house-keeping they expended such enormous sums as would startle the most inveterate gourmand of these days of pecuniary scarcity. Patina ostrearum-a plate of Oysters. Bulani albi -Black Shell-fish. Iterum Spondyli-The gristle of oysters again. -Beccaficos. Lumbi Capragines et aprugni-Chines of a goat and Altilia ex farina involucru-Fat birds in paste. Murices et Purpura-Two sorts of shell-fish of which purple was made. SECOND COURSE. Sumina-The paps of a Sow. Suetonius relates that Vitellius' brother gave him a supper, famous over all others, a (famosissima super cæteras) in which there were 3000 of the choicest fishes, 7000 of the rarest and most expensive birds, and 200 gallons of choice wine. But what exceeded all was a dish, which, for its immense magnitude, was called Minerva's shield. It was composed of the livers of scari, the brains of pheasants and peacocks, the tongues of phenicopters and the roe of lampreys, which had been brought to Rome from the Carpathian sea in ships of war. Το form some idea of the cost of this dish we must recollect that the scarus was a fish in the highest repute, and often cost a princi- In comparison with the instances of propality. Instances are recorded of these digality above cited, this was quite a modefish costing $800. Heliogabalus' suppers rate entertainment. Querquedula clixa-Boiled teat. Stuffed birds roasted. Amylum-Pudding. Panes Picentes-A sort of cakes.* cost $107,000. Macrobius has preserved The accumbent posture of the Romans at a bill of fare for a Roman supper, and a list table, was a fashion introduced after the of the company present. It was given on first Punic war, and was imitated from the the inaguration of Lentulus as Flamen Mar- Greeks. The tables were low, and amongst tialis, or Priest of Mars. The guests were the wealthy were objects of great extravaall sacred persons, being priests and vestals. gance. They were made of citron or other There were three triclinia or tables. The precious wood, supported by three feet of men occupied two tables and the women ivory, carved to resemble lions' or leopards' (ladies) one; from which we infer that the paws. There were generally three beds sexes ate separately. Or it may have been about the table, whence they were called dictated by delicacy, considering the recum- triclinia. When there were only two they bent, or accumbent posture to which the Rowere called Biclinia. The couches were mans were accustomed. At the two triclinia adorned in an elegant manner among the were Lentulus; Q. Catullus; M. Æmelius Le- rich, with ivory, tortoise-shell, pearls and pidus; D. Silanus; C. Cæsar, Rex Sacrorum; precious stones. The pillows were of purP. Scævola Sextus; Q. Cornelius; P. Vo-ple cloth interwoven with gold, and worked lumnius; P. Albinovanus; and S. Julius with leaves and flowers. There were geneCæsar, the Augur. At the third table were rally three persons on each couch, in which Popilia, R. Perpenia, Licinria, Accentia, case, the middle was the place of honour; Vestals, and Publicia Flanimica, and Sem- but if only two, the head was the most honpronia the mother-in-law of Lentulus. The orable situation. They had also numerous following is the "bill of fare," ample it sideboards of rich plate-some of the dishes must be confessed for seventeen persons. FIRST COURSE. Echini-Shell-fish. prickly, as the hedge-hog. Ostræ crudæ, quantum valent-Raw Oysters, as many as they please. cost upwards of $344. The murrhina or drinking cups were very costly. Pliny mentions one that cost 1,863 dollars. He also speaks of a lady, not accounted very rich (mater familias non dives,) who gave Pelorida-Cockles, so called from Pelorus in Sicily. 3,376 dollars for a cup. They used a splenSpondyli-Muscles. Turdi-Thrushes. * For many curious details, we refer the reader to the Asparagi sub cullinam altilem-Asparagus under a American Quarterly Review: vol. 2. 1827, to which we stuffed fowl. are largely indebted. did article in the napkin line, made of the per condition. Lean meat, was, in ancient finest wool or linen, but frequently of cloth times, not only considered unwholesome, but of gold curiously and elaborately embroi- also unsavoury, and an instance is recorded dered. The slaves who attended at banquets in which one Quintus Curtius, being waiter were generally young boys selected for at the table of Cæsar, and seeing a dish of their beauty, elegantly dressed, with their lean birds, did not hesitate to throw them out hair curled in the neatest manner. Great of the window. One way of fattening fowls, attention was paid to carving, and Juvenal was to sew up their eyes, and cram them with speaks of persons who taught the art of car- a paste made of barley meal and milk. In ving on wooden models. this condition they were kept about two Although many treatises upon the culi- weeks; for if kept longer fevers induced by nary art were composed by the Roman the continual state of repletion rendered Knights of the kitchen, we are acquainted them red and frequently killed them. Bull with but one-that of