212 FOOD AND FEEDING 



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 pronounces definitely against roast 

 goose, mince pies, 2)dt4 dc foie gras, sally lunn, muftinsand 

 crumpets, and creamy puddings. It is here, too, that the 

 slightest taint in meat, milk, or butter is immediately de- 

 tected ; that rancid pastry from the pastrycook's is ruth- 

 lessly exposed ; and tliat 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 ad- 

 viser change and flicker. Sweet things are always sweet, 

 and bitter things always bitter ; vinegar 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 digestion. 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 two painful 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 Char- 

 treuse, 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 hillside, or dine off fresh 



