Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A RECIPE - FOR CIVILISATION, by THOMAS HOOD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A RECIPE - FOR CIVILISATION, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Surely, those sages err who teach
Last Line: That turn'd the spit, to chop up dagon! --
Subject(s): Civilization; Cooking & Cooks; Cookery


THE following Poem -- is from the pen of DOCTOR KITCHENER! -- the most heterogeneous of authors,
but at the same time -- in the Sporting Latin of Mr. Egan, -- a real Homo-genius or a
Genius of a Man! In the Poem, his CULINARY ENTHUSIASM, as usual---- boils over! and
makes it seem written, as he describes himself (see The Cook's Oracle) -- with the Spit in one
hand! -- and the Frying Pan in the other, -- while in the style of the rhymes it is
Hudibrastic, ---- as if in the ingredie
As a Head Cook, Optician -- Physician, Music Master -- Domestic Economist and Death-bed Attorney!
-- I have celebrated The Author elsewhere with approbation; -- and cannot now place him upon
the Table as a Poet, ---- without still being his LAUDER, a phrase which those persons
whose course of classical reading recals the INFAMOUS FORGERY on the Immortal Bard of
Eden! ---- will find easy to understand.

SURELY, those sages err who teach
That man is known from brutes by speech,
Which hardly severs man from woman,
But not th' inhuman from the human, --
Or else might parrots claim affinity,
And dogs be doctors by latinity, --
Not t' insist, (as might be shown)
That beasts have gibberish of their own,
Which once was no dead tongue, tho' we
Since AEsop' days have lost the key;
Nor yet to hint dumb men, -- and, still, not
Beasts that could gossip though they will not,
But play at dummy like the monkeys,
For fear mankind should make them flunkies.
Neither can man be known by feature
Or form, because so like a creature,
That some grave men could never shape
Which is the aped and which the ape,
Nor by his gait, nor by his height,
Nor yet because he's black or white,
But rational, -- for so we call
The only COOKING ANIMAL!
The only one who brings his bit
Of dinner to the pot or spit,
For where's the lion e'er was hasty,
To put his ven'son in a pasty?
Ergo, by logic, we repute,
That he who cooks is not a brute, --
But Equus brutum est, which means,
If a horse had sense he'd boil his beans,
Nay, no one but a horse would forage
On naked oats instead of porridge,
Which proves, if brutes and Scotchmen vary,
The difference is culinary.
Further, as man is known by feeding
From brutes, -- so men from men, in breeding,
Are still distinguished as they eat,
And raw in manners, raw in meat, --
Look at the polish'd nations hight,
The civilized -- the most polite
Is that which bears the praise of nations
For dressing eggs two hundred fashions,
Whereas, at savage feeders look, --
The less refined the less they cook;
From Tartar grooms that merely straddle
Across a steak and warm their saddle,
Down to the Abyssinian squaw,
That bolts her chops and collops raw,
And, like a wild beast, cares as little
To dress her person as her victual, --
For gowns, and gloves, and caps, and tippets,
Are beauty's sauces, spice, and sippets,
And not by shamble bodies put on,
But those who roast and boil their mutton;
So Eve and Adam wore no dresses
Because they lived on water-cresses,
And till they learn'd to cook their crudities,
Went blind as beetles to their nudities.
For niceness comes from th' inner side
(As an ox is drest before his hide),
And when the entrail loathes vulgarity
The outward man will soon cull rarity,
For 'tis th' effect of what we eat
To make a man look like his meat,
As insects show their food's complexions:
Thus foplings' clothes are like confections.
But who to feed a jaunty coxcomb,
Would have an Abyssinian ox come? --
Or serve a dish of fricassees,
To clodpoles in a coat of frieze?
Whereas a black would call for buffalo
Alive -- and, no doubt, eat the offal too
Now, (this premised) it follows then
That certain culinary men
Should first go forth with pans and spits
To bring the heathens to their wits,
(For all wise Scotchmen of our century
Know that first steps are alimentary;
And, as we have prov'd, flesh pots and saucepans
Must pave the way for Wilberforce plans;)
But Bunyan err'd to think the near gate
To take man's soul, was battering Ear gate,
When reason should have work'd her course
As men of war do -- when their force
Can't take a town by open courage,
They steal an entry with its forage.
What reverend bishop, for example,
Could preach horn'd Apis from his temple?
Whereas a cook would soon unseat him,
And make his own churchwardens eat him.
Not Irving could convert those vermin
Th' Anthropophages, by a sermon;
Whereas your Osborne, in a trice,
Would "take a shin of beef and spice," --
And raise them such a savoury smother,
No Negro would devour his brother,
But turn his stomach round as loth
As Persians, to the old black broth, --
For knowledge oftenest makes an entry,
As well as true love, thro' the pantry,
Where beaux that came at first for feeding; --
Grow gallant men and get good breeding; --
Exempli gratia -- in the West,
Ship-traders say there swims a nest
Lin'd with black natives, like a rookery,
But coarse as carrion crows at cookery. --
This race, though now call'd O. Y. E. men,
(To show they are more than A. B. C. men,)
Was once so ignorant of our knacks
They laid their mats upon their backs,
And grew their quartern loaves for luncheon
On trees that baked them in the sunshine.
As for their bodies, they were coated,
(For painted things are so denoted;)
But, the naked truth is, stark primevals,
That said their prayers to timber devils,
Allow'd polygamy -- dwelt in wig-wams, --
And, when they meant a feast, ate big vams. --
And why? -- because their savage nook
Had ne'er been visited by Cook, --
And so they fared till our great chief
Brought them, not methodists, but beef,
In tubs, -- and taught them how to live,
Knowing it was too soon to give,
Just then, a homily on their sins,
(For cooking ends ere grace begins)
Or hand his tracts to the untractable
Till they could keep a more exact table --
For nature has her proper courses,
And wild men must be back'd like horses,
Which, jockeys know, are never fit
For riding till they've had a bit
I' the mouth; but then, with proper tackle,
You may trot them to a tabernacle;
Ergo (I say) he first made changes
In the heathen modes, by kitchen ranges,
And taught the king's cook, by convincing
Process, that chewing was not mincing,
And in her black first thrust a bundle,
Of tracts abridg'd from Glasse and Rundell,
Where, ere she had read beyond Welsh rabbits,
She saw the spareness of her habits,
And round her loins put on a striped
Towel, where fingers might be wiped,
And then her breast clothed like her ribs,
(For aprons lead of course to bibs)
And, by the time she had got a meat-
Screen, veil'd her back, too, from the heat --
As for her gravies and her sauces,
(Tho' they reform'd the royal fauces,)
Her forcemeats and ragouts, -- I praise not,
Because the legend further says not,
Except, she kept each Christian high-day,
And once upon a fat good Fry-day
Ran short of logs, and told the Pagan,
That turn'd the spit, to chop up Dagon! --





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