Introduction
We continue a short survey on Arthur Machen’s writing upon the subject of beer for the Evening News. The following example is a humdinger. In what follows, the modern reader may take issue with many of Machen’s points, for they do not reflect the current thoughts on diet and health. However, it would do no good to waste breath on the bad effects of cholesterol or the overindulgence of alcohol. It would not deter our correspondent from his mission. Others have tried, as we will see in the next installment, which consists of responses from readers and Machen’s counter-responses.
I Believe in Beef and Beer
by
Arthur Machen
May 11, 1916
There was some very good advice as to food in Mr. Charles E. Hecht’s article in yesterday’s Evening News; but in the very beginning of it there are two vital mistakes.
Mr. Hecht says we eat far too much, and further and especially that we eat too much meat.
Both of these propositions are erroneous. The truth is that we don’t eat enough, and that we don’t eat enough meat. There is a subsidiary error to the effect that food may be defined as body-building substance. The definition is bad, inasmuch as it is accidental instead of being essential. Good food is stuff that we like eating: bad food is stuff that we hate eating.
I have no doubt that Mr. Hecht can produce scientific calculations, columns of figures full of those “damned dots,” as Lord Randolph Churchill called them, which will show that sixpennyworth of peas is more body-building than four shillings worth of beefsteak.
But we know better. In practice, apart from the dots, the man with the beefsteak in his inside does the work of the world. The fellow who dines on peas swells, and swells, and swells and becomes at last a Conscientious Objector.
Now I take it that all this argument, like most other arguments in these days, looks to the state of war and is governed by it. There is only one real problem now, and that is, how to win this war.
Meat V. Pulses
Well; the historical fact of the matter is that the peoples who eat a great deal, especially the peoples who eat a great deal of meat, have beaten the peoples who eat little, and especially the peoples who eat very little meat. Roughly speaking, the west is carnivorous and gluttonous, while the east is vegetarian and ascetic. Therefore, the west on the whole has mastered the east; beef has conquered rice and pulse. During the Napoleonic wars we were a race of gorgers and swillers, we devoured great beefsteaks, we poured all manner of hot and rebellious liquors down our throats. And so we beat the French, who were delicate in their food and temperate in their drink.
Nay, I am sorry to say one word for the horrible Huns; but this must be said, that they have put up a most terrific fight against tremendous odds. They are the greatest gormandisers of food, the most terrific drinkers of beer, that the world has ever known. The German eats all day, and he eats meat all day, he never leaves off eating meat and drinking beer.
A friend said to me: “They have put up a good fight because they have prepared so long for fighting.”
That won’t do; it’s no use preparing for fighting unless you have the stout, human fighting material. And I say that the German race has gorged, and I say that German race has swilled; and the result has been a nation of tremendous warriors.
Von Hindenburg’s Mixture
So far, I met Mr. Hecht on his ground—food considered purely from the physical point of view, as a “body builder,” a source of muscle and physical endurance. But I go further; I say it is the swillers and the gorgers who think of things, who show gumption, foresight, contrivance. One of the most successful generals of this war is von Hindenburg. His drink is East Prussian Cup. It is a mixture of German champagne, Burgundy, brandy, and stout. Thus came Tannenburg. Of course, if I may for the sake of an instance, leave the war for a moment, it would be easy to prove the case up to the hilt; I mean as to the connection between heavy eating, deep drinking, and brains. The Elizabethan age is one of the greatest in our history, not only in the adventure of arms, but in the adventure of the mind. When was there was such another glorious burst of drama and lyrical poetry? And even the maids-of-honour to Gloriana breakfasted in those days off a chine of beef and quart of ale. Mighty flagons of noble and potent liquor, great banquets of roast meats, of whole geese counted as mere drawers-on and kick-shaws, then crowned the board of England; and the issue was not alone the affair of the Armada, but the mightier affair of “Hamlet.” You will never pick out such glorious morsels as those from a bowl of peas or from a lentil pie.
Therefore, I say, if we would thwack our enemy and write great books and make songs that will ring down the ages, let us eat more beef and ply great tankards of the oldest ale.
Man Not a Test-Tube
Now, as to “body-building,” as to those calculations that fourpennorth of oatmeal builds as much body as five shillings’ worth of beef. With Mr. Hecht’s good leave I will tell him that all these calculations and estimates are nonsense. They might be true enough if a man were a test-tube, and the process of eating a matter of fixed and ascertained chemical reactions. But man is not a test-tube. He is an extraordinary complex; he is, I am very willing to acknowledge, a mass of whims. For example, I hate all food that is of a grey colour; I eat such food, if I have to eat it, with a kind of loathing, and so it poisons me. It is quite idle to talk to me of the value of porridge; to compare it with beefsteak is, so far as I am concerned, mere fatuity. I will not have the stuff; I will no more eat it than Shylock will eat pork.
For the fact is that food does not nourish, sustain, stimulate ex opere operato. Its effect depends not only on its own virtues, but on the dispositions both mental and bodily of the recipient, on the opinion which the eater holds as to that which he eats. So all figures and decimals and calculations about proteids and carbohydrates and starches and the rest are but emptiness and waste of ink.
The only good food for me is the food that I like; and to show that I have no prejudice against pulses or vegetables, I may say that I wish I could have tasted the plat du jour of the Jolly Sandboys.
“It is a stew of tripe,’ said the landlord smacking his lips, “and cow-heel,”—smacking them again—“and bacon,”—smacking them once more—“and steak,”—smacking them for the fourth time—“and peas, cauliflowers, new potatoes, and sparrow-grass, all working up together in one delicious gravy.”
The Weekly Machen
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