when pressed by hunger, required that the greatest care should be
exercised for the supply of corn, and the easy sale of this precious
provision. Hence nothing could be wiser than their regulations on this
subject.
One of the laws of the twelve tables punished with death the individual
who had premeditatedly set fire to his neighbour’s corn; and inflicted a
fine or the whip on any one who caused so great a calamity by his
imprudence.[II-25]
In Greece, a special magistrate, the “_Sitocome_,” was charged with the
inspection of the corn; and various officers, such as the _sitones_, the
_sitophylaces_, and the _sitologes_, were appointed to watch over its
purchase.
And lastly, public distributors, under the names of _siturches_ and
_sitometres_, were exclusively occupied with the allotment of
corn;[II-26] they prevented any one from purchasing a greater quantity
than was actually necessary for his wants. The law forbad the delivery
of more than fifty measures to one individual.[II-27] The Roman
government was so convinced that abundance of bread was one of the best
means of maintaining public tranquillity,[II-28] that Julius Cæsar
created two prætors, and two ediles or magistrates, to preside over the
purchase, conveyance, storing, and gratuitous distribution of
wheat.[II-29] For we know that this people of kings, powerful but
frivolous, and careless of the morrow, submitted to the incredible
follies of their rulers on the sole condition of being well fed and
amused by them.[II-30] In the time of Demosthenes the common price of
wheat in Greece was about 3_s._ 11_d._ the four bushels.[II-31] In Rome,
during the republic, wheat was distributed to 60,000 persons.[II-32]
Julius Cæsar desired that 320,000 plebeians should enjoy this bounty;
but this number was afterwards reduced to 150,000,[II-33] or perhaps,
according to Cassius, to 160,000.[II-34] Augustus fed, at first, 200,000
citizens, then only 120,000.[II-35] Nero, who always went to extremes
either in good or evil, gave corn throughout the empire to 220,000 idle
people, including the soldiers of the prætorian guard.[II-36] Adrian
added to this list all the children of the poor: the boys to the age of
18, and the girls to that of 14. Finally, this liberality, more politic
than generous, and so foreign to our present manners, was carried, under
the Emperor Severus, to 75,000 bushels per day.[II-37] The bushel
weighed twenty pounds of twelve ounces each.[II-38]
The Greeks esteemed highly the corn of Bœotia, Thrace, and Pontus.
The Romans preferred that of Lombardy, the present duchy of Spoletta,
Sicily, Sardinia, and a part of Gaul. Sardinia, Sicily, and Corsica,
supplied them every year with 800,000 bushels of twenty-one pounds
weight, which made them call those islands “the sweet nurses of
Rome.”[II-39] Africa furnished 40,000,000 of bushels; Egypt 20,000,000,
and the remainder came from Greece, Asia, Syria, Gaul, and Spain.[II-40]
The erudite are not agreed as to the aboriginal country of corn: some
say it is Egypt, others Tartary, and the learned Bailly, as well as the
traveller Pallas, affirm that it grows spontaneously in Siberia. Be that
as it may, the Phocians brought it to Marseilles before the Romans had
penetrated into Gaul. The Gauls ate the corn cooked, or bruised in a
mortar; they did not know for a long time how to make fermented bread.
The Chinese attribute to Chin-Nong, the second of the nine emperors of
China who preceded the establishment of the dynasties (more than 2,207
years B.C.), the discovery of corn, rice, and other cereals.
We find in the Black Book of the Exchequer, that in the reign of Henry
I., when they reduced the victuals (for the king’s household) to the
estimate of money, a measure of wheat to make bread for the service of
one hundred men, one day, was valued only at one shilling.[II-41]
But in the reign of Henry III., about the 43rd year, the price was
mounted up to fifteen and twenty shillings a quarter.[II-42]
The ancients, as well as the moderns, caused wheat to undergo certain
preparations to enable it to be transformed into bread, we shall
enumerate in the following chapter the different processes by which they
obtained flour, the essential foundation of the food of man.
_Cereals._--This name has been given to all plants of the gramineous
family, the fundamental base of the food of man. The _cereals_, properly
speaking, are limited to wheat, rye, barley, and oats; however, there
are others, such as canary grass, Indian corn, millet, rice, &c., &c.
