166 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
Chestnuts is to boil them for twenty minutes, and then place 
them in a Dutch oven for five more minutes. ‘“ Zounds,” 
cried Phutatorius (Tristram Shandy, Cap. xxvii., Sterne), “when 
a roasted chestnut, piping hot, rolled from the table into that 
particular aperture of his small clothes, for which—to the 
shame of our language be it spoke,—there is no chaste word 
throughout all Johnson’s Dictionary; that particular aperture 
which the laws of decorum do strictly require like the Temple of 
Janus (in peace, at least) to be universally shut up.” Americans 
consider sweet Chestnuts, and likewise leaves from the tree, 
excellent for staying the paroxysms of whooping cough. 
Continental confectioners dip the cooked nuts into clarified 
sugar, converting them thus into sweetmeats. The Chestnuts 
contain 50 per cent of starch. Californian Indians make a very 
liberal use for food purposes of the Horse Chestnut (Hippo- 
castaneus cesculus), from which nuts they produce both porridge 
and bread, the flour being first well washed so as to extract the 
tannin from it, and then boiled like oatmeal; or it is mixed 
with red clay so that the oil may be absorbed, and afterwards it 
is baked in loaves. In New England, as well as in this country, 
the Horse Chestnut, by its nut, supplies a most serviceable 
medicine against chronic constipation of the bowels, and for the 
cure of sluggish piles. 
‘CHICORY. (See Correr.) 
Tue Wild Chicory, or Succory (Cichorium), is an English roadside 
plant, with flowers (white, or blue), and which is also called 
“ Turnsole,” a Sunflower. Its fresh root is bitter, with a milky 
juice which is somewhat aperient, and slightly sedative ; whilst 
on good authority the plant has been pronounced useful against 
pulmonary consumption. In Germany it is known as Wegwort, 
“waiting on the way,” being by repute a metamorphosed 
Princess watching for her faithless lover. When cultivated, the 
root grows to be large, and constitutes Chicory, as used abundantly 
in France for blending with the coffee berry. This plant when 
wild was known to the Romans in the days of Horace, being then 
eaten as a vegetable, or in salads : 
—* Me pascunt olive, 
Me cichorea, levesque malvz.” 
Virgil also tells of the Amaris intuba fibris. And in modern 
