bunch of leeks, coriander, and savory; then crush pepper and pine nuts,
to which put a little water. Then take the leeks, coriander, and savory
out of the saucepan; put in their place the mixture mentioned, add some
milk, boil it, thicken with whites of eggs, and serve.[XVII-79]
In the sixteenth century they had dark cages, in which they fattened
poultry with ground tares, wheaten flour, and barley meal. Capons
fattened in hutches, where they could not turn, nor even stir, were
esteemed delicious. They fed pigeons on the crumb of bread, steeped in
wine; peacocks on the sediment from cider.
On Michaelmas Day, the 29th of September, many persons in England eat
roast goose for their dinner. It is said that this custom dates from the
time of Queen Elizabeth, who was being served with a piece of goose on
Michaelmas Day, at the very moment when news was brought of the defeat
of the famous Armada. Some persons affirm that the Queen expressed a
desire that this dish might, each year, serve to perpetuate the
remembrance of so signal a victory. Would it not be more simple to
suppose that Elizabeth herself already conformed to a custom which had
existed before her time?[XVII-80]
At Mans, instead of letting the poultry eat freely, they are shut up in
a dark place, and made to swallow pellets of about two inches long and
one thick, composed of two parts of barley flour, and one of maize, made
with sufficient quantity of milk.
“In the time when the French had a decided taste for spices and
aromatics, they imagined to vary at will the flavour and perfume of the
flesh of fowls. With the paste used to fatten them was mixed musk,
anise-seed, and comfits, with other aromatic drugs. A Queen was known
to spend 1,500 francs (£60) in fattening three geese, whose livers she
wished to render more delicate.”--PARMENTIER.
THE PIGEON.
The dove, a bird so dear to Venus,[XVII-81] served ambrosia to
Jupiter,[XVII-82] and became the interpreter of Dodona’s
oracles.[XVII-83] Several nations consecrated it to their gods.[XVII-84]
The Jews discovered in it the image of the sweetest virtues,[XVII-85] of
beauty, innocence, and purity;[XVII-86] and they sacrificed it to the
Almighty, as a burnt offering agreeable to His unspeakable
holiness.[XVII-87]
This was because the dove or pigeon (begging pardon, here, for mixing
varieties) is to the hawk, according to an expression of a father of the
Church, what the lamb is to the wolf,[XVII-88]--a symbol of good by the
side of evil, or of a calm and peaceful conscience, as opposed to the
sad and agitated criminal. But, alas! the ancient prerogatives of this
tender bird, its candour and innocence, could not even preserve it from
the fate common to almost everything which breathes. Its delicate
flesh--fatal gift of Heaven!--recommended it to the epicure; not for its
poetical qualities, but for its delicate flavour; and, after many songs
of praise, it was condemned to be roasted.
From the beginning of the heroic ages, pigeons were caught with snares
and nets,[XVII-89] in order to feed them, and be able to procure some at
once, if required to be served at a repast; for they formed a dainty
dish upon the tables of the most fastidious.[XVII-90] Of course they
figured in the joyous wedding feast of that opulent Caranus who
entertained his guests so sumptuously.[XVII-91]
The Greeks, therefore, used to bring up an immense number of pigeons,
and built for them, in the most open situations, charming pigeon-houses,
in the form of small towers, models of elegance and cleanliness, where
those timid birds found at night a retreat, always fatal to some one
amongst them.[XVII-92]
The Romans introduced in these sorts of edifices the most unusual
luxury.[XVII-93] Each kind of pigeon had a particular home[XVII-94]--a
foolish and expensive taste, which they continually attempted to
embellish. It was, however, a profitable speculation for those who knew
how to be satisfied with pigeon-houses of more simple appearance. A
brace of rather ordinary pigeons did not cost less than 16s.: the finest
were sold at £4 a pair. It is even known that L. Axius, a Roman knight,
demanded and obtained £6 8_s._ for two young pigeons intended for a
patrician’s table.[XVII-95]
Physicians of that period greatly praised the flesh of these birds; they
recommended it to the sick and convalescent.[XVII-96]
_Roast Pigeon, with Servilian Seasoning._--Bruise some dill seeds, dried
mint, and the root of benzoin; add some vinegar, dates, garum, a little
mustard, and oil; stir well; then mix with it some wine reduced to half,
and pour the whole on the roasted pigeon.[XVII-97]
THE GUINEA HEN.
