[1] It is incorrect to speak of bread as the sole “staff of life.” Eggs, milk, cheese, potatoes, and some other vegetables, supply between them far more phosphoric acid than is to be got from bread, either white or brown. And a man could support existence on “beer and baccy” as well as he could do so on bread alone.

[2] In most recipes for puddings or pies, rump steak is given. But this is a mistake, as the tendency of that part of the ox is to harden, when subjected to the process of boiling or baking. Besides the skirt—the thick skirt—there be tit-bits to be cut from around the shoulder.

[3] The cannie Scot, however, never made his haggis from anything belonging to the pig. The dislike of the Scots to pork dates from very long ago, as we read in a note to Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley. King “Jamie” carried this prejudice to England, and is known to have abhorred pork almost as much as he did tobacco. His proposed banquet to the “Deil” consisted of a loin of pork, a poll (or head) of ling, with a pipe of tobacco for digestion.

[4] This dish must somewhat resemble the “Fixed Bayonet,” which at one time was the favourite tit-bit of “Tommy Atkins,” when quartered in India. It consisted of a fowl, stuffed with green chilis, and boiled in rum. The fowl was picked to the bones, and the soldier wound up with the soup. Very tasty!

[5] Kidney potatoes should always be boiled, as steaming makes them more “waxy.”

[6] Doubtful starters.

[7] Formerly Assistant-Surgeon Royal Artillery. A celebrated lecturer on “The Inner Man,” and author of Number One, and How to take Care of Him, etc.

[8] “Of all the delicacies in the whole mundus edibilis I will maintain it to be the most delicate—princeps obsoniorum. I speak not of your grown porkers—things between pig and pork—those hobbydehoys; but a young and tender suckling, under a moon old, guiltless as yet of the sty, with no original speck of the amor immunditiae, the hereditary failing of the first parents, yet manifest—his voice as yet not broken, but something between a childish treble and a grumble—the mild forerunner or praeludium of a grunt. He must be roasted. I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate them seethed, or boiled—but what a sacrifice of the exterior tegument!

“His sauce should be considered. Decidedly a few bread-crumbs, done up with his liver and brains, and a dash of mild sage. But banish, dear Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole hogs to your palate, steep them in shalots, stuff them out with plantations of the rank and guilty garlic—you cannot poison them, or make them stronger than they are; but consider, he is a weakling—a flower.”—Lamb on Pig.

[9] Our then commanding officer was noted for his powers of self-control. I once noticed him leave the table hurriedly, and retire to the verandah. After an interval he returned, and apologised to the President. Our revered chief had only swallowed a flying bug. And he never even used a big D.

[10] An excellent aerated water and a natural one, is obtained from springs in the valley beneath the Long Mynd, near Church Stretton, in Shropshire. In fact, the Stretton waters deserve to be widely known, and are superior to most of the foreign ones.