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Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

The Hasty Pudding

By Joel Barlow (1754–1812)

MADAM:—A simplicity in diet, whether it be considered with reference to the happiness of individuals or the prosperity of a nation, is of more consequence than we are apt to imagine. In recommending so great and necessary a virtue to the rational part of mankind, I wish it were in my power to do it in such a manner as would be likely to gain their attention. I am sensible that it is one of those subjects in which example has infinitely more power than the most convincing arguments, or the highest charms of poetry. Goldsmith’s Deserted Village, though possessing these two advantages in a greater degree than any other work of the kind, has not prevented villages in England from being deserted. The apparent interest of the rich individuals, who form the taste as well as the laws in that country, has been against him; and with that interest it has been vain to contend.

The vicious habits which in this little piece I endeavor to combat, seem to me not so difficult to cure. No class of people has any interest in supporting them, unless it be the interest which certain families may feel in vying with each other in sumptuous entertainments. There may indeed be some instances of depraved appetites which no arguments will conquer; but these must be rare. There are very few persons but would always prefer a plain dish for themselves, and would prefer it likewise for their guests, if there were no risk of reputation in the case. This difficulty can only be removed by example; and the example should proceed from those whose situation enables them to take the lead in forming the manners of a nation. Persons of this description in America, I should hope, are neither above nor below the influence of truth and reason when conveyed in language suited to the subject.

Whether the manner I have chosen to address my arguments to them be such as to promise any success, is what I cannot decide. But I certainly had hopes of doing some good, or I should not have taken the pains of putting so many rhymes together; and much less should I have ventured to place your name at the head of these observations.

Your situation commands the respect and your character the affections of a numerous people. These circumstances impose a duty upon you, which I believe you discharge to your own satisfaction and that of others. The example of your domestic virtues has doubtless a great effect among your countrywomen. I only wish to rank simplicity of diet among the virtues. In that case it will certainly be cherished by you, and I should hope more esteemed by others than it is at present.

THE AUTHOR.

YE Alps audacious, through the heavens that rise,

To cramp the day and hide me from the skies;

Ye Gallic flags, that o’er their heights unfurled,

Bear death to kings, and freedom to the world,

I sing not you. A softer theme I choose,

A virgin theme, unconscious of the Muse,

But fruitful, rich, well suited to inspire

The purest frenzy of poetic fire.

Despise it not, ye bards to terror steel’d,

Who hurl your thunders round the epic field;

Nor ye who strain your midnight throats to sing

Joys that the vineyard and the still-house bring;

Or on some distant fair your notes employ,

And speak of raptures that you ne’er enjoy.

I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel,

My morning incense, and my evening meal,

The sweets of Hasty Pudding. Come, dear bowl,

Glide o’er my palate, and inspire my soul.

The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine,

Its substance mingle, married in with thine,

Shall cool and temper thy superior heat,

And save the pains of blowing while I eat.

Oh! could the smooth, the emblematic song

Flow like thy genial juices o’er my tongue,

Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime,

And, as they roll in substance, roll in rhyme,

No more thy awkward unpoetic name

Should shun the muse, or prejudice thy fame;

But rising grateful to the accustom’d ear,

All bards should catch it, and all realms revere!

Assist me first with pious toil to trace

Through wrecks of time, thy lineage and thy race;

Declare what lovely squaw, in days of yore,

(Ere great Columbus sought thy native shore)

First gave thee to the world; her works of fame

Have lived indeed, but lived without a name.

Some tawny Ceres, goddess of her days,

First learn’d with stones to crack the well dried maize,

Through the rough sieve to shake the golden shower,

In boiling water stir the yellow flour:

The yellow flour, bestrew’d and stirr’d with haste,

Swells in the flood and thickens to a paste,

Then puffs and wallops, rises to the brim,

Drinks the dry knobs that on the surface swim;

The knobs at last the busy ladle breaks,

And the whole mass its true consistence takes.

Could but her sacred name, unknown so long,

Rise, like her labors, to the son of song,

To her, to them, I’d consecrate my lays,

And blow her pudding with the breath of praise.

If ’twas Oella whom I sang before

I here ascribe her one great virtue more.

Not through the rich Peruvian realms alone

The fame of Sol’s sweet daughter should be known,

But o’er the world’s wide clime should live secure,

Far as his rays extend, as long as they endure.

Dear Hasty Pudding, what unpromised joy

Expands my heart, to meet thee in Savoy!

Doom’d o’er the world through devious paths to roam,

Each clime my country, and each house my home,

My soul is soothed, my cares have found an end,

I greet my long lost, unforgotten friend.

