and twenty-five figs. Then bone it, and slightly scarify the skin with
an iron blade; put it into the oven, taking care to cover it with a
little honey. When it begins to colour, put into a saucepan some cooked
wine, pepper, wine and a bunch of rue, the half of which is then poured
on the ham. The other half of this seasoning serves to humect the
quenelles which you have taken beforehand from the ham previous to
baking; these must be well soaked with gravy, and then, if you have any
remaining, pour it over the ham, which you serve surrounded by the
quenelles.[XVI-59]
_Ventre de Truie à l’Athénienne._--It is boiled with sweet herbs and
served with a seasoning of cummin seed, vinegar, and silphium.[XVI-60]
_Ventre de Truie à la Romaine._--It is cooked in the manner before
described, and seasoned with a sauce composed of pepper, parsley seed,
dried mint, benzoin-root, honey, vinegar, and garum.[XVI-61]
_Fillet of Pork à la Bœotienne._--When it has been covered with
honey and vinegar, and baked in the oven, it is eaten with a seasoning
of pepper, benzoin, and garum.[XVI-62]
_Tétines de Truie à la Salienne._--Cook them in water; make several
incisions; cover them with salt, and place them in the oven, or on the
gridiron; prepare a seasoning of pepper and alisander, with garum, wine,
and cooked wine; thicken with fine floor; put in the _tétines_, and
serve.[XVI-63]
_Tétines à la Flamine._--Mix the flesh of a sea-hedge hog with carrots
and pepper; introduce the mixture into the _tétines_; sew up the
opening; cook them in the oven, or on the gridiron, and eat them with
brine and mustard.[XVI-64]
_Olympian Pig’s Liver._--Take the liver of a pig that has been fed only
on figs, bake it, and serve with a seasoning of œnogarum, pepper,
thyme, alisander, garum, oil, and a little vinegar.[XVI-65]
_Capitolian Pig’s Liver._--Make incisions in the liver of a pig that has
been fed on nothing but figs, and put it into garum with pepper,
alisander, and two bay leaves; then wrap it in the caul, cook it on the
gridiron, and serve.[XVI-66]
_Campanian Bacon._--It is cooked by just covering it with water and a
good quantity of dill, to which a little oil and salt are afterwards
added.[XVI-67]
_Quenelles of Pig’s Liver and Brains._--Roast a pig’s liver, and take
off all the fibrous parts; sprinkle it with pounded pepper and rue; add
some gravy; stir the whole well; then cut it into small slices, each of
which you must cover with a bay leaf; hang them over the smoke as long
as you think necessary.
When you wish to eat them, roast them afresh; then put them into a
mortar, with pepper, alisander, and wild marjoram; stir them, add gravy
and dressed sucking pigs’ brains, pounded with care; then add five eggs,
and dissolve them in such a manner as to make the whole thoroughly
compact; pour over it some gravy, and cook in a saucepan; when cooked,
throw it on a very clean table, and out this pulp into small square
pieces, which mix in the mortar with pepper, alisander, and wild
marjoram. When you have gently stirred all this, it must again be put
into a saucepan, and boiled over a slow fire. At the moment of
ebullition, pour it on a plate, sprinkle with pepper, and serve.[XVI-68]
_Lucanian Sausages._--Pound in a mortar some pepper, cummin, and winter
savory with bay leaves, and moisten with gravy and garum; then add to
this mixture some pork, chopped small, more garum and pepper, and a good
quantity of bacon, with a few pine nuts. When these various ingredients
are well incorporated one with another, you stuff the prepared
intestines, and hang up the sausages.[XVI-69]
_Imperial Sausages._--Cut some pork into very small pieces, which most
be pounded with the finest bread, well-soaked in wine; then pound some
pepper and decorticated myrtle leaves, and add some gravy. Make some
small sausages, and put inside some fir-nuts. When these sausages are
finished, you must cook them over a slow fire, with sweet wine,
previously reduced to a-third.[XVI-70]
The following is the seasoning you must add to it:--
Bone some small chickens, and put them into a saucepan, with leeks,
dill, and salt. When this is cooked, add pepper and smallage seed; then
crumble some sesame bread, on which pour some very thick gravy, mix the
whole well, and serve with the sausages.[XVI-71]
The Gauls had very considerable herds of swine, which they fed
exclusively upon acorns. The inhabitants of the towns reared them in
their houses. As these animals went frequently out, they caused some
obstruction, and we know that Philip, grandson of Louis-le-Gros, lost
his life in Paris, in consequence of a furious pig having run between
the legs of his horse, and caused him to fall. This accident took place
on the 1st October, 1181. The 3rd of the same month a proclamation was
issued, forbidding all persons to let their swine ramble through the
streets of Paris. A short time after, those which belonged to the Abbaye
Saint-Antoine were privileged; the abbess and the nuns having
represented that it would be a want of courtesy to their patron saint
not to exempt his hogs from the general rule.[XVI-72]
A new proclamation of the 20th January, 1850, interdicted with still
greater severity the rearing of swine in the town of Paris, under
penalty of a fine of 60 sous (two shillings and four-pence); and the
police were authorized to kill them wheresoever they might be found, to
take the head as a perquisite for themselves, and to deposit the carcase
at the Hôtel-Dieu (the name of an hospital), charging that establishment
with the cost incurred for its conveyance.[XVI-73]
There was nothing more delicate in the 16th century, nothing more
odoriferous, than the flesh of young pigs fed on parsnips,[XVI-73A] and
roasted, with a stuffing of fine herbs.[XVI-73B]
THE OX.