The immediate and most abundant principle of all these plants is the
_fécule_, or flour, and the vegeto-animal matter of which bread is made,
and other preparations for food, and fermented liquors; these cereals
are given green or dry to cattle as forage; their straw covers houses,
and serves as litter and manure.
Cereals was also the name given to a feast in honour of Ceres,
instituted at Rome by the edile Mumonius, and celebrated every year on
the 7th of April. The ladies of Rome appeared clothed in white, and
holding torches in remembrance of the travels of that divinity. Cakes
sprinkled with salt and grains of incense, honey, milk, and wine, were
offered to that goddess. Pigs were sacrificed to her. The _cereals_ of
the Romans were the _thesmophories_ with the Greeks.
III.
GRINDING OF CORN.
At a very distant period, when gods, not over edifying in their conduct,
descended at times from the heights of Olympus to enliven their
immortality amongst mortals, we are told that a divine aliment charmed
the palate of Jupiter and that of his quarrelsome wife; nay, of all
those who inhabited the celestial abode. We are ignorant of the hour at
which the table of the god of thunder was laid; but we know well that he
breakfasted, dined, and supped on a delicious ambrosia--a liquid
substance, it may be presumed, since it flowed for the first time from
one of the horns of the goat Amalthæa, and of rather an insipid taste,
if we are to believe Ibicus,[III-1] who describes it as nine times
sweeter than honey. The gods have disappeared; we would forgive them for
leaving us, had they left behind them the recipe of this marvellous
substance; but its composition and essence remain unknown, and man, not
skilful enough to appropriate to his use the inexhaustible treasures of
culinary science, began his hard gastrophagic apprenticeship by
devouring acorns which grew in the forests.[III-2] This is assuredly
very mortifying to our feelings; but you may believe it on the authority
of a poet, for we well know that a poet never tells an untruth.[III-3]
Besides, fabulous antiquity adds new weight to the fact, by informing us
that the Arcadian Pelasgus[III-4] deserved that altars should be erected
to his memory, for having taught the Greeks to choose in preference the
beech-nut, as the most delicate of this class of comestibles, according
to the tender Virgil, who, however, only judged of it by hearsay.[III-5]
There is a great degree of probability in the supposition that the
different races of the north, each inhabiting a country covered with
immense forests, lived for a long time on the fruit of these different
kinds of oak which they possessed in such abundance. The great respect
they had for the tree, the pompous ceremony with which the high priest
of the Druids came every year to cut away the parasitical plant which
clings to it, the very name of the Druids--derived from a celtic word
signifying _oak_--all seem to point out the first food of our ancestors.
The oak furnished the primitive aliment of almost every nation, in their
original state of barbarism. Some of them had even preserved a taste for
the acorn after they became civilized. Among the Arcadians and the
Spaniards, the acorn was regarded as a delicious article of food. We
read in Pliny that, in his time, these latter had them served on their
tables at dessert, after they had been roasted in the wood-ashes to
soften them. According to Champier, this custom still subsisted in Spain
in the 16th century.
The regulation made by Chrodegand, Bishop of Metz, about the end of the
8th century, for the canons, says expressly[III-6] that if, in an
unfavorable year, the acorn or flour should fail, it will be the duty of
the bishop to provide it.
When, animated by the most praiseworthy zeal and courage, Du Bellay,
Bishop of Mans, came, in 1546, to represent to Francis I. the frightful
misery of the provinces, and that of his diocese in particular, he
assured the king that in many localities the people had nothing to eat
but bread made of acorns.
But mankind, who soon get tired of every thing, even of acorns and
beech-nuts, began to dislike this wholesome and abundant food, when
Ceres, the ancient Queen of Sicily, came just _à propos_ to give a few
lessons in the art of sowing the earth.[III-7] Corn once brought into
fashion acquired a surprising repute, and the ancient food was given up
to the animal which it fattens; and if this last were eaten, it was no
doubt in gratitude for the fruit mankind had formerly so much loved.
The good Ceres did not stop there; it was very well to have corn, but to
know how to grind it was also requisite; and the human race was then so
lamentably backward, that one might have gone round the world without
meeting a miller, or even the shadow of the meanest little mill.
