te it as a
vegetable, boiled. We believe he printed a special recipe for it, but we
have been unable to lay our hands on it. Mr. Buchanan, the present
president of the United States, was in the habit, when ambassador here,
of receiving a supply of Indian corn from America in hermetically-sealed
cases; and the publisher of this work remembers, with considerable
satisfaction, his introduction to a dish of this vegetable, when in
America. He found it to combine the excellences of the young green pea
and the finest asparagus; but he felt at first slightly awkward in
holding the large ear with one hand, whilst the other had to be employed
in cutting off with a knife the delicate green grains.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXVI.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON PUDDINGS AND PASTRY.

1175. PUDDINGS AND PASTRY, familiar as they may be, and unimportant as
they may be held in the estimation of some, are yet intimately connected
with the development of agricultural resources in reference to the
cereal grasses. When they began to be made is uncertain; but we may
safely presume, that a simple form of pudding was amongst the first
dishes made after discovering a mode of grinding wheat into flour.
Traditional history enables us to trace man back to the time of the
Deluge. After that event he seems to have recovered himself in the
central parts of Asia, and to have first risen to eminence in the arts
of civilization on the banks of the Nile. From this region, Greece,
Carthage, and some other parts along the shores of the Mediterranean
Sea, were colonized. In process of time, Greece gave to the Romans the
arts which she had thus received from Egypt, and these subsequently
diffused them over Europe. How these were carried to or developed in
India and China, is not so well ascertained; and in America their
ancient existence rests only on very indistinct traditions. As to who
was the real discoverer of the use of corn, we have no authentic
knowledge. The traditions of different countries ascribe it to various
fabulous personages, whose names it is here unnecessary to introduce. In
Egypt, however, corn must have grown abundantly; for Abraham, and after
him Jacob, had recourse to that country for supplies during times of
famine.

1176. THE HABITS OF A PEOPLE, to a great extent, are formed by the
climate in which they live, and by the native or cultivated productions
in which their country abounds. Thus we find that the agr