"It was an excellent question of Lady Cotton, when Sir Robert
Cotton was magnifying of a shoe, which was Moses's or Noah's, and
wondering at the strange shape and fashion of it: 'But, Mr.
Cotton,' says she, '_are you sure it is a shoe?_'"
Now, from the following passage in Manso's _Sparta_, it would seem that
a similar question might be put on the present occasion: _Are you sure
that it was broth?_ Speaking of the _pheiditia_, Manso says:--
"Each person at table had as much barley-bread as he could eat;
swine's-flesh, or some other meat, to eat with it, with which the
famous black-sauce[2] (whose composition, without any loss to
culinary art, is evidently a mystery for us) was given round, and
to close the meal, olives, figs, and cheese."