FROM The Hasty Pudding

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 my instinct flies.

~ Joel Barlow