A profound sentiment of gratitude has been often the cause of rendering
to the ox extraordinary honours, which no animal, perhaps, ever shared
with him. The Egyptians considered this quadruped as the emblem of
agriculture, and of all that serves to support existence;[XVI-74] and
incense smoked on its altars at Memphis and Heliopolis.[XVI-75]
The Phœnicians religiously abstained from its flesh, and the
Phrygians punished with death whosoever dared to slay the labouring
ox.[XVI-76]
In Greece, during the heroic ages, an ox was the reward adjudged to the
conquering wrestlers and pugilists; a horse was the prize of racing or
the quoits.[XVI-77]
At a later period the Athenians decreed that their coins should bear the
image of this useful quadruped;[XVI-78] and though they then offered it
to their gods, the ceremonies even of the sacrifice testified the
repugnance felt at shedding its blood.
The sacrificer fled with the greatest speed after he had struck it; he
was followed, and, to avoid being arrested, he threw away the axe he had
used, and accused it of causing the death of the innocent ox. The axe
was then seized and tried; some one defended it, and alleged that it was
less guilty than the grinder who had sharpened the blade. The latter
cast the odium of the crime on the grinding stone, so that the trial was
never ended, and the pretended offence remained unpunished.[XVI-79]
For a long time the greater part of the ancients considered it a sin to
eat the flesh of the ox, the companion of the agriculturist, whose
patient vigour hollows the furrow which is to be the means of his
support.[XVI-80] But the bad example of Proserpine, who prepared one for
Hercules,[XVI-81] caused these scruples, one by one, to be hushed, the
solemn prohibition of the legislator of Athens forgotten;[XVI-82] and,
in spite of the obstinate resistance of the Pythagorians and the
disciples of Empedocles, every one declared in favour of the doctrines
of Zeno and Epicurus.
Moreover, it is certain that the heroes of Homer were not so scrupulous:
Menelaus offered roast-beef to Telemachus; Agamemnon also presented some
to the wise Nestor; and an ox, roasted whole, frequently appeased the
robust appetite of the illustrious chiefs of Greece.[XVI-83]
If we go back to centuries still more remote, and of which a venerable
historian has preserved us an account, we find herds of oxen were
possessed by the great patriarchal families.[X][XVI-84] Abraham cooked a
calf and served it to the three angels, in the valley of Mamre;[XVI-85]
and the flesh of this animal, whether ox or heifer, was evidently much
in use in the primitive ages, since no particular proscription exempts
them from those beings having “life and motion,”[XVI-86] and which are
to serve us as food.[XVI-87] As to Moses, far from interdicting it to
the Israelites, he places the ox in the first rank of pure
animals,[XVI-88] whose flesh was allowed them.
The oracle of ancient medicine, Hippocrates, praises the flesh of the
ox, in which he recognises the most nutritious qualities, but
nevertheless he believes it to be heavy and indigestible.[XVI-89]
Of what material, then, must have been the stomach of Theagenes, of
Thasos--he, who devoured a whole bull in one day.[XVI-90]
To be sure, the same exploit is attributed to Milo of Crotona, whose
ordinary meal consisted of eighteen pounds of meat, as much bread, and
fifteen pints of wine.[XVI-91] These formidable polyphagists could,
without much expense, indulge their fabulous appetites; for, in the time
of Demosthenes, 354 B.C., an ox of the first quality cost only eighty
drachmas, or about two pounds, eleven shillings, and eightpence.[XVI-92]
Magiric writers have left us very few details on the different methods
of cooking the flesh of the ox or calf. It appears to have been
generally roasted,[XVI-93] in which case it was eaten alone; but
sometimes it was eaten boiled, with one of the sauces to be hereafter
mentioned.
