Amandines de Provence, poster by Leonetto Cappiello, 1900The proof of the pudding is in the eating. ~Miguel de Cervantes
Eating is the ingestion offood to provide for all organisms their nutritional needs, particularly forenergy andgrowth. Animals must eat in order to survive. For humans, eating is an activity of daily living.
The poor man will praise it so hath he good cause, That all the year eats neither partridge nor quail, But sets up his rest and makes up his feast, With a crust of brown bread and a pot of good ale.
Old English Song. From "An Antidote Against Melancholy" (1661).
Antony, however, according to his custom, returned alone to his own cell, increased his discipline, and sighed daily as he thought of the mansions in Heaven, having his desire fixed on them, and pondering over the shortness of man's life. And he used to eat and sleep, and go about all other bodily necessities with shame when he thought of the spiritual faculties of the soul. So often, when about to eat with any other hermits, recollecting the spiritual food, he begged to be excused, and departed far off from them, deeming it a matter for shame if he should be seen eating by others.
This much thou hast taught me: that I should learn to take food as medicine. But during that time when I pass from the pinch of emptiness to the contentment of fullness, it is in that very moment that the snare of appetite lies baited for me.
Augustine,Confessions, as translated by A. Outler, Book 10, Chapter 31, p. 197
What is sufficient for health is not enough for pleasure. And it is often a matter of doubt whether it is the needful care of the body that still calls for food or whether it is the sensual snare of desire still wanting to be served. In this uncertainty my unhappy soul rejoices, and uses it to prepare an excuse as a defense. It is glad that it is not clear as to what is sufficient for the moderation of health, so that under the pretense of health it may conceal its projects for pleasure.
Augustine,Confessions, as translated by A. Outler, Book 10, Chapter 31, p. 197
Some men are born to feast, and not to fight; Whose sluggish minds, e'en in fair honor's field, Still on their dinner turn— Let such pot-boiling varlets stay at home, And wield a flesh-hook rather than a sword.
Joanna Baillie,Count Basil (1798), Act I, scene 1; inA Series of Plays.
I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel, My morning incense, and my evening meal, The sweets of Hasty-Pudding.
Man is a carnivorous production, And must have meals, at least one meal a day; He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction, But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey; Although his anatomical construction Bears vegetables, in a grumbling way, Your laboring people think beyond all question, Beef, veal, and mutton better for digestion.
Blest be those feasts, with simple plenty crowned, Where all the ruddy family around Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale.
O hour, of all hours, the most bless'd upon earth, The blessèd hour of our dinners!
Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton),Lucile (1860), Part I, Canto II, Stanza 23.
We may live without poetry, music and art; We may live without conscience, and live without heart; We may live without friends; we may live without books; But civilized man cannot live without cooks. He may live without books,—what is knowledge but grieving? He may live without hope,—what is hope but deceiving? He may live without love,—what is passion but pining? But where is the man that can live without dining?
Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton),Lucile (1860), Part I, Canto II, Stanza 24.
They eat, they drink, and in communion sweet Quaff immortality and joy.
As thechild'sdominance over food increases, the foodcontrols his activities more and more from within. Once the foods taken within thedigestive tract, it stimulates a tremendous number ofnerve channels within thebody andbrain. These nerve excitations result in shifting theblood supply from the outside of thebody to thestomach and the insideorgans. Of course, all this is a provision ofnature for the adequate disposition of the food.
One solid dish his week-day meal affords, An added pudding solemniz'd the Lord's.
Alexander Pope,Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle III, line 447.
"Live like yourself," was soon my lady's word, And lo! two puddings smok'd upon the board.
Alexander Pope,Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle III, line 461.
The Gods have not ordained hunger to be our death: even to the well-fed man comes death in varied shape, The riches of the liberal never waste away, while he who will not give finds none to comfort him, The man with food in store who, when the needy comes in miserable case begging for bread to eat, Hardens his heart against him, when of old finds not one to comfort him.
Bounteous is he who gives unto the beggar who comes to him in want of food, and the feeble, Success attends him in the shout of battle. He makes a friend of him in future troubles, No friend is he who to his friend and comrade who comes imploring food, will offer nothing.
Let the rich satisfy the poor implorer, and bend his eye upon a longer pathway, Riches come now to one, now to another, and like the wheels of cars are ever rolling, The foolish man wins food with fruitless labour: that food – I speak the truth – shall be his ruin, He feeds no trusty friend, no man to love him. All guilt is he who eats with no partaker.
Each man to his stool, with that spur as he would to the lip of his mistress; your diet shall be in all places alike. Make not a city feast of it, to let the meat cool ere we can agree upon the first place.
Lord, Madame, I have fed like a farmer; I shall grow as fat as a porpoise.
Jonathan Swift,Polite Conversation (c. 1738), Dialogue II.
They say fingers were made before forks, and hands before knives.
Jonathan Swift,Polite Conversation (c. 1738), Dialogue II.
What you have eaten, what you have eaten -- it was not bread that you have eaten, it was your flesh that you have eaten! What you have drunk, what you have drunk -- it was not beer that you drank, it was your blood that you drank!
When the Sultan Shah-Zaman Goes to the city Ispahan, Even before he gets so far As the place where the clustered palm-trees are, At the last of the thirty palace-gates, The pet of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom, Orders a feast in his favorite room— Glittering square of colored ice, Sweetened with syrup, tinctured with spice, Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates, Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces, Limes and citrons and apricots, And wines that are known to Eastern princes.
