He ate heartily, but as a rough farmer and hunter eats; country messes, good roast and boiled; despising the French Cook, as an entity without meaning for him.

His favorite dish at dinner was bacon and greens, rightly dressed; what could the French Cook do for such a man?
He ate with rapidity, almost with indiscriminate violence: his object not quality but quantity.

He drank too, but did not get drunk: at the Doctor's order he could abstain; and had in later years abstained.
Pollnitz praises his fineness of complexion, the originally eminent whiteness of his skin, which he had tanned and bronzed by hard riding and hunting, and otherwise worse discolored by his manner of feeding and digesting: alas, at last his waistcoat came to measure, I am afraid to say how many Prussian ells,--a very considerable diameter indeed! [Ib.
i.

163.] For some years after his accession he still appeared occasionally in "burgher dress," or unmilitary clothes; "brown English coat, yellow waistcoat" and the other indispensables.

But this fashion became rarer with him every year; and ceased altogether (say Chronologists) about the year 1719: after which he appeared always simply as Colonel of the Potsdam Guards (his own Lifeguard Regiment) in simple Prussian uniform: close military coat; blue, with red cuffs and collar, buff waistcoat and breeches; white linen gaiters to the knee.