MAN’S EATING AND FOOD HABITS ARE ALWAYS CHANGING

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 83, 9 January 1950, Page 4

MAN’S EATING AND FOOD HABITS ARE ALWAYS CHANGING

While eating has been a necessity from the dawn of humanity, the kinds of food and the* ways of eating them have gone through many phases and, according to one Bay of Plenty eating house proprietor, the eating habits of some people have not improved. But whatever age of history, man has had to eat. Primitive man existed on berries, insects and such wild animals as he found dead or was able to kill. Birds he felled with stories, and his dinner was / eaten raw, with' sharp teeth crunching the bones, writes D. J. Beeman. Dine Furtively He dined alone, furtively and hurriedly, before a hungry rival deprived him of his meal. But when the age of the cave* dwellers began, so also did group eating, and when a large beast had been killed, several beings would group around it. tearing off lumps of flesh. While the inhabitants of ancient Britain wOre dinmg monotonously on dried corn mixed to a paste with water, the Romans and Persians were toying with sole and mullet artistically garnished. Romans, Greeks and Egyptians alike were extravagant diners and entertainers. Their elaborate dinners lasted several hours. The Greeks and Romans breakfasted on bread and wine, sometimes with cheese grated 'in it.

Bread and lots of radishes constituted the staple breakfast in old England. » , Four thousand years ago, the Egyptian luncheon “usually consisted of a soup made with onions, garlic and beef, although the flesh of the ibex or gazelle was used as a favourite dish.” Few Green Vegetables Though the Elizabethans were noted for their luxury and excesses in eating, there was a paucity of green vegetables in their diet. An account book representing household expenses of Queen Elizabeth showed her to have been very fond of roast goose. There are also listed “veales, muttons, hogges of bacon,” to say nothing of “pultrie and pultrie stuff, herbes” and various wines and malt liquor. In the way of meat, there is little that has not been eaten at some time or other. I-Rrsesj seals, por- / poises, rattlesnakes, monkeys and skunk are only a few apart from our own usuhl meat diet. Skunk, in fact, is still praised by some gourmets, who claim it is as delicious as tender rabbit. Perhap's by its edible qualities it seeks to atone for its pther notorious drawbacks. After Los Angeles columnist Paul Coates wrote* that the American mother was a “perfectly lousy cook” he received 260 readers invitations to eat at their homes. Coates accepted most of the invitations, ha 1 ? still 240 strange meals to face. Shaw has said, with truth, that the Chinese coolie 'refusing a request with “Sorry, no can,” speaks better English (in less time) than the businessman who says “I regret to inform you that I, am unable to comply with your Tomatoes are excellent food for any person with a rheumatic condition. The' eating of fruits which taste acid, such as oranges, lemons, grapefruit, tomatoes, tree tomatoes, DO NOT produce “acids in the blood.”