Apicius. There beef was esteemed especially difficult of dihas been much controversy as to the pre- gestion and unw holesome, requiring the most cise period in which this Apicius flourished: vigorous powers to overcome it; and hence there having been three of that name, and the mythical legend of Hercules feasting all of gourmet celebrity. Some think he chiefly on bull's flesh and green figs :— lived about the time of Tiberias; some as- "Hoak κρέασιν επήσθιε συκα χλώρα. sign a much later period while others deny To remove these qualities of the flesh, bulls that Apicius was the name of an individual have been, from the earliest times, either and maintain that the word was used to sig- bated by dogs, hunted by men, or torn by nify, as it has since done, any one expen- lions, which was supposed to render the sive in eating. This idea receives strength from the following lines of Juvenal: -quid enim majore cachinno, Excipitur vulgi quam pauper Apicius? "And what diverts the sneering rabble more Than an Apicius miserably poor?" meat white and tender. Patroclus asserts that if a lion be merely shown to a bull, three or four hours before he is killed, the flesh of the latter will be made perfectly tender, "fear dissolving his hardest parts, and making his very heart to become pulpy." Even in England, in ancient times, butchers Albanus Torinus, who found the treatise were forbidden to sell any meat unless it bearing the name of Apicius, asserted that had been previously baited. When animals he immediately "smelt" the true air of an- have undergone great fatigue immediately tiquity about the author: "olfaciebam statim before death, or have suffered from a lingerautorem esse vetustissimum." Latinus La- ing death, although their flesh may sooner tinius, however, who examined the work become rigid, it also becomes sooner tender, critically, has satisfactorily (to some at least) than when they have been suddenly depriproved that it must have been a compara- ved of life when in a state of health tively neoteric production. The Apicius to has long been a custom to cause old cocks whom has been attributed the treatise "De to fight before they are killed. The Moors, Opsoniis et Condimentis," is said by Seneca, of Barbary, before they kill a hedgehog, to have spent 2,000,000 of dollars on his ta- which is esteemed a princely dish with them, ble, and to have destroyed himself from a "rub his back against the ground, by holdfear that he would die of hunger, having but 500,000 dollars left. Before we describe the separate edibles of the Romans, we propose to say a few words on their mode of fattening meats, and on their manner of killing for the table. It ing his feet betwixt two, as men do a saw that saws stones, till it has done squeaking, and then they cut its throat." The following curious receipts are from an ancient book on cookery. "To make a pig taste like a wild boar." "Take a living pig, and let him As meat constituted the staple of a Ro- swallow the following drink, viz. boil togethman feast, great regard was had to its quali- er, in vinegar and water, some rosemary, ty, and the most absurd and cruel methods thyme, sweet basil, bay leaves and sage; were practised to bring the animal into pro- when you have made him swallow this, im mediately whip him to death, and roast him with milk, figs and mulse. forthwith!" Roasted pork was generally stuffed with venison or fow!; Again,—" How to still a cock for a weak Petronius mentions that at a supper given by body that is consumed." Take a red cocke Trimalchio, a roasted pig was served, which that is not too olde, and beat him to death." was filled with thrushes. In this form it was Booke of Cookrye. A. D. 1591. Different designated Porchus Trajanus, "quasi aliis modes of slaughtering obtained among dif- inclusis animalibus gravidus, ut ille Trojanus ferent nations, as at this day. The Greeks equus gravidus armatis fuit." Macrob. Satstrangled their swine, and ate them with urn. lib. 2. cap. 9. A great variety of sautheir blood. The Romans, true to their cruel ces and condiments were eaten with pork, instincts, thrust a spit red hot through the it having always been considered a meat of body, and suffered them to die without bleed- great indigestibility. The old maxim of the ing. This mode of slaughter was replete school of Salernum, whose dicta were writwith objections, if we regard it in a gastro- ten in the 12th century, in Leonine verses, nomic point of view solely; for the flesh of recounts this ancient prejudice : animals thus killed, is dark coloured, from the retention of the blood in the vessels, and hence speedily becomes putrid. "Est caro porcina sine vino pejor orina Si tribuis vina tunc est cibus et medicina." This idea seems to have given occasion to In noticing the different esculent substan- the copious admixture of condiments with ces made use of by the Romans, we shall the sausage. Of this sausage-Tornaculum— adopt the following arrangement: First, of Tornacina, &c.,-the "candiduli divina torQuadrupeds. Second, Birds. Third, Rep-nacula