  SUGARAn Elegiac Ode Queen of the palate! Universal Sweet! Gastronomy’s delectable Gioconda! Since with submission loyally I greet And follow out the regimen of Rhondda, I cannot be considered indiscreet If I essay, but never go beyond, a Brief elegiac tribute to a sway By sterner needs now largely swept away. Thy candy soothes the infant in its pram; Thou addest mellowness to old brown sherry; Thou glorifiest marmalade, on Cam And Isis making breakfast-tables merry; Thou lendest magic to the meanest jam Compounded of the most insipid berry; And canst convert the sourest crabs and quinces To jellies fit for epicures and princes. Thou charmest unalloyed, in loaf or lumps Or crystals; brown and moist, or white and pounded; I never was so deeply in the dumps That, once thy fount of sweetness I had sounded, Courage returned not; even with the mumps I still could view with gratitude unbounded The navigators of heroic Spain Who found the New World—and the sugar-cane. Sprinkled on buttered bread thou dost excite In human boys insatiable cravings; On Turkish (I regret to say) Delight Thou lurest them to dissipate their savings, Instead of banking them, or sitting tight, Or buying useful books and good engravings; And lastly, mixed with strawberries and cream, Thou art more than a dish, thou art a dream. Before necessity, that knows no ruth, Ordained thy frugal use in tea and coffee, Some Stoics banned thee—men who in their youth Showed an unnatural dislike of toffee; For sweetness charms the normal human tooth, Sweetness inspires the singer’s tenderest strophe, Since old Lucretius musically chid The curse of life—amari aliquid. Eau sucrÉe, I admit, is rather tame Compared with beer or whisky blent with soda; But gallant Frenchmen, experts at this game, Commend it highly either as a coda Or prelude to their meals, and much the same Is sherbet, which the Gaekwar of Baroda And other Oriental satraps quaff In preference to ale or half-and-half. Nor must I fail, O potent saccharin! Thou chemic offspring of by-products coaly, Late corner on the culinary scene, To hail thy aid, although it may be lowly Even compared with beet; for thou hast been Employed in sweetening my roly-poly— Thou whom I once regarded as a dose And now the active rival of glucose! But still I hear some jaundiced critic say, Some rigid self-appointed censor morum, “Why harp upon the pleasures of a day When freely sweetened was each cup and jorum, Ere stern controllers had begun to stay The genial outflow of the fons leporum? Now sugar’s scarce, and we must do without it, Why let regretful fancy play about it?” True, yet it greatly goes against the grain, Unless one has the patience of Ulysses, Wholly and resolutely to refrain From dwelling on the memory of past blisses; Forbidden fruits allure the strong and sane; Joys loved but lost are what one chiefly misses; This is my best excuse if I deplore “So sad, so sweet, the days that are no more.” TEA SHORTAGE[Mr. M. Grieve, writing from “The Whins,” Chalfont St. Peter, in the Daily Mail of the 12th October, 1917, suggests herb-teas to meet the shortage, as being far the most healthful substitutes. “They can also,” he says, “be blended and arranged to suit the gastric idiosyncrasies of the individual consumer. A few of them are agrimony, comfrey, dandelion, camomile, woodruff, marjoram, hyssop, sage, horehound, tansy, thyme, rosemary, stinging-nettle and raspberry.”] Although, when luxuries must be resigned, Such as cigars or even breakfast bacon, My hitherto “unconquerable mind” Its philosophic pose has not forsaken, By one impending sacrifice I find My stock of fortitude severely shaken— I mean the dismal prospect of our losing The genial cup that cheers without bemusing. Blest liquor! dear to literary men, Which Georgian writers used to drink like fishes, When cocoa had not swum into their ken And coffee failed to satisfy all wishes; When tea was served to monarchs of the pen, Like Johnson and his coterie, in “dishes,” And came exclusively from far Cathay— See “China’s fragrant herb” in Wordsworth’s lay. Beer prompted Calverley’s immortal rhymes, Extolling it as utterly eupeptic; But on that point, in these exacting times, The weight of evidence supports the sceptic; Beer is not suitable for torrid climes Or if your tendency is cataleptic; But tea in moderation, freshly brewed, Was never by Sir Andrew Clark tabooed. We know for certain that the Grand Old Man Drank tea at midnight with complete impunity, At least he long outlived the Psalmist’s span And from ill-health enjoyed a fine immunity; Besides, robust Antipodeans can And do drink tea at every opportunity; While only Stoics nowadays contrive To shun the cup that gilds the hour of five. But war is war, and when we have to face Shortage in tea, as well as bread and boots, ’Tis well to teach us how we may replace The foreign brew by native substitutes, Extracted from a vegetable base In various wholesome plants and herbs and fruits, “Arranged and blended,” very much like teas, To suit our “gastric idiosyncrasies.” It is a list for future use to file, Including woodruff, marjoram and sage, Thyme, agrimony, hyssop, camomile (A name writ painfully on childhood’s page), Tansy, the jaded palate to beguile, Horehound, laryngeal troubles to assuage, And, for a cup ere mounting to the stirrup, The stinging-nettle’s stimulating syrup. And yet I cannot, though I gladly would, Forget the Babylonian monarch’s cry, “It may be wholesome, but it is not good,” When grass became his only food supply; Such weakness ought, of course, to be withstood, But oh, it wrings the teardrop from my eye To think of Polly putting on the kettle To brew my daily dose of stinging-nettle! MARGARINEA Housekeeper’s Palinode A BALLAD OF EELS[“Lord Desborough has just been reminding us of the neglected source of food supply that we have in the eels of our rivers and ponds. He stated, ‘The food value of an eel is remarkable. In food value one pound of eels is better than a loin of beef.… The greatest eel-breeding establishment in the world is at Comacchio, on the Adriatic. This eel nursery is a gigantic swamp of 140 miles in circumference. It has been in existence for centuries, and in the sixteenth century it yielded an annual revenue of £1,200 to the Pope.’”