Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages: Including a System of Vegetable Cookery

at noon, and lead at night. DIVISION II.--FOREIGN FRUITS. The more important of these are the banana, pine-apple, and orange, and fig, raisin, prune, and date. The first three need no cooking, two of the last four may be cooked. The date is one of the best--the orange one of the worst, because procured while green, and also because it is stringy. RECEIPT 1.--The prune. Few things sit easier on the feeble or delicate stomach than the stewed prune. It should be stewed slowly, in very little water. RECEIPT 2.--The good raisin is almost as much improved by stewing as the prune. I do not know that the fig has ever yet been subjected to the processes of modern cookery. It is, however, with bread, a good article of food. Fruits, in their juices, may be regarded as the milk of adults and old people, but are less useful to young children and to the _very_ old. But to be useful they must be perfectly ripe, and eaten in their season. Thus used, they prevent a world of summer diseases--used improperly, they invite disease, and do much other mischief. In general, fruits and milk do not go very well together. The baked sweet apple and whortleberry seem to be least objectionable. CLASS III.--ROOTS. DIVISION I.--MEALY ROOTS. These are the potato, in its numerous varieties, the artichoke, the ground-nut, and the comfrey. Of these the potato is by far the most important. SECTION A.--_The Common Potato._ This may be roasted, baked, boiled, steamed, or fried. It is also made into puddings and pies. Roasting in the ashes is the best method of cooking it; frying by far the worst. I take this opportunity to enter my protest against all frying of food. Com. Nicholson, of revolutionary memory, would never, as his daughters inform me, have a frying-pan in his house. The potato is best when well roasted in the ashes, but also excellent when baked, and very tolerable when boiled or steamed. There are many ways of preparing the potato and cooking it. Some always pare it. It may be well