porci," as Juvenal, by hyperbole, has tiles. Fourth, Fish. Fifth, Molluscous ani- designated it, Apicius has given the followmals. Sixth, Insects; and lastly, Vegetables. ing definition: "intestinum fartum ex pulpâ The meat most highly esteemed among porcina bene tunsa, admixtis pipere trito, cumthe Romans (as it has ever been by the Ger- ino, satureia, rata, petroselino, baccis lauri, mans) was that of the Wild Boar (Sus Scro- liquamine, &c., ipsum intestinum tenuiter profa. L.) "animal propter convivia natura," duciter et ad fumum suspenditur." The Roand the Sus Porcus, or common Hog. The mans were excelled by the Greeks in the first dish was garnished with pyramids of preparation of this article also. The sausaapples, and other garnitures: "In primus Lucanus aper, leni fuit Austro First a Lucanian Boar, of tender kind, Francis. ges of Athens, whether formed from the flesh of the hog, or from that of the peacock, pheasant, or rabbit, were in the highest repute. These sausages have been eulogised even in modern times; Agnolo Firenzuola owes most of his reputation with gourmands, to a song in honor of the sausage. Leo the Tenth, was so fond of them, as to expend upwards of 5000 dollars in one year upon sausages alone, causing them to be formed, according to his taste, of the flesh of the peacock and hog, with pepper and other spices, and hence they subsequently were named "Leonis Incisia," or, Leo's sausage. The common Hog, in the hands of an accomplished cook, could be served up in no less than fifty ways, each of a different flavour, "quinquaginta sapores." Still the RoThe most famous sauce in vogue among mans do not seem to have attained the art the Romans, was the Garum, which was so of making good bacon or sausages, but im- scarce and in such demand, that it sold for ported them, according to Varro, in large 35 dollars a gallon. It was prepared from quantities from Gaul, where they were pre- the Scomber or macarel; but the poor made pared in great perfection. Instead of per- it from the Thynnus or Tunng. We have mitting their hogs to roam abroad and obtain too much respect for the stomachs of our their food from the acorns, chesnuts, &c., in readers, to give the mode of preparation of the woods, they were kept penned, and fed this sauce in plain English; we therefore put VOL. XXI-91 it in the original, as found in the Geoponics, The quadrupeds of which we have spoXX-46. τα έγκατα των ιχθυών βαλλεται εις σκευος, ken, might all be to the gout of the moderns ; και αλίζεται και λεπτα οψαρίδια ομοίως αλίζεται, και εν ηλιω but there remain some, to which we should ταριχεύεται πυκνώς δονούμενα όταν δε ταριχευθώσι τη θέρεα, experience difficulty in accomodating ourεξ αυτών γαρον ούτως αίρεται." Humelbery, in his selves; and which, nevertheless, amongst notes on Apicius gives another receipt:- the Romans, passed for "morceaux tres fri"Sume pisces minores salsos, aut si salsi non ands." The young of the ass (equus asinus, fuerint, saliantur pauco sale, et mitte ex illis L.) was often eaten, even at the tables of sextarium unum et de bono sextarios tres et the wealthy. Roman gourmands were also coque in æreo vase usque dum duæ partes consumantur, et tertia remaneat, tum cola per succum usque ad claritatem et refrigeratum mitte in vitream ampullam et utere." very fond of the flavor of young and wellfattened puppies-catuli lactantes; this last dish, however, went out of use because "they made the people like to dogs; that is The Hare (Lepidus Timidus L.) was also to say, cruel, stout, bold, and nimble, and a standing dish, perhaps on the account of addicted to lying." The Hedge-hog (Erithe sweetness and delicacy of its meat; or naceus Europaus, L.) was highly recherché. more probably it owed its popularity to the They were fattened in the dark, upon belief that by feeding upon Hare's flesh, a acorns, walnuts and chesnuts, in cages person would thereby be rendered beautiful. called "gliraria." Et Leporum avulsos ut multo suavius armos We read of several ladies, who, either Among birds, the Peacock (Pavo, L.) held doubtful of their personal attractions, or de- the first place, at all fashionable entertainsirous of increasing them, were wont to re- ments. Quintus Hortensius is said to have gard this dish with great partiality. Mar- first introduced the Peacock to the Roman tial is facetious upon a homely Roman lady, table; which novelty, says Varro, "potiùs who, on the strength of this belief, had fed tum luxuriosi quam severi boni viri laudaon Hare's flesh for some time, but still with- bant." The experiment however "took," out losing her objectionable features. From and such was the demand for them that they two lines of Martial we infer that the shoul. frequently sold for $150 and $160. Their ders of this animal were esteemed the best eggs brought seven dollars a piece. So luparts: crative did the raising of these birds become, that several wealthy Romans went largely into the business, clearing princely The favorite way of serving up this ani- fortunes in a short time. Our English