quality of the cooks. The fact is, that it is far more easy to speak
decidedly of the former, than of the latter. Mr. St. John describes
the Arab cooks in Egypt as being great gastronomers, and serving up
“their dishes in a style which could not have displeased Elagabalus
himself!” Mr. Lane equally lauds their excellence, and the delicacy of
the manner of eating. Herr Werne, on the other hand,--and he is a man
of wide experience in this matter,--speaks very differently both of
Turkish eating and Arab cooking in Egypt. Werne, indeed, speaks of the
remote district of Bellad Sudam, rather than of Cairo and Alexandria;
but his observations have an extensive application, nevertheless. He
is disgusted with the general want of cleanliness; and he remarks,
that “the cooks are dirtier in themselves, and more filthy in their
dress, than any other class of people.” The dirty Arab cook is in a
dirty kitchen, a dirty pipe ever in his mouth, and with the dirtiest of
hands manipulating savoury preparations for the mouths of his masters.
He knows little more than how to boil or roast meat, boil beans, and
prepare vegetable dishes. Even the female slaves of the harem, who act
as cooks to their lords, are remarkable for uncleanliness. “All the
meat to be used for the dinner is sodden together in one huge caldron,
and separated for arrangement in various dishes, all of which partake
of general flavour, having been cooked together, and there is but scant
nourishment in any of them.” The vegetables are described by him as
being wretchedly cooked, and saturated with bad butter, or the water
in which they have been boiled. The dishes are not larger than our
plates; the plates, when such are used by the guests, about the size
of our saucers: but “each guest at once plunges his hand into any or
every dish that pleases him, and gropes about till he gets hold of the
best bits, pulls them out, and swallows them. Very often a bite is only
taken from the piece thus seized on, and the rest returned to the dish;
but, in spite of the clean treatment it has undergone, it is again soon
seized hold of by another, and, perchance, again similarly handled,
till all is finally bolted. The Turks eat incredibly rapidly, as they
bolt every thing, and keep cramming into the mouth more, ere the former
mouthful has been swallowed; while a smacking of lips, and licking of
sauce-dripping fingers, succeed, and proclaim their pleasure in the
meal. Bread is generally to be found on the table, but neither salt,
oil, vinegar, nor pepper; although, when they dine with Europeans,
they show no dislike to highly-seasoned dishes or strong drinks.
Although these dishes are numerous, they contain but little. If there
are many courses, or more dishes than the table will hold at one time,
the entertainer is ever busied making signs to the attendants which
are to be removed; and not seldom the guest finds, that the very dish
he was about to help himself from is carried off from under his very
nose. The Pasha used often to amuse himself by playing tricks on his
guests, by ordering off, with the utmost rapidity, those dishes he saw
their longing eyes fixed on, ere their outstretched hands could convey
any portion of them into their watering mouths. At first, in spite of
the _pilau_, we never were quick enough to get sufficient to eat, not
having been brought up to bolt our food; and that the Turks are so
quickly satisfied, and by so little, is wholly owing to this bolting
of their food, is undeniable; and this also produces the repeated
eructations they so loudly and joyfully give vent to, as proving their
high health and vigour.”
The Turks and Arabs of Egypt “chaw,” carrying their quid between
the front teeth and upper lip. The blacks of Gesira mix tobacco and
nitron, dissolving the latter in an infusion of the former. This they
call “bucca;” and they take a mouthful of it at a time, which they
keep rinsing over their teeth and gums, for, perhaps, a quarter of
an hour, before they eject it. They have “bucca” parties, as we have
tea-parties; and _then_ is the circle in the very highest state of
enjoyment,--imbibing, gurgling, gargling, and ejecting,--and not a word
uttered, except at the close, when the guests return thanks to their
host “for this very delightful evening!”
Egypt was the locality wherein the saints of old especially shone with
respect to their table arrangements, or their contempt for them; and
these gentlemen fairly claim a due share of notice at our hands. So,
now “for the Desert!”
THE DIET OF SAINTS.
Feasting, under certain circumstances, at certain seasons, and for
certain ends, is undoubtedly sanctified by apostolical recommendation.
