The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1879-10-14
WHAT SHALL WE EATl

The matter of drink appears to have
occupied the public mind for a good
many years and to have supplied en-
plovment for vast number of eloquent
gentlemen in the way of lecturing tours
from Father Matthew and through down,
but the question of food for the human
family has been generally left to regulate
itself Each nation suits the fancy or
convenience of its own people and the
national dishes are to great extent the
ones that the national cooks find it the
most economical or little troublesome to
supply Your Asiatic if he has his rice
is happy; your Esquimaux declares his
whale blubber the perfection of toothsome
delicacies; your Scotchman would
never contrive to exist without his oat
meal, nor your Irishman deprived of his
potatoes; while an Englishman would
blow up his island with nitro-glycerine if
the supply of roast beef were to fail him.
An Italian thinks macaroni dish for
the gods, and Frenchman would permit
himself to he fished out of the Seine and
sent to the Morgue tomorrow if the soup
that his soul delights in were to fail of
making its accustomed appearance at his
dejeuner. Your German is suspected of
a lickersome taste for sauer kraut, and
the Spaniard for his ola podrida, hot
enough with cayenne to burn mans in
ternal economy with fires unquenchable.
The Indian of the western plains will
serve you an omelette of grasshoppers,
and despise your uneducated taste for
rejecting the tempting delicacy. We
might go on enumerating the prejudices
and predictions of the different peoples
of the earth for the various productions
thereof, but it will be generally seen that
the food of majority of men is the pro-
duct of the region in which they reside,
that is most easily obtained, and that the
fondness acquired by use renders it the
favorite staple Of their lives. The eli
mate hasit is true, much to do, since the
Indian or Chinese would not be able to
exist upon the train oil or blubber that
your Laplander or Esquimaux delights
in and grows fat upon, nor would the
latter pass winter alive if confined to the
rice that is suited to the hot East Indian
climate. The potato hourishes amid the
bogs of Ireland, and the oat upon the
Scottish highland. 1t is, therefore, but
natural that they form, in large part, the
food of the people. And the cattle and
beef of England are, perhaps, the perfec
ton of their kind in the civilized world
what wonder, therefore, that the sturdy
Briton delights in joint and sirloin, anc
that the typical roast beef is the nationa
dish of the Englishman? That the Jew
whose home is in Palestine. should des
pise pork, that ought by right to be only
bred in cool latitude to be wholesome
is not surprising, and that it should hav'
been incorporated into their religious
creeds as unclean is but natural resul
of the knowledge of its EMBELLISHMENTS
that early influenced the religious teach
ings of her priests and rabbis.
But Americans as nation have no pc
culiarly national dish. All countrie
meet and fraternize among us, and al
dishes are made use of excepting possibly
the blubber of the Esquimaux and thu
grasshopper Of the North American
Indian. The Scotchman's oatmeal, tn,
Irishmans potato, the Englishman's roas
beef, the soup of the Frenchman ant
even his frogs, the macaroni of the Ital
ian and the rice and cayenne of the Asi
attic and of the Spaniard, the sauer krau
of the Teuton, all have their advocate
and admirers among American citizens
both native and foreign born. While il
the matter of drinks But we will no
discuss the matter of American drink
until our readers shall have had time t,
digest the question that heads this articl
of "What Shall We Eat%