This bird, called by the ancients the “Hen of Numidia,” comes originally
from many burning regions of Africa. In Greece, and especially in Rome,
vanity alone gave it a price which was willingly granted, more on
account of its scarcity than for its taste.[XVII-98] The Guinea hen
appeared at great banquets, when the Amphytrion was more anxious to show
his opulence than to demonstrate the delicacy of his dishes.
Martial,[XVII-99] and Pliny,[XVII-100] the naturalist, raised great
objections against this ostentatious and useless rarity.
_Guinea Hen à la Numide._--Cook it; then put it in a saucepan with some
honey and garum; make several incisions in the bird; baste it with its
own gravy, and sprinkle with pepper previously to its being
served.[XVII-101]
THE TURKEY HEN.
“There must be two to eat a truffled turkey,” said a gastronomist of the
18th century, to one of his friends--a noted _gourmand_--who had just
come to pay him a visit. “Two!” replied the visitor, with a smile of
sensuality. “Yes, two,” answered the first; “I never do otherwise: for
instance, I have a turkey to-day, and of course we must be two.” The
friend, looking earnestly at the other, said: “You, and who else?”
“Why,” answered the gastronomist, “I and the turkey.”
In Greece, more than one stomach would have been capable of challenging
nobly the voracity of this modern polyphagus: witness the insatiable
greediness of the well-known glutton who complained that nature ought to
have given him a neck as long as the stork, that he might enjoy for a
longer period his eating and drinking.[XVII-102]
But for a long time the Greeks were quite ignorant of the culinary value
of the turkey; it was looked upon as an uncommon curiosity, and not
condemned to the spit. Sophocles, the first who spoke of it, pretended
that those marvellous birds came purposely from some distant climate
beyond the Indies, to bewail the death of Meleager, who took possession
of the throne of Macedonia (279 years B.C.), and who was soon driven
from it.[XVII-103] This Prince, it is reported, carried them away from
barbarous regions, that they might enjoy the charms of Greek
civilization; and hence could there be anything more natural than to
find those compassionate volatiles shedding tears for their benefactor,
in one of Sophocles’ tragedies? They have been called since,
Meleagrides, and this name perpetuated “misfortune, favour, and
gratitude.”
Aristotle hardly supplies us with any details upon turkey hens: he
merely says that their eggs are distinguished by little specks from
those of the common hens, which are white;[XVII-104] but Clytus of
Miletus, his disciple, gives an exact description of them, by which no
mistake can be made.[XVII-105]
Egypt also possessed some of these birds; but there they were still more
rare than in Greece, and formed one of the principal ornaments in the
triumphal pomp of Ptolemy Philadelphus, when he entered Alexandria.
Large cages, containing meleagrides, were carried before the monarch,
and on that day the people knew not which to admire most--the prince or
the turkey.[XVII-106]
They were introduced into Rome about the year 115 before our era; but,
for a long time, they were objects of uncommon curiosity: and Varro, the
first of the Latins who speaks of them, confounds these birds with the
guinea hens, or hens of Numidia.[XVII-107]
A century later, turkeys greatly multiplied, and vast numbers were
reared in the Roman farms. Caligula, who had the good sense to make his
own apotheosis during his life-time, through fear lest it might be
refused after his death, ordered a sacrifice of peacocks, guinea hens,
and turkeys to be made daily before his statue.[XVII-108]
It appears, however, that the breed of turkeys soon began to diminish in
Europe; very few were reared, and that only as a curiosity: in the
citadel of Athens, towards the year 540 of the Christian era;[XVII-109]
and in 1510, two were exhibited in Rome, which belonged to the Cardinal
of Saint Clement.[XVII-110] Jacques Cœur brought some meleagrides
from India, in 1450; they were the first ever seen in France, and it was
not till fifty-four years afterwards that Americus Vespucius made them
known to the Portuguese. In our days these ancient inhabitants of Asia
or America[XVII-111] have become naturalized among us, and let us hope
that the day is yet distant when they will be absentees from our
farm-yards and our tables. We admire them less perhaps than Charles IX.
did when a turkey was served to him for the first time,[XVII-112] but we
shall always receive with cheerfulness the majestic dish upon which
appears a well-fed turkey, truffled, and smoking hot.
