water-souchie, a kind of fish-broth. In _England_, the edible produce of
the world appears at the tables of the nobility, gentry, and opulent
commercial classes; and upon comparison with that of other nations, it
will be seen that the diet of English artisans, peasantry, and even
paupers, is far superior in variety and nourishment; bread, (white and
brown) vegetables, meat, broth, soup, fish, fruit, roots, herbs, cheese,
milk, butter, and, not rarely, sugar and tea, with fermented liquors and
ardent spirits, are all, or most of them, procured as articles of daily
subsistence by the English inferior classes. In Scotland, the higher
ranks live abstemiously, save on festive occasions; but animal food and
wheaten bread is seldom tasted by the lower orders, who chiefly subsist
on rye, barley, and oatmeal, prepared in bread, thin cakes, and
porridge; this last termed _stirabout_, is simply oatmeal mixed with
water and boiled (being stirred about with a wooden skether or spoon
when on the fire) to the consistency of flour-paste, not very stiff;
this, eaten with milk, forms the chief diet of the Scottish artisans and
peasantry, and, indeed, many of superior stations prefer it for
breakfast to bread of the finest flour which can be procured. Both high
and low are partial to the following national dishes. The _haggis_, a
kind of pudding, made of the offals or interior of a sheep, and boiled
in the integument of its stomach; this dish, both in odour and flavour,
is usually excessively offensive to the stranger; the singed sheep's
head, water-souchie, Scotch soup, (an _olla podrida_ of meats and
vegetables,) chicken-broth and sowens. _Laver_, a sauce made from a
peculiar kind of sea-weed, and _caviar_, introduced from Russia, appear
at the tables of the opulent, and by many are much esteemed. The diet of
the higher ranks of _Irish_ varies but little from that of the same
classes in England and Scotland. Amongst national dishes appear the
_staggering bob_, a calf only two days old, delicately dressed;
hodge-podge, a soup answering to that of Scotland; colcannon, a mixture