For thee through Paris, that corrupted town,

How long in vain I wandered up and down,

Where shameless Bacchus, with his drenching hoard,

Cold from his cave usurps the morning board.

London is lost in smoke and steep’d in tea;

No Yankee there can lisp the name of thee;

The uncouth word, a libel on the town,

Would call a proclamation from the crown.

From climes oblique, that fear the sun’s full rays,

Chill’d in their fogs, exclude the generous maize:

A grain, whose rich, luxuriant growth requires

Short gentle showers, and bright ethereal fires.

But here, though distant from our native shore,

With mutual glee, we meet and laugh once more,

The same! I know thee by that yellow face,

That strong complexion of true Indian race,

Which time can never change, nor soil impair,

Nor Alpine snows, nor Turkey’s morbid air;

For endless years, through every mild domain,

Where grows the maize, there thou art sure to reign.

But man, more fickle, the bold license claims,

In different realms to give thee different names.

Thee the soft nations round the warm Levant

Polenta call, the French of course Polente.

E’en in thy native regions, how I blush

To hear the Pennsylvanians call thee Mush!

On Hudson’s bunks, while men of Belgic spawn

Insult and eat thee by the name Suppawn.

All spurious appellations, void of truth;

I’ve better known thee from my earliest youth,

Thy name is Hasty Pudding! thus my sire

Was wont to greet thee fuming from his fire;

And while he argued in thy just defence

With logic clear, he thus explain’d the sense:—

“In haste the boiling cauldron o’er the blaze,

Receives and cooks the ready powder’d maize;

In haste ’tis served, and then in equal haste,

With cooling milk, we make the sweet repast.

No carving to be done, no knife to grate

The tender ear, and wound the stony plate;

But the smooth spoon, just fitted to the lip,

And taught with art the yielding mass to dip,

By frequent journeys to the bowl well stored,

Performs the hasty honors of the board.”

Such is thy name, significant and clear,

A name, a sound to every Yankee dear,

But most to me, whose heart and palate chaste

Preserve my pure hereditary taste.

There are who strive to stamp with disrepute

The luscious food, because it feeds the brute;

In tropes of high-strain’d wit, while gaudy prigs

Compare thy nursling, man, to pamper’d pigs;

With sovereign scorn I treat the vulgar jest,

Nor fear to share thy bounties with the beast.

What though the generous cow gives me to quaff

The milk nutritious: am I then a calf?

Or can the genius of the noisy swine,

Though nursed on pudding, claim a kin to mine?

Sure the sweet song, I fashion to thy praise,

Runs more melodious than the notes they raise.

My song resounding in its grateful glee,

No merit claims: I praise myself in thee.

My father loved thee through his length of days!

For thee his fields were shaded o’er with maize;

From thee what health, what vigor he possess’d,

Ten sturdy freemen from his loins attest;

Thy constellation ruled my natal morn,

And all my bones were made of Indian corn.

Delicious grain! whatever form it take,

To roast or boil, to smother or to bake,

In every dish ’tis welcome still to me,

But most, my Hasty Pudding, most in thee.

Let the green succotash with thee contend,

Let beans and corn their sweetest juices blend,

Let butter drench them in its yellow tide,

And a long slice of bacon grace their side;

Not all the plate, how famed soe’er it be,

Can please my palate like a bowl of thee.

Some talk of Hoe-Cake, fair Virginia’s pride,

Rich Johnny-Cake, this mouth has often tried;

Both please me well, their virtues much the same,

Alike their fabric, as allied their fame,

Except in dear New England, where the last

Receives a dash of pumpkin in the paste,

To give it sweetness and improve the taste.

But place them all before me, smoking hot,

The big, round dumpling, rolling from the pot,

The pudding of the bag, whose quivering breast,

With suet lined, leads on the Yankee feast,

The Charlotte brown, within whose crusty sides

A belly soft the pulpy apple hides;

The yellow bread whose face like amber glows,

And all of Indian that the bake-pan knows,—

You tempt me not—my fav’rite greets my eyes,

To that loved bowl my spoon by instinct flies.

To mix the food by vicious rules of art,

To kill the stomach, and to sink the heart

To make mankind to social virtue sour,

Cram o’er each dish, and be what they devour;

For this the kitchen muse first fram’d her book,

Commanding sweats to stream from every cook;

Children no more their antic gambols tried,

And friends to physic wonder’d why they died.

Not so the Yankee—his abundant feast,

With simples furnish’d and with plainness drest,

A numerous offspring gathers round the board,

And cheers alike the servant and the lord;

Whose well-bought hunger prompts the joyous taste

And health attends them from the short repast.

