"But it is ever singularly thus. Inherent ignorance belongs to man; and
The Agent, in his Continental travels, has always remarked, that the
countries most fertile in themselves were invariably worse tilled than
those more barren. The Italians and the Spaniards leave their fields to
Nature, as we leave our vegetables, fish, and meat. And, heavens! what
richness do we fling away, what dormant qualities in our dishes do
we disregard,--what glorious gastronomic crops (if the Agent may
be permitted the expression)--what glorious gastronomic crops do we
sacrifice, allowing our goodly meats and fishes to lie fallow! 'Chance,'
it is said by an ingenious historian, who, having been long a secretary
in the East India House, must certainly have had access to the best
information upon Eastern matters--'Chance,' it is said by Mr.
Charles Lamb, 'which burnt down a Chinaman's house, with a litter of
sucking-pigs that were unable to escape from the interior, discovered to
the world the excellence of roast-pig.' Gunpowder, we know, was invented
by a similar fortuity." [The reader will observe that my style in the
supposed character of a Gastronomic Agent is purposely pompous and
loud.] "So, 'tis said, was printing,--so glass.--We should have drunk
our wine poisoned with the villanous odor of the borachio, had not
some Eastern merchants, lighting their fires in the Desert, marked the
strange composition which now glitters on our sideboards, and holds the
costly produce of our vines.

"We have spoken of the natural riches of a country. Let the reader think
but for one moment of the gastronomic wealth of our country of England,
and he will be lost in thankful amazement as he watches the astonishing
riches poured out upon us from Nature's bounteous cornucopia! Look at
our fisheries!--the trout and salmon tossing in our brawling streams;
the white and full-breasted turbot struggling in the mariner's net; the
purple lobster lured by hopes of greed into his basket-prison, which