These animals were fed with particular care, in order to render them
more worthy of the luxurious tables for which certain choice pieces were
destined. The manner of fattening oxen has already been described: it is
only necessary to add, that calves, which were to be slaughtered,
received no other food than their mothers’ milk; and that, frequently,
they were not killed before the expiration of a twelvemonth.[XVI-94]
Double tripe was reputed as an excellent food. The Asiatics, Greeks,
and Romans were particularly fond of it. It was served at a sumptuous
repast prepared for Achilles; and Homer observes, that this dish was
always honourably received at the banquets of heroes.[XVI-95]
Athenæus, describing a feast of the most exquisite elegance, names
double tripe among a host of dishes he enumerates;[XVI-96] he also says,
speaking of a state dinner at which Philoxenus, one of the generals of
Alexander the Great, was a guest, that first of all there appeared large
basins containing the intestines of animals, disposed with art around
their heads:[XVI-97] and it is thus, he adds, that even the gods gave
themselves up, in the society of their friends, to the pleasures of good
cheer.[XVI-98] To be brief, this artless chronicler of antique
gastrophagy, tells us that after the sacrilegious undertaking of the
Titans, the human race enjoyed such perfect happiness, that men caused
to be served at every one of their repasts delicious double tripe and
savoury intestines.[XVI-99]
This touching example of felicity and innocent gluttony found few
imitators at Rome among that class of voluptuous men who entertained, at
enormous expense, tasters whose discriminating palates could tell
whether a fish had been caught at the mouth of the Tiber, or further
off; whether a goose’s liver had been fattened with fresh figs, or only
on dried ones.[XVI-100] For them tripe could have very little
attraction, but this rather plebeian dish appeared with honour on modest
tables, and proletarian epicures sought for it with eagerness.[XVI-101]
_Beef à l’Ibérienne._--Well boil an excellent piece of beef, and serve
it with the following sauce. Grind and mix pepper, alisander, parsley
seed, wild marjoram, and dried onions; moisten with sun-made raisin
wine; stir, and add honey, vinegar, wine, garum, oil, and sweet
wine.[XVI-102]
_Stewed Beef à la Sarmate._--Carefully choose a piece of beef, which
stew slowly for a long time with leeks, cut small, onions, or beans.
When it is well cooked, pour over a mixture of pepper, benzoin, and a
little oil.[XVI-103]
_Dish of Veal à la Syracusaine._--Cook a piece of veal, on a slow fire,
with pepper, alisander, carrots, and parsley seed, bruised together in a
mortar; then add honey, vinegar, garum, and oil; thicken the whole with
fine flour, and serve.[XVI-104]
_Noix de Veau à la Tarantaise._--Take a _noix de veau_, cook it in a
saucepan with pepper, alisander, and fenugreek seed; add, later, some
wild marjoram, pine nuts, and dates; then moisten with a mixture of
honey, vinegar, garum, mustard, and oil. When the cookery of these
various substances shall have made an homogeneous whole, serve.[XVI-105]
_Cisalpine Preserve._--Mince some beef in very small pieces; do the same
with a little bacon; add pine nuts, pounded with dates; pour on the
whole a mixture of vinegar, garum, mustard, and oil; stir well, and
throw on this pulp a powder of strong odoriferous herbs. Stir it a long
time, let it rest, compress it strongly in a prepared intestine, close
the opening, and put a string round to tighten it still more. This
preserve cannot turn bad.[XVI-106]
The ox was so precious among the Romans, that mention is made of a
certain citizen accused before the people and condemned, because he had
killed one of his oxen to satisfy the fancy of a young libertine, who
told him he bad never eaten any tripe. He was banished, as if he had
killed his farmer.[XVI-107]
The Brahmin women think to obtain abundance of milk and butter by
invoking one particular cow,--the darling cow of the king of heaven; the
type, mother, and patroness of all cows. The entire species are treated
with the greatest deference; they have lavished upon them every
expression of gratitude, and one day of each year is set apart as a
solemn festival consecrated to their worship.[XVI-108]
Some centuries ago the large pieces of meat were boiled first, and then
roasted. Roasted meat was always served with sauce. Animals roasted
whole were generally filled with an aromatic stuffing. Sage was the
common seasoning for geese, and sucking-pigs were stuffed with chesnuts.
