Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/168

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124
Bits of Harvard History

lost; but at Yale in 1742 the official ingredients of the applepye were “one and three-quarters pounds of dough, one-quarter pound hog’s fat, two ounces sugar, and half a peck of apples.”[1] Dieticians may speculate upon the connection between such a dish and the fact that in the Yale Commons supper was soon afterwards discontinued. The pastry at Harvard had a peculiar leathery consistency—perhaps originated by the cook who had been a saddler—that made the pies noted for perdurability. One old grad gave it as his opinion that they might have been thrown over the roof of the building without damage;[2] and it was a common practice of thrifty students to preserve them for an emergency ration by spiking them with a fork to the under side of the dining-table. Concerning the bread and milk, A. B. Muzzey observes that the bread of his day was “‘a fit substitute for vinegar”; and Sidney Willard insinuates that “there were suspicions at times that the milk was diluted by a mixture of a very common tasteless fluid, which led a sagacious Yankee student to put the matter to the test, by asking the simple carrier-boy why his mother did not mix the milk with warm water instead of cold. ‘She does,’ replied the honest youth.”[3]

  1. Historical Discourse in 1850 by President Woolsey, quoted in Hall, College Words and Customs, 118.
  2. Reminiscences of A. B. Muzzey, class of 1824, in Harv. Register, iii, 186. “The food was most extraordinary.” Same, in Harv. Monthly, xiii, 185.
  3. Memories of Youth and Manhood, i, 313.