"How did them old _anti-delusion_ fellows live?" once asked an honest old
farmer of the writer. "They must have lived differently than we live, or
they would not have told so many years as they did."
True, true. The difference between ancient and modern diet is remarkable.
The ancient Greeks and Romans used no tea, coffee, tobacco, chocolate,
sugar, lard, or butter. They had but few spices, no "nutmeg, cinnamon,
ginger, or cloves," no Cayenne pepper, no sage, sweet marjoram, spinach,
tapioca, Irish moss, arrow-root, potato, corn starch, common beans; no
oranges, tamarinds, or candies, or the Yankee invention, "buckwheat cakes
and molasses." What would our modern cooks do without the above enumerated
articles in the culinary department? And the butter! Down to the Saviour's
time butter was unknown. Dr. Galen (130-218, A. D.) saw the first butter
only a short time before his death. Tea is comparatively a modern
introduction.