The earlier fathers, however, say little on the subject. Clement of
Alexandria mentions weekly fasts at Easter; and Tertullian, in an
article especially recommending the observation, bitterly bewails that
it has fallen into a general disuse. The Church of Alexandria also
ordained a fast on Wednesdays and Fridays;--on Wednesday, because on
that day Christ was betrayed; on Friday, because on that day he was
crucified. In Alexandria too arose the saying, that the aspen-tree
shook because it was the tree from which the wood for the cross was
taken. The fasting generally consisted in abstaining from food until
three o’clock in the afternoon, but a religious liberty was allowed,
connected with its observance, until the sixth century, when a Council
of Orleans decreed excommunication against all who did not fast
according to the laws of the Church. Nor did the authorities stop
at this penalty; for, in later times the unlucky wight detected in
relieving hunger by eating prohibited meats, was punished by having all
his teeth drawn--the offending members were summarily extracted. The
prohibited food in Lent was flesh, eggs, cheese, and wine; subsequently
flesh alone was prohibited; and this tenderness of orthodoxy so
disgusted the Greek Church, that it lost its temper, flew off into
schism, and forgot charity in maintaining that the use of meat in Lent
was damnable.
The Xerophagia, or “dry eatings,” were the days on which nothing was
eaten but bread and salt. This was in very early times. Innovators
added pulse, herbs, and fruits--no unpleasant fare in hot countries.
The Montanists made this fast obligatory, and were very much censured
in consequence. The Essenes, who, whether as Jews or Jewish Christians
in Alexandria, were singularly strict observers of the Sabbath,
carrying their strictness to a point which my readers may find in
Jortin, if they are curious thereupon, observed also this fast very
rigidly, and on the stated days ate nothing with their bread but salt
and hyssop.
Most of the saints recorded on the canon roll of Rome, appear to have
maintained very indifferent tables, and to have considerably marred
thereby their strength and efficiency. Saint Fulgentius abstained from
everything savoury, and even drank no wine, says his biographer; which
looks as if the good men generally _did_ take some for their stomach’s
sake; and indeed Fulgentius himself took a little negus when he was
indisposed to plain water; and “small blame to him” for so harmless a
proceeding. St. Eugenius never broke his fast till sunset; and when a
bunch of grapes was sent to a sick monk of the desert, he forwarded it
to a second, and a second to a third, and so on to a twentieth, until
this health-inspiring offering, made for man by God, was withered and
nasty. These monks did not pray like Pope:--
“The blessings thy free bounty gives
Let me not cast away,
For God is paid when man receives,--
To enjoy is to obey.”
But this is a sentiment in the opposite extreme, or might be easily
carried in that direction. Palladius says of one of these desert monks,
St. Macarius, that for years together he lived only on raw herbs and
pulse; that during three consecutive years he existed on four or five
ounces of bread daily; and that he consumed but one small measure
of oil in a twelvemonth--a substitute for the gallons of sack with
which profaner men washed down their modicum of bread. St. Macarius,
however, surpassed himself in Lent; and an alderman might be excused
for fainting at the idea of a human being passing forty days and nights
in a standing position, with no more substantial support than a few
raw cabbage-leaves on a Sunday! St. Geneviève was hardly inferior in
austerity, and only ate twice in the week, on Sundays and Thursdays,
and then only beans and bread. When she grew old and infirm, and she
was prematurely both, she indulged in a little fish and milk. Simeon
Stylites surpassed both in culpable austerity. He spent an entire Lent
without allowing anything to pass his lips; and at other seasons this
slow suicidal saint never ate but on Sundays. His chief occupation
upon the pillar, which looks much more like a column of pride than a
monument of humility, was in praying and bowing. An admiring monk, who
must have had as little of active usefulness to employ his time with as
poor Simeon, exultingly records, that he did not eat once during the
day, but that he made one thousand two hundred and forty-four bows of
adoration in that time. Oh, Simeon! well for thee, poor fellow-mortal,
if those reverences be not accounted rather as homage to thyself, than
to Him to whom homage is due.
It is extremely difficult for the human mind to realize the idea of a
Bishop of London never breaking his fast till the evening, and then
being satisfied with a solitary egg, an inch of bread, and a cup of
milk and water; such, however, is said to have been the daily fare of
St. Cedd, a predecessor of Dr. Blomfield in the metropolitan diocese.
