VFood for Thought
I WAS just ordering dinner at the Athenaeum when Professor Maturin entered the room and peered about over his spectacles in search of a congenial corner. Happily for me, his glance encountered mine, and his smile accepted my invitation. I settled myself for an hour of rare conversation.
“And what are you planning to have?” he queried. I passed him the order I was signing, but noticed, as he read it, first surprise, then incredulity, and finally sorrow in his expression.
“My friend, my friend,” he said, mournfully shaking his head, “and you a literary man!”
“Won’t you, then, order for me instead?” I responded, cancelling the slip, outwardly meek, but inwardly rejoicing that my friend’s energy had created a situation which his kindliness would require him to explain at length.
“In the cause of the advancement of learning, sir, I will!” he replied. And taking a new blank, he began to write from the bottom upward, remarking: “In the first place, I always feel, in order that a dinner may have unity and consistency,it should be planned like a poem, from the end toward the beginning; all the more, since there is no chance for revision. There,” he resumed, finishing, “I think that will do, as simple, nourishing, and suggestive.”
And he read: “Oysters, with a few Platonic olives, for the sake of Dr. Holmes and criticism; a bit of tenderloin, in memory of Mary Lamb’s beefsteak pudding; asparagus, which, according to Charles Lamb, inspires gentle thoughts; cauliflower, which Dr. Johnson preferred to all other flowers; Vergil’s salad; apple pie, according to Henry Ward Beecher’s recipe, with a bit of Dean Swift’s cheese; and, finally, a little coffee. I have considerably increased my usual ration in order that you may not miss what the French call ‘the sensation of satiety.’
“I find it difficult,” sighed Professor Maturin, as he passed the order to an attendant and leaned back in his chair, “to absolve men of letters from what has been called the crime of unintelligent eating. Of all men their need of and their opportunity for wisdom in such matters is the greatest. And yet you have Gray wondering at his ailments and his melancholia, when he was eating chiefly marmalade and pastry, taking no exercise, and dosing himself with tar water and sage tea.
“Shelley did scarcely better in a more enlightened age. Byron’s habitual flesh-reducing mixture, potatoes and vinegar, is chemically indigestible. And Thoreau literally consumed himself in following and advocating a diet which so prepared him for tuberculosis that living half his time in the open air could not prevent it.
“The opposite extreme, which is yet more common, is even less attractive in men of genius. Who likes to remember that Spenser and Milton had gout, or that Goethe drank in his time fifty thousand bottles of wine? As for Pepys, what do you think of having one’s ‘only mayde’ dress such a home dinner as this, copied from his ‘Diary:’ ‘A fricassee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton, three carps, a side of lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie, a dish of anchovies, and good wine of several sorts’? No wonder that his better qualities are obscured in our memories of him.
“Philosophers, men of action, and, interestingly enough, men of the world, have usually set a better example. ‘They that sup with Plato,’ said Aelianus, ‘are not sick or out of temper the next day.’ Socrates, Epicurus, and Kant, all preached and practiced judgment and restraint. Horace and Catullus insisted that their pamperedguests should bring their luxuries with them. Montaigne highly disapproved of elaborate cooking, and Pope refused to dine with Lady Suffolk so late in the day as four.
“Then there is that admirable story of Cincinnatus, whom the venal senators knew they could not bribe after they found him preparing his own dinner of turnips. It is quite in keeping that King Alfred should have burned the cakes, and that Napoleon should have spilled the omelet; and it is to Lady Cromwell’s credit that she would not allow the Protector oranges that cost a groat apiece.
“Even aside from health and morals, a man’s relation to food is always significant. Who can think of Tasso without remembering that he loved sweetmeats? Is there not literary suggestion in the fact that Vergil loved garlic and Horace hated it; that Horace preferred his Falernian and his Sabine farm to the dinners and Persian apparatus of Maecenas, but that Cicero loved to dine with Lucullus and bought himself a seven-thousand-dollar dinner table?
“Is it not illuminating to know that the favorite food of Burns was oat-cake, that of Byron truffles? De Quincey’s reports that Wordsworth used the same knife for cutting butter and thepages of books; and that Scott, when Wordsworth’s guest, repaired secretly to an inn for chops and ale—these are not gossip, but literary criticism. It is as surely interpretative of Dickens to know that he disliked Italian cookery as that he was fond of playing an accordeon.
“Carlyle’s pessimism is usually attributed to indigestion. It ought, I think, to be as usual to explain Emerson’s optimism by a digestion that could cope successfully with his favorite pie. We habitually associate tea and coffee with Johnson and Balzac, and their work. Should we not as often remember that Milton produced ‘Paradise Lost’ on coffee, and ‘Paradise Regained’ on tea? Of course, such physical criticism of literature must be limited by other judgments. I can well agree with Dr. Gould that many writers show the effects of eye-strain, and it is difficult to upset the diagnosis of anaemia in Hawthorne; but I hesitate to think, with Dr. Conan Doyle, that Shakespeare had locomotor ataxia.”
“Why did you associate oysters with criticism?” I inquired, as Professor Maturin paused.