The Queen of Sicily then invented grinding-stones,[III-8] but, as the
most useful discoveries require time to be known and improved upon, the
way of grinding corn with stones did not become uniform everywhere. The
inhabitants of Etruria (now called Tuscany) pounded the grain in
[Illustration: _Pl. 4._
ALCINOUS’S HAND MILL.]
mortars.[III-9] The early Romans adopted the same means, and gave the
name of _Pistores_, grinders, to those persons who followed this
occupation.[III-10] Pliny relates that one of the ancient families of
Rome took the surname of _Piso_, having descended, as they believed,
from the inventor of the art of bruising wheat with pestles.[III-11]
Down to the latest days of the Roman republic the corn was bruised after
being roasted. The pestle used for this purpose was somewhat pointed,
and suspended by the aid of a ring to the extremity of a flexible lever,
supported by an axle.[III-12]
From the time of Moses the Hebrews used grinding-stones: several
passages of the Holy Scripture clearly indicate this. Among others: “No
man shall take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge; for he
taketh a man’s life to pledge.”[III-13] Another text shows that the
Egyptians used grinding-stones with handles, at about the same
period.[III-14] The Israelites, when in the Desert, employed the same
means to pound manna,[III-15] and after their settlement in the Promised
Land, these utensils served to grind corn.
The Greeks, following faithfully the system from which they had but
slightly deviated, have honoured King Miletus as the inventor of
grinding-stones;[III-16] the upper part was of wood, and armed with
heads of iron nails. A passage of Homer would seem to lead us to believe
that the grain was first crushed with rollers on stone slabs, which
operation would naturally lead to the crushing of it between
grinding-stones.[III-17] However this may be, these last were no doubt
still scarce in the heroic times, since the same poet does not fail to
inform us that one was to be seen in the gardens of Alcinous, chief of
the Phæacians.[III-18] This kind of decoration would but very little
please the taste of our modern horticulturists.
Nearly two centuries before our era, in the year of Rome 562, the
Romans, victorious in Asia, brought with them handmills.[III-19] This
conquest of industry soon made an immense stride, and to the labour of
man succeeded by degrees the obedient aid of horses and asses. Hence the
two kind of mills so often mentioned--by hand, _manuales_; by animal,
_iumentariæ_[III-20]
Delighted with a discovery which supplied an important necessity of
life, the Romans invented a divinity to whom they might show their
gratitude, and Olympus was honoured with a new inmate: the goddess Mola,
protectress and patroness of mills and millstones.[III-21]
Now Mola was one of a large family; she had several charming sisters,
like herself, who could not endure living among the commoners, while
Ganymede served ambrosia to their elder sister, or poured out for her
the nectar of the gods. Besides, it cost so little to be made a goddess!
A few grains of incense, more or less, who would grudge such a trifle?
The Flamine of Jupiter, whom they consulted, was at first rather
refractory. He feared the crowding of Olympus; he doubted whether polite
intercourse could ever be established between gods of high birth and
little divinities covered with flour; but when at last the high priest
had ceased speaking, the deputation removed all scruples by a reasonable
bribe, and the sisters of Mola were forthwith enrolled in the list of
immortals, under the designation of well-beloved daughters of the god of
war.[III-22] Mars was rather ungentlemanly on the occasion, but the high
priest undertook to bring him to reason.
This took place about the end of May, and the Romans resolved to
celebrate, from the 9th of the following June, the festival of the
patroness of Roman millers, and of her sisters, the newly elected
divinities; the ceremony was worthy of those for whose apotheosis it was
instituted, and every year, on the same day, new rejoicings consecrated
this great event.[III-23]
The mills ceased to turn and to grind, a profound silence reigned in the
mills; the asses, patient and indefatigable movers of an incessant
rotation, took a lively part, whether or no, in the festivals of which
they became the principal actors. These honest creatures’ heads[III-24]
were crowned with roses, and necklaces of little leaves encircled their
necks and fell gracefully on their chests;[III-25] we need not add that,
on this day, the thick bandages which generally covered the eyes of
these useful labourers were removed.[III-26]
Independently of this annual solemnity, the asses, turners of the mills,
had sometimes their windfalls,--that is to say, hours of holiday, during
which they could freely graze on the neighbouring thistles. This
happened when an awkward slave performed badly the duties of fanning his
master, or spilt carelessly a few drops of Falernian wine when filling
his cup. The unfortunate creature was immediately condemned to work at
the mill;[III-27] he was deprived of his name, and received in lieu that
of the quadruped he replaced--_Asinus_;[III-28] and the instrument of
his sufferings, by a refinement of strange irony, was called his
manger.[III-29]
It sometimes happened that a free man, reduced to extreme
[Illustration: _Pl. 5._
ASINUS OR JUMENTARIÆ MILL.]
