This section is from the book "Meals Medicinal", by W. T. Fernie. Also available from Amazon: Meals Medicinal: With "Herbal Simples" Curative Foods From the Cook in Place of Drugs From the Chemist.
(See Fruit).
Not without sentimental uses are jams and jellies. When Mr. Weller, senior (in Pickwick) became a widower, at the snug Marquis of Granby, Dorking, which was his private property, "Sammy, my boy!" said he to his sympathising son, "the breath was scarcely out of your poor mother-in-law's body ven vun old 'ooman sends me a pot of jam, and another a pot o' jelly, and another brews a blessed large jug o' camomile tea, vich she brings in vith her own hands.," Jelly in Scotland goes by the name of Frummelin Tarn.
(See Gin).
(See Seaweeds).
(See Onion).
(See Bean).
(See Meals).
The commercial sizes of Mackerel are "large," "seconds," "tinkers," and "blinks," according as they are of four, three, two, and one, years of growth. Robert Lovell told (1661) "Mackerel are naught for those that are troubled with the epilepsy: they are not to be used except by young strong men".
This fish is said in Somersetshire to come into season when Balaam's ass speaks in church: that is, when the chapters twenty-three and twenty-four of the Book of Numbers are read as the first lessons for the day. Mackerel contains 65 per cent of water, and 24 per cent of nutrients. Its fat is difficult of digestion for ourselves; but a young lady of the Sandwich Islands, even now, will swallow half a dozen raw mackerel for breakfast without incurring the least personal inconvenience. The fish, smoked whilst fresh, is a popular preparation in New York. Its charred bones when powdered, furnish alkaline phosphates, useful against acidity of stomach.
(See Vegetables).
(See Fruits).
(See Fruits).
Sixty years or so ago, there stood a grove of Mulberry trees in what is now the Fulham Road, these having been planted to produce leaves for cultivating silkworms. James the First (1609) had devoted a piece of ground to such a purpose, near his Palace at Westminster. The trees flourished, and Charles the First gave the custody of them, with a house attached, to Lord Aston.
The place was then known as the Mulberry Garden. In the time of the Commonwealth it became a resort for pleasant entertainment, and fashionable folk forsook Spring Gardens for this Mulberry Garden. Pepys called it " a very silly place".
John Dryden was fond of going there to eat tarts. From the Book of Maccabees we learn that the juice of Mulberries, being red like blood, was employed for exciting the elephants of Antiochus to battle.
(See Meats).
 
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