This, with butter, constitutes what is called the oleaginous condiments. Melted butter is, perhaps, the most injurious of all the inventions of cookery: oil, when used in extremely small quantities, as a seasoning to salads, appears to prevent their running into fermentation, and consequently obviates flatulency.

1 Swift observes, that such is the extent of modern epicurism, that "the world must be encompassed before a washerwoman can sit down to breakfast".