226 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
About Devon, and Cornwall, Clotted Cream is eaten with every 
practical form of sweet thing, from stewed fruit to Christmas 
pudding, treacle and Cream being an approved combination. 
This is colloquially known as “thunder and lightning;” and 
orthodox lovers, out for the day, order it with their tea, m 
Fuschia-covered cottages ; then the correct and mystic practice 
is to smother a “ split cake” (a sort of small Sally Lunn) with 
some of the thick Cream, and to trace on its surface, in casual 
letters formed by the golden syrup trickling from a spoon, the 
beloved one’s name, or its initial letters. 
CRESSES. 
CoMPRISED among Cresses for the table, either in salads, or as 
vegetable condiments, yet withal salutary to the health as 
containing sulphur, and mineral salts, are the Water Cress, 
the Garden Cress, the Winter Cress, and for special occasions 
some other Cresses. Simon Paulli has said: ‘‘ An evident proof 
that these herbs, so useful against scurvy, are enriched with 
volatile salts, more especially in the spring time, is this: that 
if we prepare an essence, or a tincture thereof, at the end of 
April, or at the beginning of May, ’twill look red like Chio, or 
Malvatic wine,—which it will not do at other seasons of the year.” 
All the Cresses have a pungent, stimulating taste, because of 
their sulphuretted essential oil. Formerly the Greeks attached 
much value to the whole order of Cresses, which they esteemed 
as beneficial for the brain. A favourite maxim with them was, 
*“* Kat Cresses, and get wit.” 
The Water Cress (Nasturtium officinale) is of superlative 
remedial worth, and is therefore highly popular at table. This 
Cress contains a sulpho-nitrogenous oil, iodine, iron, phosphates, 
potash, with certain other mineral salts, a bitter extract, and 
water. Its volatile oil, which is rich in nitrogen combined with 
some sulphur, is the sulpho-cyanide of allyl. Thus this familiar 
plant is so constituted as to be particularly curative of scrofulous 
affections. Dr. King Chambers writes (Diet in Health and 
Disease): “I feel sure that the infertility, pallor, fetid breath, 
and bad teeth which characterize some of our town populations, 
are to a great extent due to their inability to get fresh anti- 
scorbutic vegetables as articles of diet; therefore I regard the 
Water Cress seller as one of the saviours of her country.” 
