48o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



digestible, it is permitted to go on unchallenged ; if it is found to be 

 too rich, too bilious, or too indigestible, a protest is promptly entered 

 against it, and if we are wise we will immediately desist from eating 

 any more of it. It is here that the impartial tribunal of nature pro- 

 nounces definitely against roast goose, mince-pies, pate de foie gras, 

 sally lunn, muffins and crumpets, and creamy puddings. It is here, 

 too, that the slightest taint in meat, milk, or butter is immediately 

 detected ; that rancid pastry from the pastrycook's is ruthlessly ex- 

 posed, and that the wiles of the fishmonger are set at naught by the 

 judicious palate. It is the special duty, in fact, of this last examiner 

 to discover, not whether food is positively destructive, not whether it 

 is poisonous or deleterious in nature, but merely whether it is then and 

 there digestible or undesirable. 



As our state of health varies greatly from time to time, however, 

 so do the warnings of this last sympathetic adviser change and flicker. 

 Sweet things are always sweet, and bitter things always bitter ; vine- 

 gar is always sour, and ginger always hot in the mouth, too, whatever 

 our state of health or feeling ; but our taste for roast loin of mutton, 

 high game, salmon cutlets, and Gorgonzola cheese varies immensely 

 from time to time, with the passing condition of our health and diges- 

 tion. In illness, and especially in sea-sickness, one gets the distaste 

 carried to the extreme ; you may eat grapes or suck an orange in the 

 chops of the Channel, but you do not feel warmly attached to the 

 steward who offers you a basin of greasy ox-tail, or consoles you with 

 promises of ham-sandwiches in half a minute. Under those too pain- 

 ful conditions it is the very light, fresh, and stimulating things that 

 one can most easily swallow — champagne, soda-water, strawberries, 

 peaches, not lobster salad, sardines on toast, green Chartreuse, or hot 

 brandy-and-water. On the other hand, in robust health, and when 

 hungry with exercise, you can eat fat pork with relish on a Scotch 

 hill-side, or dine off fresh salmon three days running without incon- 

 venience. Even a Spanish stew, with plenty of garlic in it, and float- 

 ing in olive-oil, tastes positively delicious after a day's mountaineering 

 in the Pyrenees. 



The healthy popular belief, still surviving in spite of cookery, that 



our likes and dislikes are the best guide to what is good for us, finds 



its justification in this fact, that whatever is relished will prove on the 



average wholesome, and whatever rouses disgust will prove on the 



whole indigestible. Nothing can be more wrong, for example, than 



to make children eat fat when they don't want it. A healthy child 



likes fat, and eats as much of it as he can get. If a child shows signs 



of disgust at fat, that proves that it is of a bilious temperament, and 



it ought never to be forced into eating it against its will. Most of us 



are bilious in after-life just because we were compelled to eat rich food 



in childhood, which we felt instinctively was unsuitable for us. We 



might still be indulging with impunity in thick turtle, canvas-back 



