The noticeable point in the Italian dietary is the universal and profuse
use of macaroni. Chestnuts and Indian corn, the meal of which is made into
a dish called _polenta_, something like our mush, are also used, but
macaroni is found at every table, noble or peasant's. No form of wheat
presents such condensed nourishment, and it deserves larger space on our
own bills of fare than we have ever given it.
In Spain we find the _olla podrida_, a dish containing, as chief
ingredient, the _garbanzo_ or field-pea: it is a rich stew, of fowls or
bacon, red peppers, and pease. Red pepper enters into most of the dishes
in torrid climates, and there is a good and sufficient reason for this
apparent mistake. Intense and long-continued heat weakens the action of
the liver, and thus lessens the supply of bile; and red pepper has the
power of stimulating the liver, and so assisting digestion. East Indian
curries, and the Mexican and Spanish _olla_, are therefore founded on
common-sense.
In France the _pot-au-feu_, or soup-pot, simmers in every peasant or
middle-class home, and is not to be despised even in richer ones. In this
dish, a small portion of meat is cooked so judiciously as to flavor a
large mass of vegetables and broth; and this, served with salad and oil
and bread, forms a meal which can hardly be surpassed in its power of
making the most of every constituent offered.
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