THE FOOD OF A LIFETIME.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 3905, 22 August 1874, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE FOOD OF A LIFETIME.

M. Soyer, cook of the Reform Club, was a person of considerable genius, a good deal above ordinary artists in his peculiar line, hi one of his books, the "Modern Housewife," he enters into a calcnia-ion as to how much food an epicure of 70 years of age has consumed. This imaginary epicure, who is supposed to be a wealthy personage, is placed by him on Primrose Hill at ten years old, and told to look around him at the vast assemblage of animals and other objects he will, in. the course of a lifetime, send down his throat—the sight of which is of course described as startling. Among other things he is to devour 30 oxen, 200 sheep, 100 calve 3, 200 lambs, 50 pi«a. 12U0 fowls, 300 turkeys, 2G3 pigeons, 120 turbot, 140 salmon, 30,000 oyster?, 5475 pounds weight of vegetables, 243£ pounds of butter, 25,000 eggs, and 4| tons .of bread, besides fruit, sweet" meats, &c, and 49 hogsheads of wine, 584 gallons of spirits, and about 3000 gallons of tea and coffee. This is a mere outline of what we are told is destined to be consumed. To show there is no exaggeration, Soyer assures us that he had from experience made up a scale of food for the day for a period of sixty years, and it amounts to 33| tons weight of meat, farinaceous food and vegetables, &c. One is not prepared to despise the calculations of so clever an expert. AH we can say is, that the picture he presents is very suggestive. That he has not exaggerated in at least one particular, I am prepared to verify. A gentleman of my acquaintance has for the last fifty years eaten, every morning, two eggs to breakfast—making 730 per annum, or a total for the whole period of 36,500 eggs. This goes considerably beyond Soyer.— Chambers's Journal.