584 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
foods. Furthermore, as already said, the question naturally 
presents itself as to how far the growing prevalence of appen- 
dicitis to a most alarming extent, both in this, and in other 
countries, may be mainly due to the same pernicious causes. 
PUDDINGS. (See Pastry). 
Ir is to be always remembered that solid Puddings are “ filling 
at the price,” needing a good power of digestion, and only to 
be partaken of in moderation, especially when coming after 
substantial meat. That “Too much Pudding will choke a 
dog” is a familiar adage conveying a homely truth; and that 
“ Cold Pudding will settle your love ” carries its own plain moral. 
Nevertheless, it is equally true that “ Solid Pudding is better 
than empty praise.” After all said and done, a practical cook 
shrewdly sums the matter up thus :— 
“ Oh, bother your books, and all their receipting, 
The proof of the pudding lies most in the eating.” 
During the first quarter of the past century, meat was a food-stuff 
seldom tasted by English cottagers—not more often than five, 
or six times in a year. Beef-steak Pudding was a dish in which 
they indulged, but only when this was filled with onions in place 
of beef; or, except when some more affluent neighbour had 
been making “ beef-tea ”’ for an invalid, so that they could beg 
the spent beef, to concoct what they called with grim humour a 
“tea-leaves dumpling.” Our English national dish, Plum-Pud- 
ding, was first known as Plum Porridge, being then compounded 
as described in Kitchen Physic. “On Christmas Day (1662),” 
as Pepys relates, ‘I dined by my wife’s bedside with great 
content, having a mess of brave Plum Porridge, and a roasted 
pullet for dinner, and I sent for a mince-pie abroad, my wite 
not being well to make any herself yet.” 
QUAILS. (See Game). 
QUINCE. (See Marmatape). 
RABBIT. @See Game). 
In Kitchen Physic a curious notion about a rabbit-product is 
recorded which will bear repeating, because it certainly courts 
further investigation. Dr. Burnett has given the case of an 
