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(Print poems and do activity on paper) (pdf file - 70 K)
I surely never hope to view
A steak as luscious as a stew.
The latter is the tasty goal
Of elements in perfect whole,
A mad assemblage of legumes
Exuding warm ambrosial fumes,
Each seasoning of proper length,
Proving in Union there's strength.
A steak is grander, it is true,
Yet needs no special skill to brew.
It is an art a stew to make,
But anyone can broil a steak.
Unknown
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Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at, and I sigh.
William Butler Yeats
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There on a slope of orchard, Francis laid
A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound,
brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home,
And cut down, a pasty costly made,
Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret, lay
Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks
Imbedded and in jellied.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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To make this condiment, your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two hard-boiled eggs;
Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve,
Smoothness and softness to the salad give.
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, half suspected, animate the whole.
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault,
To add a double quantity of salt.
Four times the spoon with oil from Lucca brown,
And twice with vinegar procured from town;
And, lastly, o'er the flavored compound toss
A magic soupcion of anchovy sauce.
O, green and glorious! O herbaceous treat!
'T would tempt the dying anchorite to eat:
Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl!
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
"Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day."
Sydney Smith
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Feast on wine or fast on water,
And your honor shall stand sure
If an angel out of heaven
Brings you something else to drink,
Thank him for his kind attentions,
Go and pour it down the sink.
G.K. Chesterton
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from
But man is a carnivorous production
And must have meals - at least once a day;
He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction,
But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey.
Lord Byron
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When mighty roast beef was the Englishman's food
It ennobled our hearts and enriched our blood--
Our soldiers were brave and our courtiers were good.
Oh! the roast beef of England.
And Old England's roast beef.
Henry Fielding
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What is the matter with Mary Jane?
She's perfectly well and she hasn't a pain,
And it's lovely rice pudding for dinner again,
What is the matter with Mary Jane.
A.A. Milne
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from a translation of
This is every cook's opinion -
No savory dish without an onion,
But lest your kissing should be spoiled
Your onions must be fully boiled.
Jonathan Swift
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On china blue my lobster red
Precedes my cutlet brown,
With which my salad green is sped
By yellow Chablis down.
Lord, if good living be no sin,
But innocent delight,
O polarize these hues within
To one eupeptic white.
Sir Stephen Gaselee
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