Some minutes before these were taken from the spit, they were covered
with bread crumbs; and appeared on the table enveloped in a crust
composed of bread, sugar, orange juice, and rose water.[XVI-109]
_Bœuf Gras._--There is a very old custom in the whole of France, and
which consists in leading throughout the streets, in the provincial
towns, on Shrove Tuesday, a fatted ox, ornamented with flowers and
ribbons. This ceremony is considered as a commemorative emblem of the
fecundity of the earth. In Paris, the ox chosen for the same purpose has
generally obtained beforehand the prize awarded by the Agricultural
Society. The horns of the animal are gilded; he is afterwards decorated
in a sumptuous manner, and led through the principal thoroughfares of
that city, on Shrove Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, to the Palace of the
Tuileries, the ministerial residences, the Hôtel-de-Ville, and the
foreign embassies. Troops of butchers, dressed in appropriate fancy
costumes, both on horseback and on foot, are preceded by bands of
music; and the heathen divinities, drawn by eight horses in a richly
gilt triumphal car, form one of the most splendid and grotesque pageants
of modern times.
THE LAMB.
Formerly, sworn examiners of the clouds, skilful in discovering the
storms they concealed, announced to the inhabitants of the country the
hail by which their crops were threatened, and every one immediately
offered a sacrifice to the inimical cloud, in order that it might carry
ruin and desolation elsewhere. The most devout sacrificed a lamb; the
lukewarm worshippers a fowl; some even contented themselves with
pricking their finger with a pin, and throwing towards heaven the drops
of blood which came out. The cloud, it is said, satisfied with these
pious offerings, soon disappeared never to return.[XVI-110]
The lamb, an oblation pure and agreeable in the sight of the gods,
reconciled the earth with Olympus. In Egypt, the inhabitants of Sais and
Thebes offered it to their divinities.[XVI-111] Minerva and Juno also
were pleased to see its flesh smoking on the altars which Greece and
Italy raised to them.[XVI-112]
These practices, no doubt, were an obscure imitation of the religious
rites which Moses prescribed to his people,[XVI-113] and which heathen
nations adopted in their turn, one from the other.[XVI-114]
The Hebrew law forbad the killing of the Paschal lamb before it was
weaned, and also the cooking of it in its mother’s milk. It was to be
eaten roasted, with unleavened bread, lettuces, mustard, or bitter
herbs: whatever might remain was to be burnt with fire. It was not to be
boiled, nor a bone of it broken. It must be chosen of that year, a male,
and without fault or blemish.[XVI-115]
Many passages of the sacred writings allow us to appreciate the pastoral
riches of the first nations of the East; and an idea may be formed of
the number of their flocks, when we are told that Jacob gave the
children of Hamor a hundred sheep for the price of a field;[XVI-116] and
that the King of Israel received a hundred thousand every year from the
King of Moab, his tributary, and a like number of rams, covered with
their fleece.[XVI-117]
The delicate flesh of the lamb was the ornament of the tables of the
voluptuous inhabitants of Sion and Samaria. The prophet Amos reproaches
them with this luxury, and threatens them with the Divine anger[XVI-118]
on that account. The Greeks carried their love for this meat to such a
height, that the magistrates of Athens were obliged to forbid the eating
of lamb which had not been shorn.[XVI-119] This restriction did not
prevent the epicures of Attica from buying one of these animals every
day, which cost them ten drachmas[XVI-120] (6_s._ 5_d._), and the head
of which, prepared with art, heightened the beauty of the first
course.[XVI-121] Rome and Italy imitated Greece,[XVI-122] and the flocks
of the fertile Campania hardly sufficed for the exigencies of the
capital of the world, especially towards the end of autumn, a period at
which lambs afforded, according to the Romans, a more highly flavoured
and wholesome meat than in the spring.[XVI-123]
_Lamb’s Head à la Quirinale._--The head is boiled with pepper, garum,
and beans, and served with a sauce consisting of garum, pepper, benzoin,
and cummin, to which is added a little oil, and small pieces of bread,
soaked in sweet wine.[XVI-124]
_Quarter of Lamb à l’Esquilin._--Place a quarter of lamb in a saucepan
with onions and coriander, chopped very small. Then pound pepper,
alisander, and cummin; put to it some oil, wine, and garum. Pour the
whole on the lamb; cook well, and thicken with fine flour.[XVI-125]
_Palatine Broil._--Leave a piece of lamb during some time in a mixture
of pepper, benzoin, garum, and oil. After having cooked it in oil and
garum, put it a little while on the gridiron, sprinkle with pepper, and
serve.[XVI-126]
_Roast Lamb à la Phrygienne._--Bake a lamb and serve it with the
following sauce:--Mix well half an ounce of pepper, six scruples of
cinnamon, a little ginger, half a pint of excellent garum, and the
quarter of that quantity of oil.[XVI-127]
_Lamb à la Trimalcion._--Draw a lamb at the neck; preserve the
intestines entire, and wash them with the greatest care; fill them with
force meat and garum; put them back again by the same way; sew up the
opening, and place the lamb in the oven. Then mix gravy and milk; add
pounded pepper, garum, wine, sweet wine, and oil; let it boil only an
instant; thicken with fine floor, and serve it with the lamb.[XVI-128]
Blount informs us of a very ancient and rather strange custom. He
says:--
“At Kidlington, in Oxfordshire, the custom is, that on Monday after
Whitson week, there is a fat, live lamb provided, and the maids of the
town, having their thumbs tied behind them, run after it, and she that
with her mouth takes and holds the lamb is declared _Lady of the Lamb_,
which, being dressed, with the skin hanging on, is carried on a long
pole before the Lady and her companions to the Green, attended with
music, and a morisco dance of men and another of women, when the rest of
the day is spent in dancing, mirth, and merry glee. The next day the
lamb is part baked, boiled, and roast, for the Lady’s feast, where she
sits majestically at the upper end of the table, and her companions with
her, with music and other attendants, which ends the
solemnity.”[XVI-129]
THE KID.
