Wanderings by the Loire

כריכה קדמית
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012 - 138 עמודים
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1833 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III. THE SUBTERRANEANS. We remember, during the late war, a Frenchman was usually caricatured as a little, meagre, famished creature; and it was therefore with some curiosity that, on our first journey to France, we watched the starvelings at their meals: nay, at the moment when this note goes down, we are still filled with curiosity as insatiable as their own appetite--curiosity to know how they contrive to stow all they eat. While we, with the national abstemiousness of John Bull, are concocting our journal over a concoction of coffee and boiled milk, the same individuals whom we are to meet at a luxurious dinner at five o'clock are busy with their morning meal (it being now between nine and ten) of soup, fish, fowl, joints, made-dishes, and dessert, with wine and beer. The stomach of a Frenchman is not only stronger than that of an Englishman, but more capacious. The latter is generally satisfied with a few glasses of wine during dinner, while the former consumes habitually, at the same meal, a quantity of wine and water, seldom amounting to a great deal less than half a gallon. A gentleman, the other day, took pains to account to the company for his extra appetite, informing them that it was occasioned by his having eaten nothing that morning to breakfast--nothing save a few eggs. As for the poorer classes, it is the same case with them in regard to quantity; but water forms the staple commodity both of their meat and drink. Almost any thing that grows in the fields, and thus deserves the name of a vegetable, suffices to make their soup; and if they can pour in a little milk, they think themselves feasted--not to talk of oil or butter, which foim the summum bonum of their gastronomic ambition. After breakfast, we sallied forth to wander along th...

מהדורות אחרות - הצג הכל

מידע ביבליוגרפי