_Turkey à l’Africaine._--Roast a turkey; bruise some pepper, alisander,
and benzoin; mix it with wine and garum. Pour this seasoning on the
turkey, sprinkle with pepper, and serve.[XVII-113]
The historian of Provence, Bouche, will have it that the French are
indebted for the turkey to King René, who died in 1480. Other writers
assure us that this volatile was introduced during the reign of Francis
I. by Admiral Chabert. La-Bruyère-Champier speaks of it as a recent
acquisition, and Beckmann refutes those who date its existence in France
previous to the 16th century. He says that this bird, which was wild in
the forests of America, became domesticated in Europe.
It is also said that we owe the importation of it to the Jesuits.
According to Hurtaut, it was not until about the time of Charles IX.
that turkeys appeared in France.[XVII-114] It is asserted, adds this
author, that at the wedding-dinner of that Prince the first turkey was
served, and that it was admired as a very extraordinary thing. The
English tasted this new dish in 1525, the fifteenth year of the reign of
Henry VIII.
To fatten turkeys--every morning, for a month, give them mashed
potatoes, mixed with buck-wheat flour, Indian corn, barley, or beans; a
paste is made of it which they are left to eat as they please. Every
evening what remains must be taken away. One month after, you add to
this food, when they go to roost, half a dozen balls composed of barley
floor, which they are made to swallow for eight days successively; at
the end of that time turkeys, thus fed, become excessively fat,
delicious, and weigh from twenty to twenty-five pounds.
In Provence, walnuts are given to them whole, which they are compelled
to swallow by slipping them one by one with the hand along the neck
until they have all past the œsophagus; they begin with one walnut,
and increase by degrees to forty. This kind of food gives an oily taste
to the flesh.
Turkey eggs are good boiled, and are preferred to those of hens for
pastry; mixing them with the common eggs makes an omelette more
delicate.
“To obtain all the advantages possible from turkeys, they must be killed
at the same time as pigs; then cut the turkeys in quarters, and put them
in earthen pots covered over with the fat of the pork, and by this means
they may be eaten all the year round.”--PARMENTIER.
THE PEACOCK.
The peacock comes originally from India: it was there that Alexander the
Great saw it for the first time. He was so struck with its magnificent
plumage that he forbad all persons, under pain of death, to kill
any.[XVII-115]
Oriental princes kept the peacocks which travellers brought them, from
time to time, in their aviaries.[XVII-116] It was thus[XVII-117] that a
certain king of Egypt received one, of which he thought Jupiter alone
worthy; wherefore he sent it in great pomp to the temple of that
god.[XVII-118]
These birds were thus known over various parts of the world. Samos,
which seems to have been provided one of the first, ornamented its money
with their image.[XVII-119] Their reputation soon spread far and
wide;[XVII-120] and Athenian speculators sent to that island for
peacocks, which were shown to the curious once a month.[XVII-121]
This variety became afterwards an article of commerce, and all wealthy
people became desirous to have them. A male and female cost £8
sterling.[XVII-122] But what was that, when delighted eyes could
contemplate the charming and lovely colours of the haughty favourite of
Juno!
At Rome, the peacock had a prodigious success.[XVII-123] When alive,
the Romans praised its beauty; when dead, it appeared on the tables of
its enthusiastic admirers.
Quintus Hortensius, the orator, was the first who had them served in a
banquet given by him on the occasion of being created an
augur.[XVII-124] This gastronomic novelty made an extraordinary
sensation at Rome--as might be expected--and the peacock became so much
in fashion, that no banquet could possibly be given unless it was
embellished by its presence.[XVII-125]
Marcus Aufidius Livio was the first to contrive a sure way to fatten
them;[XVII-126] and he succeeded so well that he made prodigious sums
every year by the sale of those birds.[J]
Horace preferred them to the finest poultry,[XVII-127] and distinguished
amateurs thought that it was not paying much for a young peacock if they
could get it for two pounds and three shillings.[XVII-128]
The ridiculous consumption which was made of these birds did not allow
of their becoming very common. Tiberius reared some in his gardens; and
he condemned to capital punishment a soldier of his guards who had the
misfortune to kill one.[XVII-129]
Ultimately, more savoury or more rare dishes took the place of peacocks’
flesh, which then began to be thought hard, unwholesome, and of
difficult digestion.[XVII-130] However, it re-appeared in the middle
ages at the nuptial festivities of the rich, where one of these birds
was served, as if alive, with the beak and claws gilded. To do that
well, it was necessary to skin the bird very carefully, and then cook it
with aromatics, such as cinnamon, cloves, &c. It was then covered with
its skin and feathers, and served without any appearance of having been
stripped. This luxury was to gratify the sight: nobody touched it. The
peacock was thus preserved for several years without being damaged--a
property believed to be peculiar to its flesh,[XVII-131] but which was
owing, no doubt, to the aromatics just mentioned.
