Dr. Nichols' penny vegetarian cookery : the science and art of selecting and preparing a pure, healthful, and sufficient diet.

  • Thomas Low Nichols
Date:
1883
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Nichols' penny vegetarian cookery : the science and art of selecting and preparing a pure, healthful, and sufficient diet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    taken in war, but at times their nearest relations; as in some parts of Africa, when an old man or woman got helpless and troublesome, they called upon their children and grandchildren to kill, roast, and eat them—whence, coming down from earlier times and customs, we may have derived the question whether certain deceased persons have “ cut up well.” Our ancestors were savages, and no doubt were cannibals. Traces of savagism remain in our butchering and flesh-eating habits, as well as in the plundering and murdering expeditions which give us wealth, empire, and glory—but we no longer devour, save in a metaphorical fashion, our nearest relations. “ Dog does not eat dog ” literally—though in most civilized countries the rich are said to live upon the poor, and hypocrites devour widows’ houses, and parents sacrifice their children to the exigencies of civilization. The word vegetables, used in the greengrocer sense, with an appli¬ cation to cabbages, turnips, potatoes, etc., has been a thorn in the flesh of the vegetarians, who have vainly tried to find a better designation. I consider it good enough, and am well satisfied with the name which belongs to one of the great kingdoms of nature, living, as I do, almost entirely upon the pro¬ ducts of the vegetable king¬ dom, though availing myself to a small extent of the industrious gatherings of cows, fowls, and bees, which have the goodness to supply me with milk, butter, cheese, eggs, and honey—all real products of vegetation, and all to be had without the sacrifice of life. Certainly there is a wide difference between getting a glass of milk from a friendly cow, an egg from a hen, or some honey from an over¬ flowing hive, and killing, roasting, and eating fowls or cattle. Vegetables, so called, though not generally rich in nutritive elements, yet contain certain necessary principles of diet. Potatoes are eminently anti scorbutic. No ship’s crew ever got the scurvy if well provided with fresh or even dried potatoes, and other vegetables or fruits, opinach and other greens and salads promote the action of the bowels. Leaves, as of the cabbage, lettuce, etc.; stalks, as of celery and rhubarb ; tubers, as of the potato, sweet potato or yam ; bulbs, as the --Vnd ^ ’ roo^s’ as ^ee^? carrot, parsnip, and turnip • . •6 v8Seta^e. marrow, squash, and pumpkin may be considered as substitutes for fruits, and possess many of their virtues. The tomato, B John Davie, late Treasurer of the Vegetarian Society, 83 years old, and forty years a Vegetarian.