While the full pail rewards the milkmaid’s toil,

The mother sees the morning caldron boil;

To stir the pudding next demands their care;

To spread the table and the bowls prepare;

To feed the household as their portions cool

And send them all to labor or to school.

Yet may the simplest dish some rules impart,

For nature scorns not all the aids of art.

E’en Hasty Pudding, purest of all food,

May still be bad, indifferent, or good,

As sage experience the short process guides,

Or want of skill, or want of care presides.

Whoe’er would form it on the surest plan,

To rear the child and long sustain the man;

To shield the morals while it mends the size,

And all the powers of every food supplies,

Attend the lesson that the muse shall bring,

Suspend your spoons, and listen while I sing.

But since, O man! thy life and health demand

Not food alone but labor from thy hand,

First in the field, beneath the sun’s strong rays,

Ask of thy mother earth the needful maize;

She loves the race that courts her yielding soil,

And gives her bounties to the sons of toil.

When now the ox, obedient to thy call,

Repays the loan that fill’d the winter stall,

Pursue his traces o’er the furrow’d plain,

And plant in measur’d hills the golden grain.

But when the tender germ begins to shoot,

And the green spire declares the sprouting root,

Then guard your nursling from each greedy foe,

The insidious worm, the all-devouring crow.

A little ashes, sprinkled round the spire,

Soon steep’d in rain, will bid the worm retire;

The feather’d robber with his hungry maw

Swift flies the field before your man of straw,

A frightful image, such as school-boys bring,

When met to burn the pope or hang the king.

Thrice in the season, through each verdant row

Wield the strong ploughshare and the faithful hoe:

The faithful hoe, a double task that takes,

To till the summer corn, and roast the winter cakes.

Slow springs the blade, while check’d by chilling rains,

Ere yet the sun the seat of Cancer gains;

But when his fiercest fires emblaze the land,

Then start the juices, then the roots expand;

Then, like a column of Corinthian mould,

The stalk struts upward and the leaves unfold;

The busy branches all the ridges fill,

Entwine their arms, and kiss from hill to hill.

Here cease to vex them, all your cares are done:

Leave the last labors to the parent sun;

Beneath his genial smiles, the well-drest field,

When autumn calls, a plenteous crop shall yield.

Now the strong foliage bears the standards high,

And shoots the tall top-gallants to the sky;

The suckling ears their silky fringes bend,

And pregnant grown, their swelling coats distend;

The loaded stalk, while still the burthen grows,

O’erhangs the space that runs between the rows;

High as a hop-field waves the silent grove,

A safe retreat for little thefts of love,

When the pledged roasting-ears invite the maid.

To meet her swain beneath the new-form’d shade;

His generous hand unloads the cumbrous hill,

And the green spoils her ready basket fill;

Small compensation for the twofold bliss,

The promised wedding, and the present kiss.

Slight depredations these; but now the moon

Calls from his hollow tree the sly raccoon;

And while by night he bears his prize away,

The bolder squirrel labors through the day.

Both thieves alike, but provident of time,

A virtue rare, that almost hides their crime.

Then let them steal the little stores they can,

And fill their gran’ries from the toils of man;

We’ve one advantage, where they take no part,—

With all their wiles they ne’er have found the art

To boil the Hasty Pudding; here we shine

Superior far to tenants of the pine;

This envied boon to man shall still belong,

Unshared by them, in substance or in song.

At last the closing season browns the plain,

And ripe October gathers in the grain;

Deep loaded carts the spacious corn-house fill,

The sack distended marches to the mill;

The lab’ring mill beneath the burthen groans

And showers the future pudding from the stones;

Till the glad housewife greets the powder’d gold,

And the new crop exterminates the old.

Ah, who can sing what every wight must feel,

The joy that enters with the bag of meal,

A general jubilee pervades the house,

Wakes every child and gladdens every mouse.

The days grow short; but though the falling sun

To the glad swain proclaims his day’s work done,

Night’s pleasing shades his various tasks prolong,

And yield new subjects to my various song.

For now, the corn-house fill’d, the harvest home,

The invited neighbors to the husking come;

A frolic scene, where work, and mirth, and play,

Unite their charms to chase the hours away.

Where the huge heap lies centred in the hall,

The lamp suspended from the cheerful wall,

Brown corn-fed nymphs, and strong hard-handed beaux,

Alternate ranged, extend in circling rows,

Assume their seats, the solid mass attack;

The dry husks rustle, and the corn-cobs crack;

The song, the laugh, alternate notes resound,

And the sweet cider trips in silence round.

The laws of husking every wight can tell;

And sure no laws he ever keeps so well:

For each red ear a general kiss he gains,

With each smut ear he smuts the luckless swains;

But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast,

Red as her lips, and taper as her waist,

She walks the round, and culls one favored beau,

Who leaps, the luscious tribute to bestow.

