nence from food altogether, but that of excUmon of flesh food from the dietary. This rule was never imposed upon the Spanish people— at least, it was not compulsory in the Peninsula for Fridays. Some religious brotherhoods— e.y., the Chartists — excluded flesh food from the dietary alto- gether all the year round, and thus laid the foundation for the equivocal doctrines embodied in the system of vege- tarianism. The exclusion of flesh food was at first rigidly observed, so that all food which was derived from animals, such as eggs, milk, blotter, cheese, lard, suet, was prohibited, as well as fish, flesh, and fotol. Gradually eggs and milk, with their derivates, were excluded from the prohibition, and fish as well as articulate animals and shell-fish were also set free. This latter license was physiologically irre- concilable with the argument against flesh, and proved more than anything else that the clerical rules relating to diet were intended more for the furnishing of the oppor- tunity of the exercise of despotic discipline than as benevolent prescriptions for the improvement of the phy- siological constitution. These rules, with their several modifications and relaxa- tions, have had some influence upon cookery in various ways. In the first place, they conferred greater importance on farmaceous and vegetable dishes, and some of the latter, like the vegetable piidding or chartreuse, properly so-called, became developed to systematic perfection. The permission to eat fish forced the modes of treating fish in the kitchen to some extent upon populations, who would have other- wise gone without fish altogether. Farinaceous dishes were developed to greater perfection. In our days, at last, a certain number of persons have on alleged ethical grounds systematized abstinence from flesh food, and under the name of vegetarians have confined their diet to vegetable products, with the prudent addition, however, of milk, eggs, and the products derived from them. This mode of living 86 THE SPIRIT OF COOKERY has the great recommendation that it is much less costly than a diet including meat as a mainstay; on the other hand, it has the disadvantage to be physiologically incom- plete, and therefore incapable of bringing the human body to the highest climax of its physical development, or keeping it in the possession of its full strength. While vegetarianism, like the former clerical prohibition of meat, might have extended somewhat the practice of vegetable cookery, and thus advanced it a little, it has confined itself to importing into its peculiar literature a number of terms taken from ordinary cookery, and misapplied to counter- feits* which cannot be to its credit. By a careful scrutiny of vegetarian literature, we have convinced ourselves that its recipes are, without exception, extracted from ordinary current cookery-books ; in no particular have we observed any advance, and nowhere any addition as the result of independent study or experiment. The alleged ethical motives for the avoidance of flesh food have not led to cesthetical substitutes, but only to the adoption of cheap makeshifts, which can never supplant the products of rational cookery. CHAPTEE V. SALINE, MINERAL, ACID, AND SWEET VEQETABLE CONDIMENTS; SPICES, AROMATIC SUBSTANCES AND HERBS ; CULINARY COLOURING MATTERS. Definitions.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

nence from food altogether, but that of exclusion of flesh food from the dietary. This rule was never imposed upon the Spanish people— at least, it was not compulsory in the Peninsula for Fridays. Some religious brotherhoods— e.y., the Chartists — excluded flesh food from the dietary altogether all the year round, and thus laid the foundation for the equivocal doctrines embodied in the system of vegetarianism. The exclusion of flesh food was at first rigidly observed, so that all food which was derived from animals, such as eggs, milk, butter, cheese, lard, suet, was prohibited, as well as fish, flesh, and fowl. Gradually eggs and milk, with their derivates, were excluded from the prohibition, and fish as well as articulate animals and shell-fish were also set free. This latter license was physiologically irreconcilable with the argument against flesh, and proved more than anything else that the clerical rules relating to diet were intended more for the furnishing of the opportunity of the exercise of despotic discipline than as benevolent prescriptions for the improvement of the physiological constitution. These rules, with their several modifications and relaxations, have had some influence upon cookery in various ways. In the first place, they conferred greater importance on farmaceous and vegetable dishes, and some of the latter, like the vegetable pudding or chartreuse, properly so-called, became developed to systematic perfection. The permission to eat fish forced the modes of treating fish in the kitchen to some extent upon populations, who would have otherwise gone without fish altogether. Farinaceous dishes were developed to greater perfection. In our days, at last, a certain number of persons have on alleged ethical grounds systematized abstinence from flesh food, and under the name of vegetarians have confined their diet to vegetable products, with the prudent addition, however, of milk, eggs, and the products derived from them. This mode of living has the great recommendation that it is much less costly than a diet including meat as a mainstay; on the other hand, it has the disadvantage to be physiologically incomplete, and therefore incapable of bringing the human body to the highest climax of its physical development, or keeping it in the possession of its full strength. While vegetarianism, like the former clerical prohibition of meat, might have extended somewhat the practice of vegetable cookery, and thus advanced it a little, it has confined itself to importing into its peculiar literature a number of terms taken from ordinary cookery, and misapplied to counterfeits* which cannot be to its credit. By a careful scrutiny of vegetarian literature, we have convinced ourselves that its recipes are, without exception, extracted from ordinary current cookery-books ; in no particular have we observed any advance, and nowhere any addition as the result of independent study or experiment. The alleged ethical motives for the avoidance of flesh food have not led to cesthetical substitutes, but only to the adoption of cheap makeshifts, which can never supplant the products of rational cookery. CHAPTEE V. SALINE, MINERAL, ACID, AND SWEET VEQETABLE CONDIMENTS; SPICES, AROMATIC SUBSTANCES AND HERBS ; CULINARY COLOURING MATTERS. Definitions.

The spirit of cookery