_Peacock of Samos._--Mix some pepper, alisander, parsley, dill flowers,
dried mint, and filberts, or fried almonds; bruise them with green
smallage[K] and pennyroyal, and mix the whole with wine, honey, vinegar,
and garum. Make incisions in the bird, and cover it with this
seasoning.[XVII-132]
XVIII.
MILK, BUTTER, CHEESE, AND EGGS.
MILK.
It would, probably, be impossible to trace the epoch at which man began
to make use of milk as food. Abraham presented some to the three angels
who appeared to him in the valley of Mamre;[XVIII-1] and it is likely,
that long before that patriarch, the eastern nations had recourse to an
aliment so easily acquired, and which their numerous flocks produced in
such abundance.
Among the Jews, milk was always considered as an emblem of the wealth of
a country and the fertility of its soil; so much so, that the sacred
books almost invariably speak of a happy region, as one “flowing with
milk and honey.”[XVIII-2] This metaphorical expression testifies
sufficiently to the taste of the Hebrews for this aliment, which their
King Solomon recommended to them in these terms: “and thou shalt have
goat’s milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for
the maintenance of thy maidens.”[XVIII-3]
Profane antiquity agrees on this point with our holy chroniclers. It
represents to us the first men, free from passions and fears, surrounded
by streams of milk and nectar, from which they drew health and
life.[XVIII-4] Happy time! ere milk-maids existed to practise those
deceptions they have now imbibed from the deceitful arts of chemistry.
The greater part of the wandering tribes, such as the Getes and
Scythians, were galactophagists,[XVIII-5] or drinkers of milk;[XVIII-6]
the Gauls[XVIII-7] and Germans[XVIII-8] made it also their principal
food. In Greece and Italy, the shepherds decorated the vessels in which
they had just milked their flocks with crowns of flowers; and, in honour
of the rural divinities, they scattered about a small quantity of this
sweet liquid.[XVIII-9] The reapers offered it to Ceres;[XVIII-10] and in
one of the sections of Rome, Mercury was presented with milk instead of
wine.
The ancients attributed to milk from cows, ewes, and goats, various
Hygeian qualities.[XVIII-11] Hippocrates forbade it in cases of
head-ache, fevers, and bilious attacks;[XVIII-12] but he sometimes
ordered asses’ milk,[XVIII-13] which was considered as an excellent
remedy, and a most wholesome aliment.[XVIII-14]
The voluptuous people of Rome rubbed their faces and skins with bread
soaked in asses’ milk, to make them fairer and prevent the beard from
growing too fast.
Suetonius[XVIII-15] and Martial[XVIII-16] speak of these refinements of
luxurious delicacies. The satirical Juvenal informs us that bread was
made into a kind of plaster or mask, with which they covered the
face.[XVIII-17] Poppæia, wife of Nero, was the first, or one of the
first, to bring this recipe into fashion, being fully persuaded that she
would thus preserve the whiteness and delicacy of her skin. Five hundred
asses used to supply daily the necessary quantity of milk to make the
cosmetic and bath[XVIII-18] of the coquettish empress.
This high patronage did not prevent asses’ milk from losing by
degrees--and very unjustly, no doubt--the reputation it
acquired.[XVIII-19]
Fashion--capricious and all-powerful deity--undertook to re-instate its
virtues, after several centuries of profound forgetfulness. The success
was complete. This is how the affair took place:--
Francis I., finding himself weak and languishing, the physicians, after
a long consultation on the monarch’s illness, advised remedies which did
not cure the royal patient. However, the King of France was getting
worse every day, and his state gave serious apprehensions. Some one
mentioning to his Majesty that a Jew of Constantinople was noted as one
of the cleverest doctors in the world, Francis immediately ordered his
ambassador in Turkey to send him this Israelitish doctor, whatever might
be the cost. The Jew arrived, and prescribed no other remedy than asses’
milk. The king found himself much better, and the courtiers and ladies
of the court eagerly followed the same diet, even for the slightest
imaginary indisposition.
