BACON. 73 
fat cropped in the bud, taken in the shoot, in the first innocence, 
the cream, and quintessence of the child-pig’s yet pure food ! 
the lean—no lean, but a kind of animal manna—or rather fat 
and lean (if it must be thus), so blended and running into each 
other that both together make but one ambrosian result, or 
common substance! He is the best of Sapors! Pine-apple is 
great. She is indeed almost too transcendent; a delight, if 
not sinful, yet so like to sinning that really a tender-conscienced 
person would do well to pause; too ravishing for mortal taste, 
she woundeth, and excoriateth the lips that approach her; like 
lovers’ kisses, she biteth; she is a pleasure bordering on pain, 
from the fierceness and insanity of her relish; but she stoppeth 
at the ‘palate; she meddleth not with the appetite, and the 
coarsest hunger might barter her complacently for a mutton-chop. 
Pig—let me speak his praise—is no less provocative of the appetite 
than he is satisfactory to the criticalness of the censorious palate. 
Behold him while he is doing! it seemeth rather a refreshing 
warmth than a scorching heat that he is so passive to. How 
equably he twirleth round the string! Now he is just done. 
To see the extreme sensibility of that tender age, he hath wept 
out his pretty eyes; radiant jellies, shooting stars! Then see 
him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth! The 
strong man may fatten on him, and weakling cefuseth not 
his mild juices. So much for the sucking-pig; then his sauce 
is to be considered. Decidedly a few bread-crumbs done up 
with his liver and brains, and a dash of mild sage. But banish, 
dear Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole Onion tribe! Barbecue 
your whole hogs to your palate, if you will; steep them in 
shalots ; stuff them out with plantations of the rank, and guilty 
garlic ; you cannot poison them, or make them stronger than 
they are; but consider he (the childish porker) is a weakling— 
a flower!” 
In classic Roman times the Emperor Claudius entered 
the Senate one day, and called out, “Conscript Fathers ! 
is it possible to live without pickled pork in slices?” And the 
venerable Fathers replied straightway, “Oh, Sire, it is better 
to die than to have to live without salt pork.’ A leg of pork. 
when skinned, and roasted, is called by many persons mock goose. 
Some cooks, when pork is about to be served, score the skin 
in diamonds, and take out every second square. The fat of 
pork consists almost entirely of palmitic, and oleic glycerides. 
