Rationing scarce food makes a holiday feast feel richer than abundance does

Evidence

Page 222 for tea we were obliged to use the tea leaves of the morning again. I should think that few people in America have enjoyed their Thanksgiving dinner more. We had urged Mr. Nugent to join us, but he refused, almost savagely, which we regretted. My four-pound cake made yesterday is all gone! This wretched boy confesses that he was so hungry in the night that he got up and ate nearly half of it. He is trying to cajole me into making another. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 241

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the reader’s standing note that small acts of decorum and contrivance carry disproportionate weight.
• SEED: Angle: the strange gaiety of scarcity — how deprivation re-enchants ordinary ceremonies on the frontier.