—Liverpool Daily Post.] When lowering clouds refuse to lift And spread depression far and wide, And when the need of strenuous thrift Is loudly preached on every side, What boundless gratitude one feels To Desborough, inspiring chief, For telling us: “One pound of eels Is better than a loin of beef”! Of old, Popes made eel-breeding pay (At least Lord Desborough says they did), And cleared per annum in this way Twelve hundred jingling, tingling quid. In fact my brain in anguish reels To think we never took a leaf Out of the book which taught that eels Are better than prime cuts of beef. In youth, fastidiously inclined, I own with shame that I eschewed, Like most of my unthinking kind, This luscious and nutritious food; But now that Desborough reveals Its value, with profound belief I sing with him: “One pound of eels Is better than a loin of beef.” I chant it loudly in my bath, I chant it when the sun is high, And when the moon pursues her path Noctambulating through the sky. And when the bill of fare at meals Is more than usually brief, Again I sing: “One pound of eels Is better than a loin of beef.” It is a charm that never fails When friends accost me in the street And utter agonizing wails About the price of butcher’s meat. “Cheer up,” I tell them, “creels on creels Are hastening to your relief; Cheer up, my friends, one pound of eels Is better than a loin of beef.” Then all ye fearful folk, dismayed By threatened shortage of supplies, Let not your anxious hearts be swayed By croakers or their dismal cries; But, from Penzance to Galashiels, From Abertillery to Crieff, Remember that “one pound of eels Is better than a loin of beef.” But these are only pleasant dreams Unless, to realize our hopes, Proprietors of ponds and streams Re-stock them, like the early Popes. Then, though we still run short of keels And corn be leaner in the sheaf, We shall at least have endless eels, Unnumbered super-loins of beef. A SONG OF FOOD-SAVING[Being a faithful effort to versify the article written by Dr. E. I. Spriggs, at the request of the Food Controller, on the food requirements of people of different ages and build.] Good people, who long for a lead On the paramount crux of the time, I pray you give diligent heed To the lessons I weave into rhyme; And first, let us note, one and all— Whether living in castle or “digs”— “Large people need more than the small,” For that’s the first maxim of Spriggs. Now, as most of the food that we eat Is wanted for keeping us warm, The requisite quota of heat Is largely a question of form; And the ratio of surface to weight, As anyone readily twigs, Is the root of the point in debate As sagely expounded by Spriggs. Hence the more we resemble a sphere Less heat on the surface is lost, And the needful supply, it is clear, Is maintained at less lavish a cost; ’Tis economy, then, to be plump As partridges, puffins or pigs, Who are never a prey to the hump, So at least I interpret my Spriggs. Next, the harder it freezes or snows The greater the value of fat, And the larger the appetite grows Of John, Sandy, Taffy and Pat. (Conversely, in Midsummer days, When liquid more freely one swigs, Less viand the appetite stays— This quatrain’s a gloss upon Spriggs.) For strenuous muscular work A larger allowance of grub We need than is due if we shirk Exertion, and lounge in a pub; For the loafer who rests in a chair Everlastingly puffing at “cigs” Can live pretty nearly on air, So I gather at least from my Spriggs. Why children need plentiful food He nextly proceeds to relate: Their capacity’s larger than you’d Be disposed to infer from their weight; They’re growing in bulk and in height, They’re normally active as grigs, And exercise breeds appetite— This stanza is absolute Spriggs. Last of all, with an eloquent plea For porridge at breakfast in place Of the loaf, and for oatcake at tea A similar gap to efface; For potatoless dinners—with rice, For puddings of maize and of figs, Which are filling, nutritious and nice— Thus ends the Epistle of Spriggs. A QUEUE SONGA jocular burden rings in my ear Of Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese; It tells of good cheer ere food was dear, Of a time of plenty and peace and ease. With bread thrown in there was ample fare In Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese For men to repair all the wear and tear Of bodily tissue, though busy as bees. Carnivorous folk might ask for more Than Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese, But that was before the stress of war Had simplified meals with a steady squeeze. For butter has almost fled from our ken, And eggs are fetching enormous fees, And the laying hen is on strike again, And my grocer has run clean out of cheese. So I’m bidding good-bye to the old refrain— It isn’t attuned to times like these— And I sing this strain as I stand in the rain, Margarine, rice and potatoes, please! THE IMPERFECT ECONOMIST“I wear my very oldest suits, I go about in shocking boots, And (bar potatoes) feed on roots, And various cereal substitutes For wheat, and non-imported fruits. No meat my table now pollutes, But, though I spare warm-blooded brutes, I sometimes sup on frogs and newts. I often spend laborious days Supported by a little maize; And rice prepared in divers ways My appetite at luncheon stays. From sugar I avert my gaze; Unsweetened tea my thirst allays; I never go to any plays Or smoke expensive Henry Clays.” Our excellent Economist His pet extravagance forgets, Which rather spoils his little list— His fifty daily cigarettes. THE WAR PIG: A PALINODEMuch obloquy was thine in days of yore, O Porker, and thy service manifold (Save for a casual mention, curt and cold) Ungrateful man continued to ignore; Nay worse, he ceased not daily to outpour Abuse upon thy breed, to sneer and scold, Till every porcine trait, in days of old, We learned to ridicule or to abhor. But now the days of calumny are past, These cruel innuendoes we disown, And epithets designed to blame or blast Take on a new and honorific tone; For England needs thee, blameless Porker, now, And Prothero salutes the sovereign sow. |
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