A patient, cured by the use of this wholesome and restorative food,
thought of expressing his gratitude by the following stanza:--
“Par sa bonté, par sa substance
D’une ânesse le lait m’a rendu la santé;
Et je dois plus en cette circonstance,
Aux ânes qu’à la faculté.”
_Macédoine Germanique of Milk._--Pound dry almonds, and put them into a
stewpan with the following ingredients:--the most delicate parts of
mallows only, and white-beet, some leeks, parsley, and other leguminous
herbs, previously cooked, a fowl boiled and minced small, the brains of
poultry or sucking pigs, also boiled, and lastly, some hard eggs cut in
two. Put all these together, as mentioned before; some little time after
that, add sausage meat, fowls’ livers, fresh cod fish, and oysters--the
whole reduced into pulp--some fresh cheese, pine nuts, and whole pepper.
Whilst this is boiling on a very slow fire, prepare the following
seasoning: pound some pepper, alisander, parsley seeds, and silphium;
stew separately with gravy; mix raw eggs with a great quantity of milk;
add it to the preceding seasoning; pour it over the contents of the
stewpan, then pepper, and serve.[XVIII-20]
BUTTER.
A learned writer[XVIII-21] has maintained that the ancient inhabitants
of the east did not know of butter, and that by this word must be
understood, when it occurs in the holy writings, _sour milk_ or _cream_.
Whatever may be the respect due to the grave authority of Beckmann, we
beg leave to adhere to the opinion of various translators of the Bible,
and believe with them that the Jews knew how to prepare butter.
Independently of the signification of _chemack_, to which a profound
philosopher gives the same sense,[XVIII-22] and which appears very
naturally to offer this acceptation, we could still fortify our opinion
by the passage where Job, recalling with sorrow the happy days of his
youth, says, that he used to wash his “feet in butter.”[XVIII-23] We
agree that these words are understood in a figurative sense, and that
the man of God wished to show by it that he was the possessor of a great
number of flocks.
But it is nevertheless true, that this metaphorical locution recalls
also one of the uses made of that fat substance, which was for a long
while employed, like oil, to soften and refresh the limbs.
Indulgent reader, excuse this episode upon a ground which we ought not
to touch, and let us re-enter the kitchen.
The Greeks, who understood many things, and knew them so well, passed
over several centuries without once thinking that the milk of their ewes
and cows contained a food already well-known by several barbarous
nations. Aristotle mentions the serous part of milk, and
cheese;[XVIII-24] but he hardly suspects the existence of butter, which
he describes but very imperfectly as a liquid oil.[XVIII-25] Antecedent
to him, Hippocrates never thought of it, except as a foreign remedy
which Asia supplied to Greece.[XVIII-26]
It was only fifty years after Aristotle that it began to be noticed as
an aliment. The Greeks, in imitation of the Parthians and Scythians, who
used to send it to them, had it served upon their tables, and called it
at first “oil of milk,”[XVIII-27] and later, _bouturos_, “cow cheese,”
probably on account of the quantity made from the milk of that
animal.[XVIII-28]
The Germans, according to Beckmann, taught the Romans how to make
butter, but they never employed it otherwise than as a remedy in Italy.
It is certain that in the time of Pliny it had hardly been heard of at
Rome,[XVIII-29] and that, according to this writer, the barbarians
only--that is to say, those who were unfortunate enough not to be either
Greeks or Romans--made their food of it.[XVIII-30] Towards the year 175
of the Christian era, Galen then placed butter only among the
therapeutic agents useful in medicine.[XVIII-31] However, more than a
century before him, Dioscorides wished it to be noticed that fresh
butter made of ewes’ or goats’ milk was served at meals instead of oil,
and that it took the place of fat in making pastry.[XVIII-32]
Herodotus has preserved some interesting details on the manipulation of
butter among the Scythians. They received the milk in large pails, and
beat it for a long time to separate the most delicate part, and
appointed for this labour those enemies whom the fortune of war
delivered into their hands. These unhappy creatures were deprived of
sight, which prevented their escape.[XVIII-33]
The Romans set about making butter as we do. Pliny says: “Butter is made
from milk, and this aliment, so much sought after by barbarous nations,
distinguished the rich from the common people. It is obtained
principally from cows’ milk; that from ewes is the fattest. Goats also
supply some. It is produced by agitating the milk in long vessels with a
narrow opening. A little water is added.”[XVIII-34]