I never strove to rule the roast,
She ne'er refus'd to pledge my toast.

I never strove to rule the roast,
She ne'er refus'd to pledge my toast.

Digestion, much like Love and Wine, no trifling will brook:
His cook once spoiled the dinner of an Emperor read more

Digestion, much like Love and Wine, no trifling will brook:
His cook once spoiled the dinner of an Emperor of men;
The dinner spoiled the temper of his Majesty and then
The Emperor made history--and no one blamed the cook.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! the pudding was out of the
copper. A smell like a washing-day! That read more

Hallo! A great deal of steam! the pudding was out of the
copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A
smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each
other, with a laundress's next door to that. That was the
pudding.

Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds.

Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds.

Would the cook were o' my mind!

Would the cook were o' my mind!

I seem to you cruel and too much addicted to gluttony, when I
beat my cook for sending up read more

I seem to you cruel and too much addicted to gluttony, when I
beat my cook for sending up a bad dinner. If that appears to you
too trifling a cause, say for what cause you would have a cook
flogged.

Great pity were it if this beneficence of Providence should be
marr'd in the ordering, so as to justly read more

Great pity were it if this beneficence of Providence should be
marr'd in the ordering, so as to justly merit the Reflection of
the old proverb, that though God sends us meat, yet the D------
does cooks.

Oh, better no doubt is a dinner of herbs,
When season'd with love, which no rancour disturbs
read more

Oh, better no doubt is a dinner of herbs,
When season'd with love, which no rancour disturbs
And sweeten'd by all that is sweetest in life
Than turbot, bisque, ortolans, eaten in strife!
But if, out of humour, and hungry, alone
A man should sit down to dinner, each one
Of the dishes which the cook chooses to spoil
With a horrible mixture of garlic and oil,
The chances are ten against one, I must own,
He gets up as ill-tempered as when he sat down.

Heaven sends us good meat, but the devil sends us cooks.

Heaven sends us good meat, but the devil sends us cooks.