Produced by David Starner, Sam W. and the Online Distributed
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Transcriber's Note
The original text used a Prescription Take symbol (upper case R with a
line through the leg) to indicate recipe numbers. It is shown as {Rx}
in this version of the etext.
Some letters have a macron (straight line) above them; these are
indicated as {=x}, with x being the particular letter.
The book uses both upper and lower case oe ligatures. These are shown
as {OE} and {oe} respectively.
The many inconsistencies in hyphenation and use of accents and
ligatures have been preserved as printed, with a few exceptions.
Variable and archaic spelling has also been preserved. A full
list of amendments and other notes follow the end of the book.
A considerable number of the recipe and page numbers in the
index are incorrect; however, they have been preserved as
printed.
APICIUS
COOKERY AND DINING IN IMPERIAL ROME
A Bibliography, Critical Review and Translation of the
Ancient Book known as _Apicius de re Coquinaria_
NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME RENDERED INTO ENGLISH
BY
JOSEPH DOMMERS VEHLING
_With a Dictionary of Technical Terms, Many Notes,
Facsimiles of Originals, and Views and Sketches of
Ancient Culinary Objects Made by the Author_
INTRODUCTION BY PROF. FREDERICK STARR
_Formerly of the University of Chicago_
{Transcription:
APICII LIBRI X
QVI DICVNTVR DE OBSONIIS
ET CONDIMENTIS SIUE ARTE
COQVINARIA QVÆ EXTANT
NVNC PRIMVM ANGLICE REDDIVIT PRO{OE}MIO
BIBLIOGRAPHICO ATQVE INTERPRETATIONE
DEFENSIT UARIISQVE ANNOTATIONIBVS
INSTRVXIT ITA ET ANTIQVÆ CVLINÆ
VTENSILIARVM EFFIGIIS EXORNAUIT
INDICEM DENIQVE ETYMOLOGICVM ET
TECHNICVM ARTIS MAGIRICÆ ADIECIT
IOSEPHVS DOMMERS UEHLING
INTRODVCIT FRIDERICVS STARR
{Illustration}}
SUBSCRIBERS
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TO
ARNOLD SHIRCLIFFE
STEWARD, GASTRONOMER, AUTHOR AND BIBLIOPHILE
AS THE ACTORS SHAKESPEARE AND MOLIÈRE CREATED
THE BEST DRAMA, SO THE BEST IN GASTRONOMIC
LITERATURE EMANATED FROM WITHIN THE RANKS
THE AUTHOR
{Illustration: SYMPOSION. FROM AN ANCIENT VASE}
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION xi
PREFACE xvii
THE BOOK OF APICIUS
A critical review of its times, its authors,
and their sources, its authenticity and
practical usefulness in modern times 1
THE RECIPES OF APICIUS AND THE EXCERPTS FROM
APICIUS BY VINIDARIUS
Original translation from the most reliable
Latin texts, elucidated with notes and comments 41
APICIANA
A bibliography of Apician manuscript books and
printed editions 251
DICTIONARY OF CULINARY TERMS AND INDEX 275
ILLUSTRATIONS
A--FACSIMILES
Made from originals and reproductions in the author's collection
PAGE
1 BREVIS PIMENTORUM, Excerpts of Vinidarius, 8th Century 234
2 INCIPIT CONDITUM PARADOXUM, Vatican MS, 9th Century 253
3 COLOPHON, Signerre Edition, Milan, 1498 260
4 TITLE PAGE, Tacuinus Edition, Venice, 1503 262
5 OPENING CHAPTER, same 232
6 TITLE PAGE, Schola Apitiana, Antwerp, 1535 206
7 TITLE PAGE, Torinus Edition, Basel, 1541 220
8 TITLE PAGE, Torinus Edition, Lyons, 1541 263
9 TITLE PAGE, Humelbergius Edition, Zürich, 1542 265
10 TITLE PAGE, Lister Edition, London, 1705 267
11 VERSO of Title Page, Lister Edition, London, 1705 268
12 TITLE PAGE, Lister Edition, Amsterdam, 1709 250
13 FRONTISPICE, Lister Edition, Amsterdam, 1709 156
14 BANQUET SCENE, from an ancient vase (opposite)
B--PEN AND INK DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR
Sketched from scenes and objects at Pompeii, Naples, Berlin and
Chicago. Most of the ancient objects are in the National Museum of
Naples with many replicas in the Field Museum, Chicago. The treasure
found in 1868 near Hildesheim is in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in
Berlin
PAGE
15 APICII LIBRI X, Latin title of present edition,
hand-lettered (facing title)
16 DIAGRAM of Apicius manuscripts and printed editions 252
17 GREAT CRATER, Hildesheim Treasure 140
18 THERMOSPODIUM, plain, Naples 90
19 THERMOSPODIUM, elaborate, Naples 72
20 DESSERT or Fruit Dish, Shell, Naples 125
21 DESSERT or Fruit Bowl, fluted 61
22 TABLE, square, adjustable, Naples 138
23 TABLE, round, Naples 122
24 PAN, Frying, round, Naples 155
25 PAN, Frying, oval, Naples 159
26 PAN, Service Saucepan, with decorated handle, Hildesheim 73
27 SERVICE DISH, oval, with two handles, Hildesheim Treasure 43
28 PAN, Saucepan, with handle, Hercules motif, Naples 222
29 PLATTER for Roast, Hildesheim Treasure 219
30 PLATTER, The Great Pallas Athene Dish, Hildesheim 158
31 TRIPOD for Crater, Hildesheim Treasure 40
32 EGG SERVICE DISH, Hildesheim Treasure 93
33 WINE DIPPER, Naples 3
34 DIONYSOS CUP, Hildesheim Treasure 141
35 CANTHARUS, Theatrical Decoration, Hildesheim Treasure 231
36 CANTHARUS, Bacchic Decoration, Hildesheim Treasure 274
37 COLANDER, Naples 58
38 WINE PITCHER, Diana handle, Naples 208
39 WINE PRESS, Reconstruction in Naples 92
40 GONG for Slaves, Naples 42
41 WINE STOCK ROOM, Pompeii 124
42 CASA DI FORNO, Pompeii 2
43 SLAVES operating hand mill, reconstruction in Naples 60
44 STEW POT, No. 1, Caccabus, Naples 183
45 STEW POT, No. 2, Caccabus, Naples 209
46 STEW POT, No. 3, Caccabus, Naples 223
47 STEW POT, No. 4, Caccabus, Naples 235
48 CRATICULA, combination broiler and stove, Naples 182
49 "LIBRO COMPLETO" (End of Book)
EXPLANATION OF TYPESETTING, ABBREVIATIONS, AND SYSTEM OF NUMBERING
TEXT AND HEADINGS
The original ancient text as presented and rendered in the present
translation is printed in capital letters.
