574 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
keeping back the stones; add gelatine (one ounce dissolved 
in half a pint of water); mix thoroughly, and boil for ten minutes ; 
put into a border mould in a cool place until set, and turn out 
(with whipped cream in the middle if the same is approved of 
for the patient). ‘The Damask Prune” (Castle of Health) 
“rather bindeth than lowseth, and is more commodious unto 
the stomacke.” Long ago Andrew Borde (1562) has declared 
that ‘“‘ Syxe, or sewen Damysens eaten before dyner be good to 
prouoke a manne’s appetyde.” For costive persons Prunes 
may be taken stewed with meat. Dr. Johnson was particularly 
fond of veal pie with stewed Plums. Plum pudding, so called, 
our national accompaniment to the Roast Beef of old England, 
is made rather of raisins, which are dried grapes, than of Plums. 
In the Western counties it goes by the name of figgy pudding. 
‘“* Now awl tha vokes be agon tii races, us’ll ave a frawsy awl 
tii ourzels! whot shall us ’ave?” ‘‘ Aw, let’s av a fowel, an’ 
a figgy pudden.” Plum pudding is safe food for all except the 
very weakest of stomachs; the long process of boiling helps 
to make its ingredients digestible, whilst of themselves they 
are certainly not unwholesome. None the less, it should always 
be borne in mind that the questionableness of this good cheer 
lies more in quantity than in quality. Made almost sacred is 
the sweet Plum, or Prune, by the Poet Cowper in his tender, and 
touching “Lines to my Mother’s Picture,” bearing reference 
to the loving home-days of his fostered childhood :— 
“ The record fair 
That mem’ry keeps of all thy kindness there : 
Thy nightly visits to my chamber made 
That thou might’st know me safe, and warmly laid: 
y morning bounties ere I left my home, 
The biscuit, or Confectionery Plum ; 
The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestow’d 
By thy own hand, till fresh they shone, and glow’d.” 
“Think what London would be,” wrote Horace Walpole 
(1743) to a namesake, “if the chief houses were in it as in the 
cities in other countries, and not disposed like great rarity Plums 
in a vast pudding of country! Well! it is a tolerable place as 
it is. Were I a physician I would prescribe nothing but 
‘Recipe: Londin, ccclxv drachmas.’ Would you know why 
I like Lendon so much? Why, if the world must consist of 
so many fools as it does, I choose to take them in the gross, and 
not made into separate pills, as they are prepared in the country.” 