“Do you not recall,” he replied, “the Autocrat’s remark that literary reputations are largely a matter of administering oysters in the form of suppers, to gentlemen connected with criticism?Veuillot similarly claimed that men were elected to the French Academy chiefly because they gave good dinners. Sydney Smith applied the principle to religion when he said, ‘The way to deal with fanatics is not to reason with them, but to ask them to dinner.’ On the other hand, Swift used deliberately to test men’s tempers by offering them bad wine.”
“And did Plato like olives?” I continued.
“He often made a meal of nothing else,” was the reply.
“And what was Vergil’s salad?” It arrived at that moment.
“It is made of cheese and parsley, with a bit of garlic, rue, and coriander, salt, oil, and vinegar. A little of it is, I think, very pleasing. I much prefer it to Sydney Smith’s. I never understood how he could write ‘Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day’ about a salad made of potatoes. For the truly esoteric doctrine you must read John Evelyn’s ‘Discourse of Sallets.’
“Indeed, I am inclined, on the whole, to think that Sydney Smith was what Carlyle called ‘a blethering blellum,’ when he wrote about food, as he so often did. It was perfectly proper for him to express a desire to experience American canvasbacks, and to be glad that he was not bornbefore tea; but to say that roast pheasant and bread sauce was the source of the most elevated pleasure in life, and that his idea of heaven was eatingpâté de fois grasto the sound of trumpets—that was both posing and trifling with serious subjects. Charles Lamb’s comments on roast pig and frogs’ legs, and his kindred table talk, are much more genuine, and, of course, charming; but even they scarcely touch the deeper aspects of the subject.
“Thackeray had all of Lamb’s appreciation of food and, I think, something more. He enjoyed his own and accepted others’ idiosyncrasies of taste,—witness his treating boys to apricot omelet, which he hated,—but his plea for simpler and more varied dinners, for more hospitality and less ostentation, indicates, I think, that he realized at least something of the profound moral and social significance of food.
“This, as you know, is one of my hobbies, and I unconsciously add it to my other criteria of judgment in my reading. That Scott invented a venison pasty, Dickens a sandwich, Webster a clam chowder, and Henry Clay a stew is interesting; just as it is that Buckle was discriminate and Heine indiscriminate in choosing tea. But it is far more significant that Dr. Johnson consideredwriting a cook-book, and that Dumas’ last work actually was such a volume of more than a thousand pages.
“That is the kind of thing we need: sound doctrine from influential writers, but it is not easy to get. The intemperate use of food, which is always with us, causes many to turn with prejudice from the whole subject. Here, as elsewhere, conservatism often opposes the good. You know, for example, how long the clergy decried the use of forks; and I never cease to regret that the man who was opened-minded enough to introduce umbrellas into England should have been furiously opposed to tea.
“Many writers, too, treat the subject fancifully, without regard to its inherent truths—witness the conventional praise of the indigestible turtle. Often those who intend well lack knowledge: Pythagoras made it a principle of morality to abstain from beans, an almost perfect food; the ideal diet of Plato’s republic, barley pudding and bread, does not contain the elements necessary to sustain life properly. Democritus inaugurated the still repeated heresy that any food that is pleasant is wholesome; and even Dr. Johnson defended his doubtful practice of eating whenever he was hungry, without regard to regularity. For all thesereasons and many others I hold it, in this enlightened age, doubly the responsibility of intelligent men, and particularly of those who influence popular opinion, to acquire a sound knowledge of such matters and to do all that they can to disseminate it.”
“You have previously convinced me of this,” I replied, “but I have not found it easy to attain to such knowledge.”
“The important thing,” continued my mentor, “is a conscious attitude of serious attention to contemporary investigations in the field. One should welcome every item of reliable information, observe much, and, whenever possible, experiment. Of course, our special problem, as persons of sedentary habit, is to obtain a large quantity of blood and brain nutriment without taxing an organism which gets comparatively little physical exercise. The problem is not simple, indeed it is very complex, but it can be so completely handled by knowledge and care that the process of solving it adds another satisfaction to life.
“Cheerfulness, by the way, is an invaluable agent in the whole business. I know of a physician who cured a persistent dyspeptic by requiring him to tell at least one amusing story at eachmeal. We are apt to forget that the taking of food is not only a necessity, but also one of our most constant sources of pleasure.
Unless some sweetness at the bottom lie,Who cares for all the crinkling of the pie?
Unless some sweetness at the bottom lie,Who cares for all the crinkling of the pie?
Unless some sweetness at the bottom lie,
Who cares for all the crinkling of the pie?
Sometimes, even, as Voltaire says, ‘the superfluous is a very necessary thing.’
“That high thinking does not require that all our living be plain, is admirably illustrated by this quotation from Mr. Howells’s reminiscence of the ‘very plain’ suppers which followed the meetings of Longfellow’s memorable Dante Club. They consisted of ‘a cold turkey, or a haunch of venison, or some braces of grouse, or a plate of quails, with a deep bowl of salad, and the sympathetic companionship of those elect vintages which Longfellow loved and chose with the inspiration of affection.’
“From such pabulum came our most poetic version of the world’s most spiritual poet.”