portant business; and whether
castors are placed on the table or on the sideboard; whether
soup, fish, patties, and salad be eaten in orthodox order or not,
signifies but little. I am hardly capable, I fear, of giving a
very erudite critique on the subject; general observations
therefore must suffice. The ordinary mode of living is abundant,
but not delicate. They consume an extraordinary quantity of
bacon. Ham and beaf-steaks appear morning, noon, and night. In
eating, they mix things together with the strangest incongruity
imaginable. I have seen eggs and oysters eaten together: the
sempiternal ham with apple-sauce; beefsteak with stewed peaches;
and salt fish with onions. The bread is everywhere excellent,
but they rarely enjoy it themselves, as they insist upon eating
horrible half-baked hot rolls both morning and evening. The
butter is tolerable; but they have seldom such cream as every
little dairy produces in England; in fact, the cows are very
roughly kept, compared with our's. Common vegetables are
abundant and very fine. I never saw sea-cale or cauliflowers,
and either from the want of summer rain, or the want of care, the
harvest of green vegetables is much sooner over than with us.
They eat the Indian corn in a great variety of forms; sometimes
it is dressed green, and eaten like peas; sometimes it is broken
to pieces when dry, boiled plain, and brought to table like rice;
this dish is called hominy. The flour of it is made into at
least a dozen different sorts of cakes; but in my opinion all
bad. This flour, mixed in the proportion of one-third with fine
wheat, makes by far the best bread I ever tasted.

I never saw turbot, salmon, or fresh cod; but the rock and shad
are excellent. There is a great want of skill in the composition
of sauces; not only with fish, but with every thing. They use
very few made dishes, and I never saw any that would be approved
by our savants. They have an excellent wild duck, called the
Canvass Back, which, if delicately served, would surpass the
black cock; but the game is very inferior to our's; they have no
hares, and I never saw a pheasant. They seldom indulge in second
courses, with all their ingenious temptations to the eating a
second dinner; but almost every table has its dessert,
(invariably pronounced desart) which is placed on the table
before the cloth is removed, and consists of pastry, preserved
fruits, and creams. They are "extravagantly fond,"