“How unlike _my_ Beverly!” St. Severinus, an Austrian prelate, had a
more indifferent table than St. Cedd, especially in Lent, when he ate
but once a week. St. William of Bourges never tasted meat after he
was ordained. St. Theodosius, the Cenobiarch, was more frugal still,
and bread often lacked, we are told, even for the holy offices of the
Church. This would seem to intimate, however, that the officers of the
Church may have eaten it. Be this as it may, when bread was needed for
the sacrament, a string of mules miraculously appeared in the desert,
bearing the necessary provision. “Necessary provision,” may be well
said, for if the Cenobites consumed little themselves, they presided at
tables where occasionally sat a hundred hungry guests, who must have
much needed a dinner, seeing that they crossed the desert to obtain it.
Some of the most self-denying saints, like St. Felix of Nola, if they
declined wine in its liquid form, took it in pills,--swallowing grapes.
St. Paul, the first hermit, lived on the fruit of a tree which produced
a fresh supply daily, the bread to temper which was brought every
morning by a raven. The diet was sufficiently invigorating to give
strength to the modest man to bite off his own tongue, and spit it in
the face of a lady who tried to tempt him, as the Irish nymph tempted
the uncourteous St. Kevin of Glendalough. He was, in abstinence, only
second to St. Isidore, who, when hungry, burst into tears, not because
God had mercifully provided him wherewith to satisfy lawful appetite,
but because, sinful man that he was, he dared to eat at all!
I have spoken of the abstinence of a Bishop of London; there was a
Bishop of Worcester, Wulstan, who is worthy of being mentioned with
him. Wulstan was rather fond of savoury viands, but he was one day,
during mass, so distracted by the smell of meat roasting in a kitchen,
which must have been very close to his church, that he made a vow to
abstain from meat for ever. But I do not know if he kept his vow. St.
Euthymius was a more rational man, for he taught his monks that to
satisfy hunger was no crime, but that to abuse appetite and God’s gifts
too, _was_ an offence. St. Macedonius, the Syrian, did not discover
this truth until he had so impaired his powers by long fasts, that it
was impossible to restore them--as he tried to do on a diet of dry
bread. And yet he was so prematurely gifted, that his own birth is said
to have been the result of his own prayers!
The table kept by St. Publius for his monks was not of a liberal
character. He allowed them nothing but pulse and herbs, coarse bread,
and water. Nothing else! He prohibited wine, milk, cheese, grapes, and
even vinegar--which every sour brother might have distilled from his
own ichor. From Easter to Whitsuntide was accounted a holiday time,
and during that festive period, the brotherhood were allowed to grow
hilarious, if they could, upon a gill of oil a-piece. St. Paula, “the
widow,” subjected her nuns to the same lively fare, and she moreover
fiercely denounced all ideas of personal neatness and cleanliness, as
an uncleanness of the mind. She accounted herself wise in so doing, but
her nuns might fairly have put to her the question asked by Mizen, in
the Fair Quaker of Deal:--“Do’st thou think that nastiness gives thee a
title to knowledge?”
St. John Chrysostom was as severe as Paula, and it would not have cost
Olympias much to defray, as she insisted upon doing, the expenses of
his table. The table which the saint kept for guests was, however,
hospitably and delicately laden--and perhaps this was an inconsistency
in a man who censured what he also encouraged.
They who have made a saint of Charlemagne, aver that he broke his fast
but once a day, and that after sunset. I cannot believe this of a man
who dealt so largely in the eggs laid by his hens, and in vegetables
raised in his garden. Nor do I believe that St. Sulpicius Severus would
have written so capital a biography of St. Martin, had he lived, as it
is said, on herbs, boiled with a little vinegar for seasoning. Surely,
we have heard of the “kitchen” of gentlemen like Sulpicius, and if his
condensed Scripture History be as dry as the bread he ate during the
task, his letters to Claudia seem to have been written on more generous
food. Not that he was immoderate. He kept one cook, a very “plain
cook” indeed, as Sulpicius describes him, when he despatched the boy
to Bishop Paulinus with a letter which commences with a startling bit
of episcopal history, namely, that “_all_ the cooks in the kitchen of
Paulinus had left him without warning, because the prelate was getting
too careless about good living.” Some commentators say that the letter
was a joke; but the reply to it is extant, and therein it may be seen
how Paulinus did not look upon it as a joke.
