The memorable grand dinner given by the classical doctor in Peregrine
Pickle, has indisposed our tastes for the cookery of the ancients; but,
since it is often "the cooks who spoil the broth," we cannot be sure but
that even "the black Lacedæmonian," stirred by the spear of a Spartan,
might have had a poignancy for him, which did not happen at the more
recent classical banquet.
The cookery of the ancients must have been superior to our humbler art,
since they could find dainties in the tough membranous parts of the
matrices of a sow, and the flesh of young hawks, and a young ass. The
elder Pliny records, that one man had studied the art of fattening
snails with paste so successfully, that the shells of some of his snails
would contain many quarts.[121] The same monstrous taste fed up those
prodigious goose livers; a taste still prevailing in Italy. Swine were
fattened with whey and figs; and even fish in their ponds were increased
by such artificial means. Our prize oxen might have astonished a Roman
as much as one of their crammed peacocks would ourselves. Gluttony
produces monsters, and turns away from nature to feed on unwholesome
meats. The flesh of young foxes about autumn, when they fed on grapes,
is praised by Galen; and Hippocrates equals the flesh of puppies to that
of birds. The humorous Dr. King, who has touched on this subject,
suspects that many of the Greek dishes appear charming from their
mellifluous terminations, resounding with a _floios_ and _toios_. Dr.
King's description of the Virtuoso Bentivoglio or Bentley, with his
"Bill of Fare" out of Athenæus, probably suggested to Smollett his
celebrated scene.
The numerous descriptions of ancient cookery which Athenæus has
preserved indicate an unrivalled dexterity and refinement: and the
ancients, indeed, appear to have raised the culinary art into a science,
and dignified cooks into professors. They had writers who exhausted
their erudition and ingenuity in verse and prose; while some were proud
to immortalise their names by the invention of a poignant sauce, or a
popular _gâteau_. Apicius, a name immortalised, and now synonymous with
a gorger, was the inventor of cakes called Apicians; and one
Aristoxenes, after many unsuccessful combinations, at length hit on a
peculiar manner of seasoning hams, thence called Aristoxenians. The name
of a late nobleman among ourselves is thus invoked every day.
Of these _Eruditæ gultæ_ Archestratus, a culinary philosopher, composed
an epic or didactic poem on good eating. His "Gastrology" became the
creed of the epicures, and its pathos appears to have made what is so
expressively called "their mouths water." The idea has been recently
successfully imitated by a French poet.[122] Archestratus thus opens his
subject:--
I write these precepts for immortal Greece,
That round a table delicately spread,
Or three, or four, may sit in choice repast,
Or five at most. Who otherwise shall dine,
Are like a troop marauding for their prey.
The elegant Romans declared that a repast should not consist of less in
number than the Graces, nor of more than the Muses. They had, however, a
quaint proverb, which Alexander ab Alexandro has preserved, not
favourable even to so large a dinner-party as nine; it turns on a play
of words:--