[Illustration: _Pl. 6._
PLAUTUS’S MILL.]
indigence, had recourse to this hard occupation, in order to earn a
living. Plautus was obliged to work at it, and we know that he wrote
some of his comedies during the short moments of leisure allowed him by
his master the miller.[III-30]
An important modification was subsequently made in the mechanism of
mills: we mean hydraulic mills, whose introduction into Italy is of
uncertain date, although Pomponius Sabinus asserts (but without proof),
that this discovery took place in the reign of Julius Cæsar. They were
known in Rome at the time of the Emperor Augustus, and Vitruvius
mentions them.[III-31] More than sixty years afterwards, Pliny speaks of
them as rare and extraordinary machines.[III-32]
Some writers have thought that _hydraulæ_, or _hydromilæ_, watermills,
were invented by Vitruvius, and that this celebrated architect made
experiments with them, which were forgotten or neglected after his
death.[III-33] Curious readers, who are not afraid of the venerable dust
with which time has covered many useful though despised books, will
consult with benefit the learned treatise of Goetzius on the mills of
the ancients, printed in the year 1730.[III-34]
Strabo, who flourished under the Emperor Augustus, tells us a watermill
was to be seen near the town of Cabire and the palace of
Mithridates.[III-35]
Nevertheless, this useful invention, which we could not now dispense
with, made so little progress during four centuries that princes thought
it a duty to protect, by several laws, those establishments, still rare,
but which people began to appreciate. Honorius and Arcadius decreed, in
398, that any person who turned the water from mills for his own profit,
should be punished by a fine of five pounds weight in gold; and that any
magistrate encouraging such an act should pay a like sum.[III-36] The
Emperor Zeno[III-37] maintained this law, and rendered it still more
stringent by adding, that the edifices or land into which the water had
been turned should be confiscated.[III-38]
It is to be regretted that the precise origin of the miller’s profession
cannot be traced; but, alas! in almost all the arts which tend to
preserve life, we discover the same uncertainty: we are ignorant of the
period of their discovery, and it frequently happens that but few traces
of their development remain. On the contrary, the dates of battles, or
scourges which have decimated the human race, are certain enough: the
stain of blood leaves an impression which can never be effaced.
In the midst of the conflicting opinions of the writers of antiquity,
what appears most probable is, that watermills were invented in Asia
Minor, and that they were not really used in Rome till the reign of
Honorius and Arcadius.
Under the rule of the Emperor Justinian, when the Goths besieged the
Roman city,[III-39] the celebrated Belisarius thought of constructing
some on the Tiber. The means which he employed were simple and
ingenious. Two boats firmly fixed, at two feet distance from each other,
caused the stream to give a rapid motion to the hydraulic wheel,
suspended by its axle between these lateral points of support; and this
wheel turned the mills.[III-40] This system differed but little from
that of Vitruvius, which he described more than five centuries before,
and is explained in a few words. A little wheel, fixed to the axle of
the hydraulic wheel, turned a third wheel, adhering to the axle of the
upper grindstone, and the corn fell between the two stones in passing
from the hopper placed above.[III-41]
These grindstones were made of a kind of porous lava, which retained its
roughness, or rather, its roughness was renewed, by the continual
friction.[III-42]
The introduction of watermills, however, did not prevent the use of
those worked by hand, which habit, cheapness, and facility of removal
recommended: these antique mills of the Hebrews, the Egyptians, and the
Greeks of the heroic times, were only five feet high. Each family was
supplied with as many as they might require. In the residence of
Ulysses, that great king of little Ithaca, there were as many as twelve.
