a time was when it had the proper sorts of trimmings and sauces to go
with it.

At this time England is no place for the epicure. In peacetime English
cooks, as a rule, were not what you would call versatile; their range,
as it were, was limited. Once, seeking to be blithesome and light of
heart, I wrote an article in which I said there were only three
dependable vegetables on the average Englishman's everyday
menu--boiled potatoes, boiled cabbage, and a second helping of the
boiled potatoes.

That was an error on my part; I was unintentionally guilty of the
crime of underestimation. I should have added a fourth to the list of
stand-bys--to wit: the vegetable marrow. For some reason, possibly
because they are a stubborn and tenacious race, the English persist in
looking upon the vegetable marrow as an object designed for human
consumption, which is altogether the wrong view to take of it. As a
foodstuff this article hasn't even the merit that attaches to stringy
celery. You do not derive much nourishment from stale celery, but
eating at it polishes the teeth and provides a healthful form of
exercise that gives you an appetite for the rest of the meal.

From the vegetable marrow you derive no nourishment, and certainly you
derive no exercise; for, being a soft, weak, spiritless thing, it
offers no resistance whatever, and it looks a good deal like a streak
of solidified fog and tastes like the place where an indisposed carrot
spent the night. Next to our summer squash it is the feeblest
imitation that ever masqueraded in a skin and called itself a
vegetable. Yet its friends over there seem to set much store by it.