A friend of the author, who is an enthusiast in regard to the
profitableness of an economic nutrition in assisting the strenuous
life, went to lunch with a generous host in New York the other day,
when the following conversation about the lunch to be ordered was
heard. It partook of Wall-Street brevity, which is thought to be
necessary in the rush of a midday snack or meal.
"What will you have? What! only a baked potato and a bottle of ginger
ale? All right for a starter; but what are you really going to have?
Nothing more! what is the matter with you? Come, now; tell me what
you want for lunch? Stocks are badly off, but I haven't reached the
starvation point yet. Don't treat me like that when I'm trying to treat
you right and white. Brace up, old man, and have something to eat."
The intermediate replies can be imagined as in an overheard telephone
conversation.
The host ordered for himself, as usual, a portion of tongue and a
generous garniture of side dishes, and watched his guest with amused
tolerance. The lunch proceeded, interlarded with talk about topics of
mutual interest, and when a final halt was called the host had not
taken more than one-quarter of his cold tongue and very sparingly
of the accompanying side dishes. The guest had finished one of his
baked potatoes, and had sipped his ginger ale enjoyingly, but had
not taken more than half of the pint ordered. The appetites of both
host and guest were amply satisfied, but without any of the heaviness
which follows an unrestrained "hearty" meal. In tones of surprise the
one-sided conversation, relative to the strangeness of the proceeding,
continued as follows: "Well, I'll be switched! How in Wall Street did
that happen! I haven't eaten half my usual lunch, and yet I have killed
my appetite deader than the Ship Building Trust. I'm blessed if I can
understand it. The blamed thing is uncanny. I don't believe it's true,
but I'm satisfied all right even if I am hypnotised. Come and lunch
with me every day. You're engaged as a regular companion boarder, and
Freddie will pay the freight. You're cheaper than nobody. Come again!
Come again!! Come always!!!"
The above is not an unusual case. The personal influence of the author
and of his active colleagues has been visibly noted among parties
where there was no sympathy with the "starving fad," and where there
was even stubborn opposition to the thought of such a thing. But these
same groups of non-interested objectors have visibly decreased their
accustomed lunches and dinners, and some of them have found that a
cup of coffee and a roll, the same as is habitually taken in Europe,
outside England, serves as a breakfast better than the full meat affair
formerly taken. They persist in declaring that they are not influenced
by the chewing suggestion, but they show signs of _some_ restraining
influence, and observation reveals that in such groups the common
annual and quarterly attacks of illness are less frequently or less
severely suffered.
There is no doubt that Luigi Cornaro gave appreciative attention to
his four three-ounce meals a day, and in giving attention properly
insalivated his food. The inference is warranted. A man full of vigour
and health and constructive energy such as Cornaro reports that he had
in unusual abundance is not likely to confront a three-ounce ration
of delicious food and proceed to bolt it as a dog bolts a piece of
stolen meat. It is a matter of easy observation that a child given
a single piece of sugar or sweet in any form will make it last as
long as possible and get all of the taste out of it by most ingenious
conservation; but the same child, if offered a box of "goodies" as it
is passed around, or whenever the time given for possession of its
contents is limited, will show the greed of a predatory or hunted or
habitually maltreated animal and will not only grab as much as possible
but will cram all possible into his stomach to satisfy the sense of
greed, and then usually suffers the consequences of the double sin in
the sickening re-taste of the gases of indigestion.
Cornaro undoubtedly made his three-ounce meals last as long as possible
in order to enjoy the maximum of taste, and in so doing satisfied
the natural requirements of appreciative attention and thorough
insalivation. In like manner two small tumblers of the fresh grape
juice (new wine--fourteen ounces), which he took as his sapid liquid
in the course of a day in connection with his four meals, would allow
only a sherry glass quantity to each meal, and with such a limited
supply a person is not likely to toss off the liquid in great gulps
as water is drunk to satisfy thirst, but it rather would be enjoyed
as the wine-tasters enjoy wine, by their sipping practice, in pursuit
of their profession. The influence of visible supply or of passing or
permanent opportunity of possession is a most powerful suggestion in
the cultivation of economy or prodigality, of greed or moderation, of
healthy nouriture or plethoric indigestion.
Man was constructed and intended to hunt his food among the grains,
nuts, roots, and other fruits of earth, and in hunting food to earn a
keen appetite. He found his food scattered and ate it as he found it,
with the true appreciation that difficulty of possession gives. In the
primitive state the requirements of natural digestion are safeguarded;
but with a plethora of food cooked and spiced and furnished with
superfacilities for ingestion, the natural protection of difficulty is
removed, and the victims of the luxury drop unconsciously into habits
of abuse, like the overeating of to-day.
In order to escape the surrounding temptations it is necessary to have
always in mind protective counter-suggestions which intelligently make
use of the abundant and easy supply but limit the intake to the needs
of the body as expressed by appetite when permitted to discriminate
in its natural deliberate manner, and which only keeps pace with the
natural dissipation of taste in the process of requisite insalivation.
The chewing practice is but a means to this natural end, but it is a
most important means, the same now as when teeth were used instead of
patent grinders, and when taste took the place of spices and sauces and
manufactured its own delights by the chemical action of saliva.
Among the Zuni Indians, observed by even recent travellers, it is the
custom of the young girls of the _pueblos_ to masticate wheat up to
a given point of sweetness of taste and then to withdraw it from the
mouth and collect it in a wooden dish until a sufficient quantity is
secured, when the jaw-ground and saliva-sweetened "mess" is baked
in the sun or by fire and becomes the "sweet cake" of the family.
The change of the starch of the wheat or corn into sugary dextrose
by the action of saliva, which is necessary to be done somewhere in
the alimentary canal before it is assimilable nutriment, gives the
sweet-cake quality to the food which is the dietary delicacy of these
primitive people. By proper insalivation we perform the delectable
service for ourselves instead of having it done for us by good
young teeth aided by healthy saliva furnished by beautiful feminine
assistance.
"FLETCHERISING" FOOD