The pudding of the bag, whose quiv’ring breast,
With suet lin’d, leads on the Yankee feast;
The Charlotte brown, within whose crusty sides
A belly soft the pulpy apple hides;
The yellow bread, whose face like amber glows,
And all of Indian that the bake-pan knows—
You tempt me not—my fav’rite greets my eyes,
To that lov’d bowl my spoon by instinct flies.
CANTO II.
To mix the food by vicious rules of art,
To kill the stomach and to sink the heart,
To make mankind, to social virtue sour,
Cram o’er each dish, and be what they devour;
For this the kitchen Muse first fram’d her book,
Commanding sweats to stream from every cook;
Children no more their antic gambols tried,
And friends to physic wonder’d why they died.
Not so the Yankee—his abundant feast,
With simples furnish’d, and with plainness dress’d,
A num’rous offspring gathers round the board,
And cheers alike the servant and the lord;
Whose well-bought hunger prompts the joyous taste,
And health attends them from the short repast.
While the full pail rewards the milk-maid’s toil,
The mother sees the morning caldron boil;
To stir the pudding next demands their care,
To spread the table and the bowls prepare;
To feed the children, as their portions cool,
And comb their heads, and send them off to school.
Yet may the simplest dish, some rules impart,
For nature scorns not all the aids of art.
E’en Hasty-Pudding, purest of all food,
May still be bad, indifferent, or good,
As sage experience the short process guides,
Or want of skill, or want of care presides,
Whoer’er would form it on the surest plan,
To rear the child and long sustain the man;
