Recipes and Ruminations

We may live without poetry, music and art;
We may live without conscience and live without heart;
We may live without friends, we may live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks.

He may live without books-what is knowledge but grieving?
He may live without hope,-what is hope but deceiving?
He may live without love, -what is passion but pining?
But where is the man that can live without dining?
By Owen Meredith