Various the sport, as are the wits and brains

Of well pleased lassies and contending swains;

Till the vast mound of corn is swept away,

And he that gets the last ear wins the day.

Meanwhile the housewife urges all her care,

The well-earn’d feast to hasten and prepare.

The sifted meal already waits her hand,

The milk is strain’d, the bowls in order stand,

The fire flames high; and, as a pool (that takes

The headlong stream that o’er the mill-dam breaks)

Foams, roars, and rages with incessant toils,

So the vex’d caldron rages, roars and boils.

First with clean salt, she seasons well the food,

Then strews the flour, and thickens all the flood.

Long o’er the simmering fire she lets it stand;

To stir it well demands a stronger hand;

The husband takes his turn: and round and round

The ladle flies; at last the toil is crown’d;

When to the board the thronging huskers pour,

And take their seats as at the corn before.

I leave them to their feast. There still belong

More useful matters to my faithful song.

For rules there are, though ne’er unfolded yet,

Nice rules and wise, how pudding should be ate.

Some with molasses grace the luscious treat,

And mix, like bards, the useful and the sweet,

A wholesome dish, and well deserving praise,

A great resource in those bleak wintry days,

When the chill’d earth lies buried deep in snow,

And raging Boreas dries the shivering cow.

Blest cow! thy praise shall still my notes employ,

Great source of health, the only source of joy;

Mother of Egypt’s god,—but sure, for me,

Were I to leave my God, I’d worship thee.

How oft thy teats these pious hands have press’d!

How oft thy bounties prove my only feast!

How oft I’ve fed thee with my favorite grain!

And roar’d, like thee, to see thy children slain!

Ye swains who know her various worth to prize,

Ah! house her well from winter’s angry skies.

Potatoes, pumpkins, should her sadness cheer,

Corn from your crib, and mashes from your beer;

When spring returns, she’ll well acquit the loan,

And nurse at once your infants and her own.

Milk then with pudding I should always choose;

To this in future I confine my muse,

Till she in haste some further hints unfold,

Good for the young, nor useless to the old.

First in your bowl the milk abundant take,

Then drop with care along the silver lake

Your flakes of pudding; these at first will hide

Their little bulk beneath the swelling tide;

But when their growing mass no more can sink,

When the soft island looms above the brink,

Then check your hand; you’ve got the portion due,

So taught my sire, and what he taught is true.

There is a choice in spoons. Though small appear

The nice distinction, yet to me ’tis clear.

The deep bowl’d Gallic spoon, contrived to scoop

In ample draughts the thin diluted soup,

Performs not well in those substantial things,

Whose mass adhesive to the metal clings;

Where the strong labial muscles must embrace,

The gentle curve, and sweep the hollow space.

With ease to enter and discharge the freight,

A bowl less concave, but still more dilate,

Becomes the pudding best. The shape, the size,

A secret rests, unknown to vulgar eyes.

Experienced feeders can alone impart

A rule so much above the lore of art.

These tuneful lips that thousand spoons have tried,

With just precision could the point decide.

Though not in song; the muse but poorly shines

In cones, and cubes, and geometric lines;

Yet the true form, as near as she can tell,

Is that small section of a goose egg shell,

Which in two equal portions shall divide

The distance from the centre to the side.

Fear not to slaver; ’tis no deadly sin:—

Like the free Frenchman, from your joyous chin

Suspend the ready napkin; or like me,

Poise with one hand your bowl upon your knee;

Just in the zenith your wise head project,

Your full spoon, rising in a line direct,

Bold as a bucket, heed no drops that fall,

The wide mouth’d bowl will surely catch them all!

There are various ways of preparing and eating it; with molasses, butter, sugar, cream, and fried. Why so excellent a thing cannot be eaten alone? Nothing is perfect alone, even man who boasts of so much perfection is nothing without his fellow substance. In eating, beware of the lurking heat that lies deep in the mass; dip your spoon gently, take shallow dips and cool it by degrees. It is sometimes necessary to blow. This is indicated by certain signs which every experienced feeder knows. They should be taught to young beginners. I have known a child’s tongue blistered for want of this attention, and then the school-dame would insist that the poor thing had told a lie. A mistake: the falsehood was in the faithless pudding. A prudent mother will cool it for her child with her own sweet breath. The husband, seeing this, pretends his own wants blowing too from the same lips. A sly deceit of love. She knows the cheat, but feigning ignorance, lends her pouting lips and gives a gentle blast, which warms the husband’s heart more than it cools his pudding.