Backanswering Sydney Smith

 

This poet knows not what a sallat is,

His a concoct of many musty bits

Of rubbish lurking in the kitchen store

That must be eaten ere they’ve rotted more.

‘Tis not a condiment, whate’re he states;

More like the slops our fussy daughter hates.

Mustard and onion are a trifle strong

To add to ingredients vastly overlong

Where squashed pots, yolks with oil and sour mixed

Are not improved by stinking fish when fixed

In dishes, tabled plain or fine. I’d hope,

Dear poet, you can’t be such a derelict dope

As never passes through the kitchen door

To see how real cooks deal with meals galore

Or can you be? ‘Tis no surprise to me

To find a man as ignorant as thee.

Nauseously full, an epicure would say,

“Fate has harmed me – I’ll die ere close of day.”

Recipe for a Salad         

 By Sydney Smith

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 crown,
And twice with vinegar, procured from town;
And lastly, o’er the flavored compound toss
A magic soupçon 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 fleting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad-bowl;
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
“Fate cannot harm me,—I have dined to-day.”