Southey, in his “St. Romuald,” mirthful as the story is, has not
exceeded the truth, or rather has not departed from the narrative told
by the good man’s biographers:--
“Then, Sir, to see how he would mortify
The flesh! If any one had dainty fare,
Good man, he would come there;
And look at all the delicate things, and cry,
O Belly! Belly!
You would be gormandizing now, I know;
But it shall not be so!--
Home, to your bread and water. Home, I tell ye.”
And thus says Alban Butler of him:--“He never would admit of the
least thing to give a savour to the herbs or meal-gruel on which he
supported himself. If anything was brought him better dressed, he,
for the greater self-denial, applied it to his nostrils, and said,
‘Oh Gluttony, Gluttony! thou shalt never taste this! Perpetual war
is declared against thee!’” St. William of Maleval was of the same
opinion when he cried because he ate his dry bread with a relish,
and found that what he called “sensuality” was not inseparable from
the coarsest food. St. Benedict of Anian, on the other hand, did not
decline the use of a little wine, when it was given him; while St.
Martinianus, again, lived upon biscuits and water, brought to him twice
a-year--and very nasty fare it must have been towards the end of each
six months. It must have been worse than that of St. Peter Damian, who
prided himself on never drinking water fresh, and thought there was
virtue in having it four-and-twenty hours old. St. Tarasius must have
maintained a more decent table, for it is said of him that he used to
take the dishes from it and give of them to the poor; and honour be
to his name, because of his good sense and his charity! Our venerable
acquaintance of the principality, St. David, was not half so wise,
however well-intentioned; but St. Charles, Earl of Flanders, followed
the better course, and not only lived moderately well, but acted
better, by daily distributing seven hundred loaves to the poor. The
Welsh saints, generally, kept as austere a table as St. David. There
was, for instance, the cacophonous Winwaloe of Winwaloe, who kept his
monks at starving point all the week, recalling them to life on Sundays
by microscopic rations of hard cheese and shell-fish. His own fare was
barley-bread strewn with ashes, and when Lent arrived, the quantity
of ashes was doubled, in honour of the season! St. Thomas Aquinas was
so abstracted that he never knew, at dinner, what he was eating, nor
could remember, after it, if he had dined, which was likely enough.
St. Frances, Widow, foundress of the Collations, was in more full
possession of her wits; as, indeed, the lady saints were, generally.
She had her little fancies indeed, which were “only charming Fanny’s
way,” and her beverage at eve was dirty water, out of a human skull;
but she had no mercy for lazy devotees, and invariably told sighing
wives that they had active duties to perform, and that they had better
keep out of monasteries, at least till they were widows. She was a
good, humble woman; and, as a commentator says of the abstinence of St.
Euphrasia, without humility these facts would be but facts of devils!
Another gleam of good sense shines upon us from the person of St.
Benedict. He drank wine, and so did his monks of Vicovara, who liked
his wine better than either the toast or sentiment with which he passed
it round to them, and who tried to get rid of him by poisoning his
glass; but the saint, full of inspired suspicion, made over it the sign
of the cross, and away went the flask into fifty fragments. The taste
of the good saint was known after he left Vicovara, and a pious soul
once sent him a couple of bottles of wine by a faithless messenger, who
delivered but one. “Mind what you are about,” said St. Benedict, “when
you draw the other cork for yourself.” The knave was not abashed, but
when he did secretly open the other bottle for the solace of his own
thirsty throat, he found nothing therein but a lively serpent, which
glided from him after casting at him a reproachful look!
If St. Benedict was right in the ordering of his table, why St. John of
Egypt was wrong, for he never drank anything but stagnant water, nor
ate anything cooked by fire; even his bread he complacently swallowed
before it was baked;--and what his liver was like, it would puzzle any
but a physician even to conjecture.
