Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1881-12-14
Food and Drink.

What is there that defies indefinite
multiplication and universal diffusion !;
that refuses to be vulgarized, to be made
spectacle, to fill shop fronts that ad-
heres TO the old laws of space and time?
1t is flavor. What is flavor? 1t is a
mystery inscrutable and impalpable, but
undeniable. 1t is sad truth that all
those vast and beneficial operations for
feeding all the world from one kitchen,
one larder and one pantry gre conducted
TINS at tue loss of flavor, more or less.
A moderately fastidious palate will at
once detect the want and take dislike
to the article in which it is found want
ing. 1t is flavor that reconciles us to
the acidity of one wine, to the luscious
ness of another: it is flavor that makes
both dry meat and greasy meat tolera-
BILE it is flavor that enables us to toler-
ate what without it is a very sickley
thing, "grape sugar"-that is, the sweet
ness of all fruits. The basis of flavor
none can pretend to say, though analogy
would suggest it may be some acid in
quantities impossible to be ascertained.
OF course it is akin to perfume, equally
if not more elusive and mysterious. The
Americans, however, as if themselves
conscious of this weak point in their
rich and nutritious contributions to the
worlds table, tell us how to meet it.
No people in the world are so ingenious
at pickles, ,relishes and condiments of all
kinds. Almost any cold meat will pass
muster with those Accomplishments,
which are rather thrown away when the
food has sufficient flavor OF its own.
Perhaps even hominy may be made pala-
table by these aids. The loudest wall
that we hear is over the disappearance
of old English ham and bacon. II no
longer answers to fattten pig for re-
moval to any distance. Five miles from
home his products meet the overwhelm
ing competition of good ''pig's meat"
sold from shipboard at Liverpool for
three pence pound. The shopkeepers
cease to keep on hand what nobody asks |
for, and the fine large ham that used to |
appear twenty times at country break
fast and lunch table. apparently mex
haustlble and good, indeed better to the
bone, is memory and no more. Its |
successor is some thing that You may or
may not be able to penetrate with a
well-tempered and well-sharpened blade
and which somehow fails to revive In |
your heart the memories of the happy !
past. The Americans assure US that they |
are improving year by year, and discern
ing judges bear them out on this side, so
far: but there remain two sources OF ap-
prehension. Is the New World as fav-
orable to the production of flavor as the
Old? 1t certainly is, to some extent, a
geographical question. The fish of the |
Mediterranean are not so well favored |
as ours. The wines of Italy and Spain
are not so well favored as those of
France. Egyptian wheat is accused of
a musky flavor. American wine, even
from vines imported from the best !
European vineyards, has a peculiar
flavor. The fruit of the torrid zone,
though sweeter, is not SO well favored
as that of the temperate. Itreally does
remain to be seen whether the New
World, which in so many respects has
the the advantage of Old World, is not
somewhat wanting in this royal gift.
The importance of that gift, however, is
confined within royal limits. Few can
favor; still fewer can obtain
it: and it is evident the millions see in
this deluge of American and Australian
eatables an unmitigated boon.