Vegetables

Appears in

By Alexis Soyer

Published 1854

  • About

As I have before remarked, the food of man, in order to give proper nourishment, should be often varied; in fact, his health depends upon it, and nature seems to have given him those instruments, the teeth, by which he is enabled to masticate both animal and vegetable food, besides having provided him abundantly with vegetable produce, which seems the balance, in point of health, between that and rich animal food. It is to be regretted that the labouring poor of this country do not partake of more vegetables than they do at present. If we travel over the country, we are surprised to find how small a portion of ground is engaged in horticulture; the consequence is that, excepting near large towns, scarcely a vegetable is to be obtained, and the poor are doomed to live almost entirely on bread and cheese and a small portion of animal food, not even a potatoe is to be had during the winter and spring of the year. It is said by some, that the climate being colder than on the continent, the blood requires more heating food, and that in the summer the English are as much vegetable eaters as their neighbours; if such is the case, why not, then, add to the vegetables, in cooking them, those elements which would give all that animal food does.