"The art of cookery drew us gently forth
From that ferocious life, when void of faith
The Anthropophaginian ate his brother!
To cookery we owe well-ordered states,
Assembling men in dear society.
Wild was the earth, man feasting upon man,
When one of nobler sense and milder heart
First sacrificed an animal; the flesh
Was sweet; and man then ceased to feed on man!
And something of the rudeness of those times
The priest commemorates; for to this day
He roasts the victim's entrails without salt.
In those dark times, beneath the earth lay hid
The precious salt, that gold of cookery!
But when its particles the palate thrill'd,
The source of seasonings, charm of cookery! came.
They served a paunch with rich ingredients stored;
And tender kid, within two covering plates,
Warm melted in the mouth. So art improved!
At length a miracle not yet perform'd,
They minced the meat, which roll'd in herbage soft,
Nor meat nor herbage seem'd, but to the eye,
And to the taste, the counterfeited dish
Mimick'd some curious fish; invention rare!
Then every dish was season'd more and more,
Salted, or sour, or sweet, and mingled oft
Oatmeal and honey. To enjoy the meal
Men congregated in the populous towns,
And cities flourish'd which we cooks adorn'd
With all the pleasures of domestic life.
An arch-cook insinuates that there remain only two "pillars of the
state," besides himself, of the school of Sinon, one of the great
masters of the condimenting art. Sinon, we are told, applied the
elements of all the arts and sciences to this favourite one. Natural
philosophy could produce a secret seasoning for a dish; and architecture
the art of conducting the smoke out of a chimney: which, says he, if
ungovernable, makes a great difference in the dressing. From the
military science he derived a sublime idea of order; drilling the under
cooks, marshalling the kitchen, hastening one, and making another a
sentinel. We find, however, that a portion of this divine art, one of
the professors acknowledges to be vapouring and bragging!--a seasoning
in this art, as well as in others. A cook ought never to come
unaccompanied by all the pomp and parade of the kitchen: with a scurvy
appearance, he will be turned away at sight; for all have eyes, but few
only understanding.[125]
Another occult part of this profound mystery, besides vapouring,
consisted, it seems, in filching. Such is the counsel of a patriarch to
an apprentice! a precept which contains a truth for all ages of cookery.
Carian! time well thy ambidextrous part,
Nor always filch. It was but yesterday,
Blundering, they nearly caught thee in the fact;
None of thy balls had livers, and the guests,
In horror, pierced their airy emptiness.
Not even the brains were there, thou brainless hound!
If thou art hired among the middling class,
Who pay thee freely, be thou honourable!
But for this day, where now we go to cook,
E'en cut the master's throat for all I care;
"A word to th' wise," and show thyself my scholar!
There thou mayst filch and revel; all may yield
Some secret profit to thy sharking hand.
'Tis an old miser gives a sordid dinner,
And weeps o'er every sparing dish at table;
Then if I do not find thou dost devour
All thou canst touch, e'en to the very coals,
I will disown thee! Lo! old Skin-flint comes;
In his dry eyes what parsimony stares!
These cooks of the ancients, who appear to have been hired for a grand
dinner, carried their art to the most whimsical perfection. They were so
dexterous as to be able to serve up a whole pig boiled on one side, and
roasted on the other. The cook who performed this feat defies his guests
to detect the place where the knife had separated the animal, or how it
was contrived to stuff the belly with an olio composed of thrushes and
other birds, slices of the matrices of a sow, the yolks of eggs, the
bellies of hens with their soft eggs flavoured with a rich juice, and
minced meats highly spiced. When this cook is entreated to explain his
secret art, he solemnly swears by the manes of those who braved all the
dangers of the plain of Marathon, and combated at sea at Salamis, that
he will not reveal the secret that year. But of an incident so
triumphant in the annals of the gastric art, our philosopher would not
deprive posterity of the knowledge. The animal had been bled to death by
a wound under the shoulder, whence, after a copious effusion, the
master-cook extracted the entrails, washed them with wine, and hanging
the animal by the feet, he crammed down the throat the stuffings already
prepared. Then covering the half of the pig with a paste of barley,
thickened with wine and oil, he put it in a small oven, or on a heated
table of brass, where it was gently roasted with all due care: when the
skin was browned, he boiled the other side; and then, taking away the
barley paste, the pig was served up, at once boiled and roasted. These
cooks, with a vegetable, could counterfeit the shape and the taste of
fish and flesh. The king of Bithynia, in some expedition against the
Scythians, in the winter, and at a great distance from the sea, had a
violent longing for a small fish called _aphy_--a pilchard, a herring,
or an anchovy. His cook cut a turnip to the perfect imitation of its
shape; then fried in oil, salted, and well powdered with the grains of a
dozen black poppies, his majesty's taste was so exquisitely deceived,
that he praised the root to his guests as an excellent fish. This
transmutation of vegetables into meat or fish is a province of the
culinary art which we appear to have lost; yet these are _cibi
innocentes_, compared with the things themselves. No people are such
gorgers of mere animal food as our own; the art of preparing vegetables,
pulse, and roots, is scarcely known in this country. This cheaper and
healthful food should be introduced among the common people, who neglect
them from not knowing how to dress them. The peasant, for want of this
skill, treads under foot the best meat in the world; and sometimes the
best way of dressing it is least costly.
