University Match, on a quart of beer, and a pint of gooseberries.
Bananas
as another excellent fruit, are seldom eaten native before the skin is
discoloured, and the pulp of so soft a consistence that it can be
scooped out with a spoon. An old volume, entitled, The Glasse of Time in the First Age, Divinely Handled by Thomas Peyton (1620), contains, (eighty-first stanza), these lines respecting the banana :—
" A cucumber much like it is in. shew,
Of pleasing taste, and sweet delightful hue ;
If with a knife the fruit in two you reeve,
A perfect cross you shall therein perceive."
"
But, in order to see this clearly, it is necessary to cut the banana
fruit when it first begins to ripen ; or, if ripe, immediately after it
is taken from the plant."
"
Concerning fruit," Sydney Smith, when writing about the Scotch people
(1802) said, " Their temper will stand anything but an attack on their
climate ; they would even have you believe they can ripen fruit there ;
and, to be candid, I must own that in remarkably warm summers I have
tasted peaches that made most excellent pickles ; whilst it is on
record that at the siege of Perth, on one occasion, the ammunition
falling short, their nectarines made admirable cannon-balls."
Frumenty,
as commended by Dr. Oldfield, as well as " Flummery," is made from
wheaten flour, each being an old-fashioned food, much favoured by our
rustic forefathers. The former consisted of milled wheat boiled in milk
; for the latter a " recipe " is given by Dr. Salmon (1696). " This, in
the Western parts of England is made of wheat flower, which is held to
be the most heatening, and strengthening. To prepare