A loaf of bread, the Walrus said, Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed— Now if you're ready, Oysters, dear, We can begin to feed!
Lewis Carroll,The Walrus and the Carpenter. FromAlice Through The Looking-Glass.
Nemini fidas, nisi cum quo prius multos modios salis absumpseris.
Trust no one unless you have eaten much salt with him.
When mighty roast beef was the Englishman's food It ennobled our hearts and enriched our blood— Our soldiers were brave and our courtiers were good. Oh! the roast beef of England, And Old England's roast beef.
Henry Fielding, "The Roast Beef of Old England", inGrub Street Opera, Act III, scene 2. Claimed for R. Leveridge.
What will not luxury taste? Earth, sea, and air, Are daily ransack'd for the bill of fare. Blood stuffed in skins is British Christians' food, And France robs marshes of the croaking brood.
"Here, dearest Eve," he exclaims, "here is food." "Well," answered she, with the germ of a housewife stirring within her, "we have been so busy to-day that a picked-up dinner must serve."
Homer,The Odyssey, Book X, line 622. Pope's translation.
"Good well-dress'dturtle beats them hollow,— It almost makes me wish, I vow, To have two stomachs, like a cow!" And lo! as with the cud, an inward thrill Upheaved his waistcoat and disturb'd his frill, His mouth was oozing, and he work'd his jaw— "I almost think that I could eat one raw."
Yet shall you have to rectify your palate, An olive, capers, or some better salad Ushering the mutton; with a short-legged hen, If we can get her, full of eggs, and then, Limons, and wine for sauce: to these a coney Is not to be despaired of for our money; And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks, The sky not falling, think we may have larks.
An handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse.
I Kings, XVII. 12.
And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail.
I Kings, XVII. 16.
A woman asked a coachman, "Are you full inside?" Upon which Lamb put his head through the window and said: "I am quite full inside; that last piece of pudding at Mr. Gillman's did the business for me."
Charles Lamb,Autobiographical Recollections, by Charles R. Leslie.
He hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure—and for such a tomb might be content to die.
If you wish to grow thinner, diminish your dinner, And take to light claret instead of pale ale; Look down with an utter contempt upon butter, And never touch bread till its toasted—or stale.
Philo swears that he has never dined at home, and it is so; he does not dine at all, except when invited out.
Martial,Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book V, Epistle 47.
Mithriades, by frequently drinking poison, rendered it impossible for any poison to hurt him. You, Cinna, by always dining on next to nothing, have taken due precaution against ever perishing from hunger.
Martial,Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book V, Epistle 76.
Annius has some two hundred tables, and servants for every table. Dishes run hither and thither, and plates fly about. Such entertainments as these keep to yourselves, ye pompous; I am ill pleased with a supper that walks.
Martial,Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book VII, Epistle 48.
You praise, in three hundred verses, Sabellus, the baths of Ponticus, who gives such excellent dinners. You wish to dine, Sabellus, not to bathe.
Martial,Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book IX, Epistle 19.
As long as I have fat turtle-doves, a fig for your lettuce, my friend, and you may keep your shellfish to yourself. I have no wish to waste my appetite.
Martial,Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book XIII, Epistle 53.
See, how the liver is swollen larger than a fat goose! In amazement you will exclaim: Where could this possibly grow?
Martial,Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book XIII, Epistle 58.
Whether woodcock or partridge, what does it signify, if the taste is the same? But the partridge is dearer, and therefore thought preferable.
Martial,Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book XIII, Epistle 76.
However great the dish that holds the turbot, the turbot is still greater than the dish.
Martial,Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book XIII, Epistle 81.
I am a shell-fish just come from being saturated with the waters of the Lucrine lake, near Baise; but now I luxuriously thirst for noble pickle.
Martial,Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book XIII, Epistle 82.
If my opinion is of any worth, the fieldfare is the greatest delicacy among birds, the hare among quadrupeds.
Martial,Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book XIII, Epistle 92.
Man shall not live by bread alone.
Matthew, IV. 4; Deuteronomy, VIII. 3.
Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink.
Their best and most wholesome feeding is upon one dish and no more and the same plaine and simple: for surely this hudling of many meats one upon another of divers tastes is pestiferous. But sundrie sauces are more dangerous than that.
Pliny the Elder,Natural History, Book XI, Chapter LIII. Holland's translation.
What, did you not know, then, that to-day Lucullus dines with Lucullus?
Plutarch,Lives,Life of Lucullus, Volume III, p. 280.
"Pray take them, Sir,—Enough's a Feast; Eat some, and pocket up the rest."
Alexander Pope,First Book of Horace, Epistle VII, line 24.
"An't it please your Honour," quoth the Peasant, "This same Dessert is not so pleasant: Give me again my hollow Tree, A crust of Bread, and Liberty."
A very man—not one of nature's clods— With human failings, whether saint or sinner: Endowed perhaps with genius from the gods But apt to take his temper from his dinner.
Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine, Yet let's be merry; we'll have tea and toast; Custards for supper, and an endless host Of syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies, And other such ladylike luxuries.
Oh, herbaceous treat! 'Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat; Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul, And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl; Serenely full the epicure would say? "Fate cannot harm me,—I have dined to-day."