The gastric art must have reached to its last perfection, when we find
that it had its history; and that they knew how to ascertain the æra of
a dish with a sort of chronological exactness. The philosophers of
Athenæus at table dissert on every dish, and tell us of one called
_maati_, that there was a treatise composed on it; that it was first
introduced at Athens, at the epocha of the Macedonian empire, but that
it was undoubtedly a Thessalian invention; the most sumptuous people of
all the Greeks. The _maati_ was a term at length applied to any dainty
of excessive delicacy, always served the last.
But as no art has ever attained perfection without numerous admirers,
and as it is the public which only can make such exquisite cooks, our
curiosity may be excited to inquire whether the patrons of the gastric
art were as great enthusiasts as its professors.
We see they had writers who exhausted their genius on these professional
topics; and books of cookery were much read: for a comic poet, quoted by
Athenæus, exhibits a character exulting in having procured "The New
Kitchen of Philoxenus, which," says he, "I keep for myself to read in my
solitude." That these devotees to the culinary art undertook journeys to
remote parts of the world, in quest of these discoveries, sufficient
facts authenticate. England had the honour to furnish them with oysters,
which they fetched from about Sandwich. Juvenal[126] records that
Montanus was so well skilled in the science of good eating, that he
could tell by the first bite whether they were English or not. The
well-known Apicius poured into his stomach an immense fortune. He
usually resided at Minturna, a town in Campania, where he ate shrimps at
a high price: they were so large, that those of Smyrna, and the prawns
of Alexandria, could not be compared with the shrimps of Minturna.
However, this luckless epicure was informed that the shrimps in Africa
were more monstrous; and he embarks without losing a day. He encounters
a great storm, and through imminent danger arrives at the shores of
Africa. The fishermen bring him the largest for size their nets could
furnish. Apicius shakes his head: "Have you never any larger?" he
inquires. The answer was not favourable to his hopes. Apicius rejects
them, and fondly remembers the shrimps of his own Minturna. He orders
his pilot to return to Italy, and leaves Africa with a look of contempt.
A fraternal genius was Philoxenus: he whose higher wish was to possess a
crane's neck, that he might be the longer in savouring his dainties; and
who appears to have invented some expedients which might answer, in some
degree, the purpose. This impudent epicure was so little attentive to
the feelings of his brother guests, that in the hot bath he avowedly
habituated himself to keep his hands in the scalding water; and even
used to gargle his throat with it, that he might feel less impediment in
swallowing the hottest dishes. He bribed the cooks to serve up the
repast smoking hot, that he might gloriously devour what he chose before
any one else could venture to touch the dish. It seemed as if he had
used his fingers to handle fire. "He is an oven, not a man!" exclaimed a
grumbling fellow-guest. Once having embarked for Ephesus, for the
purpose of eating fish, his favourite food, he arrived at the market,
and found all the stalls empty. There was a wedding in the town, and all
the fish had been bespoken. He hastens to embrace the new-married
couple, and singing an epithalamium, the dithyrambic epicure enchanted
the company. The bridegroom was delighted by the honour of the presence
of such a poet, and earnestly requested he would come on the morrow. "I
will come, young friend, if there is no fish at the market!"--It was
this Philoxenus, who, at the table of Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily,
having near him a small barbel, and observing a large one near the
prince, took the little one, and held it to his ear. Dionysius inquired
the reason. "At present," replied the ingenious epicure, "I am so
occupied by my Galatea," (a poem in honour of the mistress of the
tyrant,) "that I wished to inquire of this little fish, whether he could
give me some information about Nereus; but he is silent, and I imagine
they have taken him up too young: I have no doubt that old one, opposite
to you, would perfectly satisfy me." Dionysius rewarded the pleasant
conceit with the large barbel.