltimore Sun, that we
are nation of dyspeptics. and although
this, taken in its broadest sense, is an
exaggeration, there is nevertheless IA
good deal of truth in the saying. We
cook badly, and living in climate that
is semi-tropical in summer and semi
nation in our diet. We are the grossest
of meat eaters when we should live
lightly and take especial care that good
digestion waited on appetite. The
Frenchman is rarely dyspeptic, and
why? Because he cooks his food scien-
tifically, eats of various light dishes,
and never too much of any one thing.
We glory in great substantial joints !;
he glories in stews and savory messes.-
He deals with his materials as a painter
with his colors, SO placing them as to
produce the highest harmonies. When
Soyer. at the call of the English govern
ment, left his London club and intro
duced into the army before Sebastopol
his travelling kitchens, and showed the
soldiers how to turn the commOnest
things to use, he threw a halo over mess
pork and hard tack, revoiutionizIng, as
it were, their natures into things coarse
enough to look on, but palatable to take.
His soups, compounded of all sorts of
ingredients, were SO tOothsOme and pal
atable that the soldiers in the trenches
and in The field wondered at the trans
formation that their rations underwent.
But then Soyer was a genius, voluble
and egotistical, but proud of his art, and
never so happy as in showing out Of
what strange things he could make a
dinner for an epicure. Here in the
United States we have everything in
abundance-all the domestic meats,
game in variety, and all the treasures of
river and bay and lake and sea. But of
scientific cooking, outside of Few great
hotels. we know almost literally moth
ing. 1t is doubtful if many of our peo-
pie know the commonest principles that
govern the baking and boiling, roasting,
frying and stewiug of meats and fish,
or the cooking of vegetables. Of course
cooking goes on everywhere from day
to day, and experience teaches some
thing; but as rule it is universally ad-
mitted that our cooking il not good,
whilst our waste is enormous. Half the
ills our flesh is heir to may be traced to
bad cooking, to over taxing the diges.
tive powers, and by giving the gastric
juices half crude, half masticated things
to work upon. In the summer season
light diet should be the rule-but little
meat, vegetables well cooked, and thor
oughly ripe fruit. In India rice is the
staple article of food for more than nine
tenths OF the population, and with rea-
son, for rice is nourishing. whilst it is
not heating. Englishnien there, who |
follow the custom of their own country |
and resort to heavy meat dinners and |
the pale ale of Alsop or Bass, soon sue
cumb to the climate, and are either
forced to return home invalided, or seek |
such sanitariums as the FeilgherIy hills.
1t we would keep our digestions good |
during the heats of summer we must |
adopt in principle the India practice in
respect to tho kind of food to be eaten,
and the French practice, as far as we
may be able, in respect to the methods
of cooking it.
WAR ON THE TRAMPs.-The alarm
ing prevalence of tramps throughout
the State OF Iowa, and their high hand
handed depredations in some quarters,
has induced Gov. Gear to issue procla-
nation lnstructing the sherifs of coun-
ties, that under the statute, they have
full power to call out posse conaitatus,
or the military if necessary. He also
calls upon supervisors of counties to
obey the law and provide work with
ball and and chain for tramps when ar
ested. X