"Crackers toasted or hard bread may be added a short time before the soup is wanted; but do not put in those libels on civilized cookery, called dumplings! One might about as well eat, with the hope of digesting, a brick from the ruins of Babylon, as one of the hard, heavy masses of boiled dough which usually pass under this name."
Sarah Josepha Hale

January 1, 1970