anmal was in a state which would not be gen-cestors were very fond of "roaste peaerally agreeable to our degenerate tastes- cocks;" even a royal banquet was deemed “ ventre execti vel uberibus ablati, non repur- incomplete without "well stuffed peacocks," gatis interraneis!!!" A sauce always ac- which were stuffed with spices, and sweet companied this dish, the principal ingredi- herbs, roasted and sewed up whole, and ent of which was assyfætida!! In such repute covered, after dressing, with the skin and was this nauseous and detestable drug held, feathers-the beak and comb gilt, and the that it was imported from Persia by the gov- tail spread. Sometimes, instead of feathers ernment, stored in the public treasury, and it was entirely covered with gold leaf. sold to the highest nobility at enormous The following "bill of fare," at the "inrates, only upon particular occasions, and tronization" of George Nevêlle, Archbishop then in small quantities. It was a matter of York, in the reign of Edward the IV. of public complaint against Julius Cæsar may not prove uninteresting, as exhibiting that he plundered the treasury, on one occa- the species of animals which formed the sion, of 100 pounds of this precious commo- good cheer at an old English feast. dity. This article became at length so scarce that it had to be imported from Armenia and Media, and was never used except in ragoûts at the most sumptuous ta bles. In wheat, 300 quarters, Muttons. 1,000. Swannes, 400. Pyges, 2,000. Quailes, 100 dozen. In Chyckens, 2,000. In Bittons, 204. Heronshawes, 400. Fessauntes, 300. Partridges, 500. Stagges, Bucks and Roes, 500. Pykes and Breames, 608. Porporses and Seals, 12. livers of these aaimals, which were deemed great luxuries. The cruelty, however, of nailing their feet to a board was reserved for modern times. For the credit of modern humanity it were to be wished that the practice detailed in the following extract from the Almanach des Gourmands, rested on doubtful authority: "ce qui mérite à l'oie toute la reconnoisance des véritables gourmands, ce qui lui assigne un rang très distingué parmi les volatiles, ce sont des foies, dont on fabrique á Strasburg ces pâtés admirables, le plus grand luxe d'un entremêts. Pour obtenir ces foies d'une grosseur convenable, il faut sacrifier la personne de la bête. Bondée de nourriture, privé de boisson et fixée prés d'un grand feu, au-devant duquel elle est clouée par les pattes sur une planche, cette oie passe, il faut en convenir, une vie assez malheureuse. Ce seroit même un supplice tout-àfait intolérable pour elle, si l'idée du sort qui l'attend ne lui servoit de consolation. celte perspective lui fait supporter ses maux avec courage: et lorsqu'elle pense que son foie plus gras qu'elle même et lardé de truffes, revêtu d'une pâte savante ira porter dans toute l'Europe la gloire de son nom, elle se résigne Mais Spices, sugared delicates, and wafers plentie. à la destinée et ne laisse pas même couler une Leland's Collectanea. VI. 2. larme !!" A writer, according to Aldrovanus, has reThe Quail (Tetras Corturnix, L.) was much. eaten. They appear to have abounded, at fined upon the above cruelty, by giving a the time we are speaking of, throughout Ita- horrible receipt for "roasting a goose alive, ly. Varro asserts that they return from their and eating it, limb from limb, whilst the heart migrations into Italy in immense numbers. still palpitates!" The following from WesPliny says that their approach endangered ker's "Secrets of Nature," in point of resmall vessels. An old writer refers to quails fined cruelty, is fairly entitled to "take the hat." as an article of diet in the following scientific manner: HOW TO ROAST AND EAT A GOOSE ALIVE." Quails have gotten an ill name ever since Pliny accused them of eat- "Take a goose, or a duck, or some such ing hemlock and bearfoot, by reason where- lively creature, (but a goose is best of all for of they breed cramps, trembling of the heart this purpose,) pull off all her feathers, only and sinews; yea, though Hercules loved the head and neck must be spared; then them above all other meats, insomuch that make a fire round about her, not too close to Iolaus fetcht him out a swound, when he was her, that the smoke do not choke her, and that cruelly wounded by Typhon, with the smell that the fire may not burn her TOO SOON: nor of a quail; yet, with much eating of them, too far off, that she may escape free. Within he fell into the falling evil, which, ever since, the circle of the fire, let there be set small hath been termed Hercules' sickness." cups and pots full of water, wherein salt The Goose (Anas Anser, L.) was deserv- and honey are mingled; let there be set edly a favorite with the Romans, and as usu- also chargers full of sodden apples, cut into al, was brought to the table in a great varie- small pieces. The goose must be all larded ty of forms. Some of the " profession" and basted over with butter, to make her early found out a method of enlarging the the more fit to be eaten, and may roast the |