Chapter 6 - Page 2

formed in the kitchen. This remark is commented on by
Captain Marryatt, who calls it both unjust and ill-natured. As for the
ill-nature I shall say nothing, unless it be to remark that I do not well
see how that which is undeniably true ought to be thought so very
ill-natured. That it is true, every American who has seen much of other
lands must know. Captain-Marryatt's allegation that the tables are good in
the large towns, has nothing to do with the merits of this question. The
larger American towns are among the best eating and drinking portions of
the world. But what are they as compared to the whole country? What are
the public tables, or the tables of the refined, as compared to the tables
of the mass, even in these very towns? All things are to be judged of by
the rules, and not by the exceptions. Because a small portion of the
American population understand what good cookery is, it by no means
follows that _all_ do. Who would think of saying that the people of
England live on white bait and venison, because the nobility and gentry
(the aldermen inclusive) can enjoy both, in the seasons, _ad libitum?_ I
suspect this Mr. Cooper knows quite as well what he is about, when writing
of America, as any European. If pork fried in grease, and grease pervading
half the other dishes, vegetables cooked without any art, and meats done
to rags, make a good table, then is this Mr. Cooper wrong, and Captain
Marryatt right, and _vice versâ_. As yet, while nature has done so much in
America, art has done but little. Much compared with numbers and time,
certainly, but little as compared with what numbers and time have done
elsewhere. Nevertheless, I would make an exception in favour of America,
as respects the table of one country, though not so much in connection
with the coarseness of the feeding as in the poverty of the food. I
consider the higher parts of Germany to be the portions of the Christian
world where eating and drinking are in the most primitive condition; and
that part of this great republic, which Mr. Alison Would probably call the
_State_ of New England, to come next. In abundance and excellence of food
in the native form, America is particularly favoured; Baltimore being at
the very nucleus of all that is exquisite in the great business of
mastication. Nevertheless, the substitution of cooks from the interior of
New England, for the present glistening tenants of her kitchens, would
turn even that paradise of the epicure into a sort of oleaginous waste.
Enough of cookery.

Lucy did not appear at prayers next morning! I felt her absence as one
feels the certainty of some dreadful evil. Breakfast was announced; still
Lucy did not appear. The table was smoking and hissing; and Romeo
Clawbonny, who acted