Women turned the mills, and were obliged to deliver a certain quantity
of flour before leaving the task imposed on them.[III-43]
Corn was at first ground in a portative hand mill; by the Britons, women
and young girls were employed in this kind of labour.[III-44]
It is, however, probable that watermills were known at a very early
period in England. Strutt cites a passage from a charter by Ulfere, in
664, which warrants the supposition.[III-45]
It would be difficult to point out the precise date of the first
employment of mills; nevertheless, Somner informs us, in his
“Antiquities of Canterbury,”[III-46] that the Anglo-Normans of that
place ground their corn. “There was,” says he, “sometime a windmill
standing neare the nonnery without Ridingate, which the hospitall held
by the grant of the nonnes there: the conditions mutually agreed upon,
at the time of the grant, were that the nonnes, bearing the fourth part
of the charge of the mill, should reap the fourth part of the profit of
it, &c. * * * and this about the reign of King John.”
The bran was separated from the flour by means of a sieve; the dough was
made, and sent to the bakers to be baked. The poor contented themselves
with cakes baked under the ashes.[III-47]
Something remains to be said of windmills. We will say but little on the
subject: this aerial mechanism--which the knight-errant, Don Quixote, of
imperishable memory, thought it necessary to fight with sword and
lance--was unknown before the Christian era in any nation whose writers
have transmitted to us the least traces of their civilisation; but
nothing proves that windmills were unknown to others. This opinion seems
to be well-founded, from a passage of the chronicler Winceslaus, who
relates, in his “History of Bohemia,” that the first watermill raised in
that country was in the year of Christ 718, and that no other was in use
before (_antea_) but mills built on the summit of mountains, which were
put in motion by the wind.[III-48] It appears, then, that there is some
untruth in the assertion, that this sort of mill was introduced into
Europe, about the year 1040, by the first Crusaders, on their return
from the East.[III-49] At all events this question is no doubt very
deserving the laborious search of the learned; it has but a secondary
interest for the gastrophilist. It matters little to him whether he owes
the grinding of his corn to the breath of a zephyr or to the slimy
source of a river; all he requires is good flour, because it enters into
a great number of culinary preparations--and, first of all, bread is
made from it.
IV.
MANIPULATION OF FLOUR.
Man has not always eaten fine wheaten bread, biscuits, or sponge cakes;
and, for many centuries, the inexperience of his palate prevented his
imagining or understanding those magiric combinations, that science of
good living,[IV-1] which requires time and serious study. Nature makes
us hungry; art creates, modifies, and directs the appetite--these are
incontestable truths, which this work will serve to unfold, and, if
necessary, to prove, should any of our readers unfortunately not be
already convinced of the depth of these wise axioms.
Let us go no further back than the year 2000 before the Christian era,
and enter together the tent of the father of nations--_Abraham_. We
might lead you to the fire-side of each of the nineteen patriarchs who
preceded him, but that would take us too far.
In the interior of this nomad dwelling, Sarah, the venerable companion
of the Pastor-King, has just prepared, with flour and water, round
pieces of flattened paste, which she places on the hearth, and covers
afterwards with hot ashes.[IV-2] It was thus that princes and servants
made bread in the East. The Jewish people who inhabited the Desert ate
no other kind;[IV-3] and the Prophet Elijah, reposing under the shade of
a juniper tree, appeased his hunger with this simple and primitive
food.[IV-4] Sometimes, however, at certain periods of solemnity, the
Hebrews used a gridiron, placed on the coals, or a frying-pan, into
which they put the paste;[IV-5] but these various modes of cooking
produced a kind of cake, dry, thin, and brittle,[IV-6] somewhat like the
Jewish Passover cake, which was broken by the hand without the aid of a
knife;[IV-7] they were called _lechem_, choice and chief food,[IV-8] and
the mother of the family generally renewed them each day.[IV-9] The
inhabitants of the East thought so much of bread, that it was considered
a special mark of regard and hospitality to the person to whom it was
offered.[IV-10] Boaz says to Ruth: “At meal time come thou hither and
eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar.”[IV-11]
Although the use of bread without leaven and baked under the ashes was
common among the Jews,[IV-12] it is nevertheless evident that they knew
and employed, at an early period, some substance to raise the dough,
which they designated by the name of _seor_. It was, perhaps, flour
diluted with water left to get sour. Pliny assures us that of all means
employed by the ancients to render bread savoury and light, this is the
most simple and easy.[IV-13]