The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-23
RIVALS OF TURKEY
NOT THE ONLY MONARCH AT
 CHRISTMAS TIME.
Pig and Goose Eaten---They Have COn- tented fer 0ustatORy HOnOrs in
 Good Ola Carbohydrates q IrhnartalTaed by Dickens.

Though an American turkey alive, may undisputed sgobble of himself as prospective monarch of the Christmas board to a credulous barnyard, upon his platter of state he has to be com tent merely to be crowned with the epitaph: ''Nothing in life becomes him like the leaving it." 'Tis just as we l. He could not prove his soverignity by staying Were a congress of Christ mas dinners held he'd find himself nearly showed off the dias by the number of hts rivals.
 The whole world over people eat for their Christmas feast whatever seems to them the greatest or the most easily obtained de icaoy fof the sea- son. The main thing with them Is to eat--nay, to gorge All men, both thAy who have no Christmas in ther souls to speak oS> and those embar- rassed by. a superfluity, upon this day await the dinner going with minds di- vided between Owon Meredith's ee- static eulogy,"O hour of all hours, the most blessed on earth, essei hour of our dinner" and o ants tn- dcmitable spirit before Vicksburg, No other terms than unconditional and immediate surrender. prcpse to move immediately upon your works"
 EsIg and Goose Rls als.
 Tn England the pig and the goose have contested for gustatory honols Formerly the pig held right of wa after the manner of pigs. Poets toast ed the boar's flesh as British ambrosia. oxford gave the ceremony of "fhe Bringing in of the Boar's Head" a distinguished place in It's curriculum. Carried in by the strongest of the guardsmen. preceded by a forester. a huntsman. and two pages in si k, bear ing the indispensable mustard, the ap- proach of the piece de resistance of the evenings banquet was heralded by the song whose words Wynkyn de Warde hands down/in his Christmas carrolles'
 "Caput apri defero.
 Reddens laudes Domino
 The boar's head in hand bring l.
 With Eariands gay and rosemary,
 pray you all sing merely
 Qui estis in convivio."
 Today the famous boars head ex- ists merely in tavern signs; yet pigs heads, degenerate offspring of q mighty father, are not disdained, serv- ed up in accordance with the rules which Dr. King, the poet epicure of ths early 18th century, preached for their illustrious ancestor:
 If you would serve up the brawner's
 head.
 Sweet rosemary and bays around it
 spread;
 Sauce like himself offensive to it's foes. The roguish mustard dangerous to the
 nose" Popularity of the Pig.
 A sucking pig is now, however. a more popular as well as a more delecta- ble dainty for Christmas, or for any other time--a really young and tender pig. the Kind that Lamb describes as guiltless of the sty. The methods of it's preparation the E4 'sh essayist lays down with an q Fiasm that would have made him t rtune in writing cook books, He inust be roasted" he declares with emphasis. There is no flavor compared to that of the -tRwny---craekliuG as it is well called--with the adhesive ole- aginous--o. call it not fatl--but the tender biossoming of kat--fat cropped In tho bud--the cream and auintes- sence Of the child pigs yet pure food. See him in the dish, his second cradle. how meek he liethi---his memory is odoriferous--he hath a fair sepuIoher In the grateful stomach of the judi. oio1s epicurs--and for such a tomb might be content to die"
 so much for pig. Now for goose.