There was infinitely more sense in the table kept by an abbot of the
compound Christian and Pagan title and name of St. Plato. He never ate
anything but what had been raised or procured by the labour of his own
hands; he was consequently never in debt with respect to his household
expenses, and if all men so far followed the example of St. Plato, who
was a better practical philosopher than his heathen namesake, what
a happy world we should make of it! There would be fewer Christmas
bills, and many more joyous dinners, not only at Christmas, but all
the year round!
St. Plato deserves our respect; he would not live on alms. He was more
useful in his generation than the men who, like St. Aphraates, were
content to exist on the eleemosynary contributions of the faithful, or
than those who, like Zozimus and his followers, wandered through the
desert, trusting to chance and calling it providence. What, compared
with our friend Plato, was that St. Droun, the so-called patron of
shepherds, who during forty years taught them nothing, and lived on the
barley-bread which they brought him in return for his instruction.
I have given one or two instances of the spare tables kept by a
few of our ancient bishops; I may here add to them the name of St.
Elphege, some time Bishop of Winchester, and subsequently Archbishop
of Canterbury. The smell of roast meat was never known in his palace
on any but “extraordinary occasions.” This, however, is a very
indefinite term, and the table of this primate may have been one to
make a cardinal give unctuous thanks for rich mercies, five days out
of the seven. There was certainly gastronomic work to do in some of
the ancient godly households, or St. James of Sclavonia would not
have passed so many years in one, as he did, in the capacity of cook,
“improving” the occasion, by drawing ideas of hell from his own fires,
which were for ever roasting savoury joints, like those which strike
the visitors with awe and appetite in the kitchens at Maynooth.
If in some houses there were busy kitchens, in others there were soft
couches, whereon digestion might progress. Thus Adalbert, Bishop of
Prague, was a Saint and Martyr; and it is said, that he had a most
comfortable bed in his dormitory, but that he never slept upon it!
Then, what was the bed for? It is added, that he fasted in private,
with great severity,--but it is no more “of faith” to believe this,
than it is that he slept every night on the floor, under, and not upon,
his own excellent feather-bed; for what says the old refrain?--
“A notre coucher
Un lit, des draps blancs,
Une ----
digue daine, bon!
Voila la vie que ces moines font!”
But he may have been a profane fellow who wrote these rude rhymes; and
we will no more implicitly trust him, than we will the prose historians
of the doings and dealings of the saintly men.
It is not an unusual thing to find wine-bibbers mentioned among the
members of holy communities; where wine was generally supposed to be a
luxury never employed but for the service of the altar,--and perhaps of
the sick. The venerable Bede tells a story of a “brother,” whom he had
known, and whom he wishes to God he had never known, and who was given
to worship the spigot. Bede does not give his name, but certifies that
the too jolly friar lived ignobly in a noble monastery, where he was
often reproved for his acts of drunkenness, and only tolerated because
of his gifts,--not spiritual, but as a carpenter. He was a terrible
tippler, but a hard workman to boot, and would, at any time, rather
labour all day and all night at his bench than join the brethren in
chapel. Indeed, when he did go, his thoughts were running on something
else. He was like the profane Yorkshire farmer, who praised the
institution of the Sabbath because it not only brought roast beef with
it as a sacred observance, but it authorized him to attend in his pew
at church, where, said he, “I puts up my legs and thinks o’ nothing!”
Bede’s carpenter was characteristically punished for his bibbing; and
the story was made much of, by way of monition to others. It was to
this effect:--“He, falling sick, and being reduced to extremity, called
the brethren, and with much lamentation, and like one damned, began to
tell them that he saw hell open, and Satan at the bottom thereof, and
also Caiaphas, with the others that slew our Lord, by him delivered up
to avenging flames. ‘In whose neighbourhood,’ said he, ‘I see a place
of eternal perdition prepared for me, miserable wretch that I am!’
The brothers, hearing these words, began seriously to exhort him that
he should repent even then, while he was in the flesh. He answered in
despair,--‘I have no time now to change my course of life, when I have
myself seen my judgment passed.’ When he had uttered these words, he
died, without having received the saving _viaticum_; and his body was
buried in the remotest part of the monastery; nor did any one dare
to say masses, sing psalms, or even to pray for him.” Which seems a
very hard case; for if any one needed such service it was he; and the
Church’s ability to extricate him could not be denied, when she was
duly pre-paid for the service.