action” of pitching the afflictive provender out of window, platters and all.[1]
The meat was always either boiled or roasted—“roasted on,” sighs poor Muzzey, “from brown to black.” On “boiling days” a “mess of greens” or other “sauce” was added. As luxuries crept in, each diner also received two potatoes, which he peeled himself. In 1757, as a lure to keep the scholars in Commons, the Corporation voted “that there should be pudding three times a week”; but with their fatal passion for close figuring they at once subjoined that ‘‘on those days their meat should be lessened.” The intended inducement turned out to be a sort of Barmecide feast, and on pudding days the commoners fared rather worse than before; for if Harvard had made a failure of Indian pupils, it made an equally poor fist of Indian puddings, which are spoken of by those who assaulted them as having the appearance and general attributes of cannon-balls.[2]
The obvious failure of this inspired stroke of economy caused a much more engaging programme to be announced in the Laws of 1765. These provided that there should always be two dishes for dinner, “‘a pudding to be
- ↑ Hall, College Words and Customs (1856), 118; Mitchell, Reminiscences…in [Yale] College, 116.
- ↑ Timothy Pickering of 1763 recalls with pathetic gusto that there was also “a baked plum pudding once a quarter” In his day, if the students wanted tea, coffee, or chocolate, they had to bring their own private supplies from home. Life, i, 9.
