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Corn, Indian
(See MAIZE, HOMINY, SAMP, OSWEGO, POP CORN, and CEREALINE.) MAIZE, or Indian Corn, which is produced over immense regions of the globe, though not grown in England, affords nutriment of a substantial kind more largely than wheat, our "Staff of Life." It also contains starch, sugar, fat, salts, and water. Maize has the additional advantage of being easily digested in the human body, so that altogether it makes a specially valuable food. "With a diet of Indian Corn, bread, and pork," says an American writer, "the workmen of this country are capable of enduring the greatest fatigue, and of performing the heaviest amount of physical labour." But Maize is deficient in mineral salts, though richer in fat than any other cereal, except the oat. In Ireland, Maize is cooked as a porridge, or "stir-about," or, as the Americans call it, mush.
Hominy, Samp, and Cerealine are starchy preparations of split maize, being of much nutritive value as such, and admirable for making puddings. Corn bread contains more nourishment than wheaten bread, and is a better diet for persons suffering from disease of the liver, or of the kidneys. Doctors will do well to advocate a more extensive use of Corn bread; it is cheaper than wheaten bread, is readily prepared, and requires but little knowledge to make it. The starch of Maize (sold as corn-flour) is a manufactured article, and represents only the fat-forming, heat-producing constituents of the grain; but because containing little, or no mineral matter it cannot sustain the solids of the body. Infants fed on this corn-flour grow up rickety; it contains only about eighteen grains of proteid substance to the pound. The flour of Maize does not make good bread in the ordinary way: it has a harsh flavour, and the meal is heavy. A couple of teaspoonfuls of corn-flour mixed with two tablespoonfuls of COW. water, and then added to half a pint of boiling milk, and boiled for eight minutes, being sweetened to taste, form a liquid of about the consistency of cream. An old doctor of some note has been in the habit of taking a basin of this every night at bedtime, with decided benefit. For some feeble persons a spoonful of brandy, or a wineglassful of good sound sherry, would be properly added, and would better conduce to its digestion.
COW (See BUTTER, CREAM, and MILK.) IN Flintshire, and some other counties, the sweet breath, and smell of the Cow are thought to be of benefit against consumption of the human lungs. Henderson tells of a blacksmith's apprentice who was restored to health when far advanced in a decline, by taking the milk of Cows pastured in a kirkyard. "Dat Deus دو دو immiti cornua curta bovi,” ," says the Latin proverb-"Savage cattle have only short horns." So was it in The House that Jack built, where the fretful creature that "tossed the dog " had but one "horn," which grew "crumpled." Dr. Jacond, in his Traitement de la Phthisie Pulmonaire, makes a great point of consumptive patients who live in the country drinking plenty of new milk, and this in the Cows' stables; not only that they may thus get the milk perfectly fresh, but also that they may breathe the atmosphere of the byre for a while two or three times a day. He feels confident that this atmosphere serves to allay bronchial irritation, and cough. In the Life of Charlotte Mary Yonge, by Miss Coleridge, 1903, it is related that Edmond Yonge, a sailor, one of her ancestors, was pronounced early in life to be in a decline, and was therefore sent to be under the care of a Swiss doctor who "made the young man live in a cow-house, and drink milk." Edmond Yonge took several subsequent voyages, and "kept his cough till he was nearly seventy years old." 66 Under the title of Le Pied de Bœuf Poulette, Vieullemont gives a noteworthy recipe of a very nutritious and easily-digested delicacy for the invalid: Wrap a Cow-heel in washed selvage, and boil it in some water, with vegetables, and spices. Then, having removed the wrapping, cover the heel with a sauce made (white) of cream, with yolk of egg, lemon-juice, and nutmeg, and add parsley, also butter." "Ce plat par son confortable gout, est très recherché," says this experienced cook. "Hey, diddle, diddle, The cat scraped the fiddle, The cow jump'd over the moon; The little dog bayed To see such sport played; And the dish ran away with the spoon." "Hè! gripon, gripon!
Chat grattait le cremône!
La vache sur la lune cabriole; L'épagneul grimace En voyant sa gràce; Et la chaton le cuiller vole."
Cow-heel broth is both strengthening and remedial to a weakly stomach. In the time of Izaak Walton there was made direct from the cow a pleasant cordial which is now seldom or ever seen, the syllabub, or spiced wine, on which milk was pumped from a cow yielding it good and rich into a large bowl; it was then set aside for half-an-hour or more, and afterwards served in glasses with a ladle. Clotted cream was, and still is, put on the top of the syllabub in Devonshire. "Joan takes her neat rub'd pail, and now She trips to milk the sand-red cow, Where for some sturdy football swain Joan strokes a syllabub, or twain."
Compleat Angler.