The kid was one of the most delicate dishes of the Hebrews: Rebecca
prepared some for Isaac, in order to dispose him to give his blessing to
Jacob.[XVI-130] Moses ordered that, for the Feast of Passover, a lamb or
a kid should be slain.[XVI-131] Samson carried a kid to his young wife
when he wished to be reconciled to her.[XVI-132] The brother of the
prodigal son complains to his father that he has never given him a kid
to make merry with his friends.[XVI-133]
The Egyptians, who represented their god Pan with the face and legs of a
goat, abstained religiously from killing a kid or eating its
flesh.[XVI-134] Their veneration for this animal went so far, in some
countries, that goat-keepers appeared in their eyes invested with an
august and sacred character.[XVI-135] The Greeks did not judge it
convenient to adopt these strange ideas, although on other points their
theology was sufficiently ridiculous. The kid was considered one of the
most dainty dishes in state banquets; it was served whole, on a silver
basin, to each of the guests at the wedding of the Macedonian,
Caranus.[XVI-136]
The kids of Attica were especially praised, and a considerable trade
was made of them in Athens.[XVI-137] Certain connoisseurs, whose
authority had weight, preferred, however, those produced in the Island
of Mælos.[XVI-138] A great many also came from Sicily: they were in less
repute, and sold at a low price.[XVI-139]
At Rome, the kid of Italy was much thought of; the most delicate were
fattened at Tivoli,[XVI-140] and in different localities of the Roman
Campagna.[XVI-141]
_Kid à la Trans-Tibérienne._--The kid is to be cooked slowly, with a
little milk, four ounces of honey, an ounce of pepper, a little salt and
benzoin. After some time, add eight dates crushed in a mortar, a little
gravy, garum, a small quantity of excellent wine; the whole is thickened
with fine flour.[XVI-142]
_Roast Kid à la Janiculum._--Empty and carefully clean a kid; rub it
well with oil and pepper; sprinkle with salt and a large quantity of
coriander seed; place it in the oven, and bake slowly.[XVI-143]
_Kid à la Tarpéienne._--Empty the kid; stuff it, and sew it up; then
entirely cover it with a thick mixture of pepper, rue, winter savory,
onions, a small quantity of thyme, and some garum; then place it in an
oven, or on a dish, covered with oil. When the kid is cooked, you
surround it with a sauce of winter savory, onions, rue, dates, mixed
with wine, oil, and cooked wine; sprinkle with pepper, and
serve.[XVI-144]
_Kid à la Tivoli._--Bake the kid; then pound some pepper, rue, onions,
winter savory, and Damascus plums (without their stones), a little
benzoin, which you must dilute in wine, garum, and oil; throw this sauce
on the kid as you withdraw it from the oven, and, at the moment of
serving, cover it with boiling wine.[XVI-145]
_Kid à la Mélissienne._--Draw the kid at the neck, and clean the
intestines; then pound some pepper, alisander, benzoin root, two bay
leaves, and a little Spanish camomile; add two or three brains; mix them
well together; then add some garum and a little salt; afterwards, a
small quantity of milk and honey. Fill the intestines with this
stuffing, and place them round the kid, which you then put into a large
basin on the fire. When half-cooked, you must add a mixture of garum,
oil, and wine. Then bruise some pepper and alisander seed, which moisten
with the gravy of the kid, and a little cooked wine; pour it into the
basin, and the moment before serving thicken with fine flour.[XVI-146]
THE ASS.