New Britain herald., 1916-10-24

HUmOrist Knew What Was and What
 Was Not Worth While
(EXChange.

In one of his entertaining autobi- ographical talks Mark Twain said the north thinks it knows how to make corn bread but this Is a gross superstition" and went on to charac- terlze northern objection to "hot bread" as "another fussy supersti- tton." These observations followed a description of that heavenly place Tor boy,'' his uncle's farm in Miss ouri The house," he wrote, Twas a double log one with spacious floor roofed in) connecting it with the E1tchen In the summer the table was set in the middle of that shady breezy f1oor and the sumptuous meals-well, 1t makes me cry to think or them.' This is a partial list of
 what they gave him to eat: Fried chicken, roast pig, wild and tame tur- keys, ducks and geese, venison just Killed, squirrels, rabbits, partridge, prairie chickens, biscuits, hot batter cakes, hot buckwheat cakes, hot
 Whlte bread hot rolls. hot corn pone
 vegetables buttermilk, 'clabber' melons, pie, apple dumping, peach 1 cobbler-l can't remember the rest!' Superiority was attained through the method of preparation. '"The way tfe things were cooked" he said, was perhaps the main splendOr, for instance, the corn bread, the hot bis cults, wheat bread, and the fried chicken. These things have never been properly cooked in the north | in fact, no one there is able to learn the art. so far as my experience goes. 1 Perhaps no bread in the world is l quite as bad as southern corn bread, ! and perhaps no bread in the world Is
 quite as bad as the northern imitation
 of it." Experienced as he was and 1 writing as late as 1907. Mark Twain
 did not seem to recognize the chief trouble with northern corn bread, | which is the persistent use of coarse
 yellow meal instead of the finer,
 sweeter and more delicate white meal. Northern cooking alone. however. is
 too often at fault in the case of rice,
 which is boiled with too much water
 until the grains are entirely dissolved and it becomes an atrOciOus gummy paste.
 The north Mark Twain further observed, "seldom tries to fry chicken,
 and this is well; the art can not be
 learned north of Mason and Dixon, nor anywhere in Europe This is l not hearsay. it is experience speaking. l Tn Europe it is imagined that the custom of serving various kinds of bread blazing hot is American but i that is too broad a spread; it is the 1 custom of the south, but it is much | less than that in the north. In the north and in Europe hot bread Is considered unhealthy. This is prob
 ably another fussy superstition. like
 ice water is unhealthy" The widely i experienced American humorist s0 h
 the world should throw away SC
 rlany good things merely because
 they are unwho1esome. I doubt if God has given us any refreshment
 which, 7aken in moderation is un- l wholesome except microbes. Yet i there are people who strictly deprive 1 themselves of every eatable, drinkable i and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady: reputation. They pay this price for health. And health ts all they get for it. How strange it is: it is like paying out your whole fortune for COW that has gone dry"
 But do they secure health even l after paying the full price of self denial? Certainly the persons who l talk most about wholesome food are l usually the sickest or the most deli
 cate, and often they are no doubt 1 rlyspepic victims of Over-indulgence. 1 Moderate eating of whatever one en- i joys is probably the most safe as
 we'll as the most reasonable of all l rules. Nowadays an enormous con-
 sumption of "hot bread" is by no means confined to the southern states
 and it would appear that this "super-
 stition" has in great part gone the
 way of other notions failing to stand the test of time and experience.