Matter in parenthesis () is original. Matter in square brackets [] is
contributed by the translator.
In most of the early originals the headings or titles of the formulæ
are invariably part of the text. In the present translation they are
given both in English and in the Latin used by those originals which
the translator considered most characteristic titles.
They have been set in prominent type as titles over each formula,
whereas in the originals the formulæ of the various chapters run
together, in many instances without distinct separation.
NUMBERING OF RECIPES
A system of numbering the recipes has therefore been adopted by the
translator, following the example of Schuch, which does not exist in
the other originals but the numbers in the present translation do not
correspond to those adopted by Schuch for reasons which hereafter
become evident.
NOTES AND COMMENTS BY THE TRANSLATOR
The notes, comments and variants added to each recipe by the
translator are printed in upper and lower case and in the same type as
the other contributions by the translator, the Apiciana, the Critical
Review and the Vocabulary and Index.
For the sake of convenience, to facilitate the study of each recipe
and for quick reference the notes follow in each and every case such
ancient recipe as they have reference to.
ABBREVIATIONS
NY--The New York Codex (formerly Cheltenham), Apiciana, I
Vat.--The Vatican Codex, Apiciana, II.
Vin.--The Codex Salmasianus, Excerpta a Vinidario, Apiciana, III.
B. de V.--Edition by Bernardinus, Venice, n.d., Apiciana, No. 1.
Lan.--Edition by Lancilotus, Milan, 1498, Apiciana, Nos. 2-3.
Tac.--Edition by Tacuinus, Venice, 1503, Apiciana, No. 4.
Tor.--Edition by Torinus, Basel (and Lyons), 1541, Apiciana,
Nos. 5-6.
Hum.--Edition by Humelbergius, Zürich, 1542, Apiciana, No. 7.
List.--Edition by Lister, London, 1705, Amst., 1709, Apiciana,
Nos. 8-9.
Bern.--Edition by Bernhold, Marktbreit, etc., Apiciana,
Nos. 10-11.
Bas.--Edition by Baseggio, Venice, 1852, Apiciana, No. 13.
Sch.--Edition by Schuch, Heidelberg, 1867/74, Apiciana,
Nos. 14-15.
Goll.--Edition by Gollmer, Leipzig, 1909, Apiciana, No. 16.
Dann.--Edition by Danneil, Leipzig, 1911, Apiciana, No. 17.
G.-V.--Edition by Giarratano-Vollmer, Leip. 1922, Apiciana,
No. 19.
V.--The present translation.
Giarr.--Giarratano; Voll.--F. Vollmer; Bran.--Edward Brandt.
INTRODUCTION
BY
FREDERICK STARR
_Formerly Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago_
No translation of Apicius into English has yet been published. The
book has been printed again and again in Latin and has been translated
into Italian and German. It is unnecessary to here give historic
details regarding the work as Mr. Vehling goes fully and admirably
into the subject. In 1705 the book was printed in Latin at London,
with notes by Dr. Martinus Lister. It caused some stir in the England
of that time. In a very curious book, The Art of Cookery, in Imitation
of Horace's Art of Poetry, with Some Letters to Dr. Lister and Others,
Dr. Wm. King says:
"The other curiosity is the admirable piece of C{oe}lius
Apicius, '_De Opsoniis et condimentis sive arte
coquinaria, Libri decem_' being ten books of soups and
sauces, and the art of cookery, as it is excellently
printed for the doctor, who in this important affair, is
not sufficiently communicative....
"I some days ago met with an old acquaintance, of whom I
inquired if he has seen the book concerning soups and
sauces? He told me he had, but that he had but a very
slight view of it, the person who was master of it not
being willing to part with so valuable a rarity out of
his closet. I desired him to give me some account of it.
He says that it is a very handsome octavo, for, ever
since the days of Ogilvy, good paper and good print, and
fine cuts, make a book become ingenious and brighten up
an author strangely. That there is a copious index; and
at the end a catalogue of all the doctor's works,
concerning cockles, English beetles, snails, spiders,
that get up into the air and throw us down cobwebs; a
monster vomited up by a baker and such like; which if
carefully perused, would wonderfully improve us."
More than two hundred years have passed and we now have an edition of
this curious work in English. And our edition has nothing to lose by
comparison with the old one. For this, too, is a handsome book, with
good paper and good print and fine cuts. And the man who produces it
can equally bear comparison with Dr. Lister and more earlier
commentators and editors whom he quotes--Humelbergius and Caspar
Barthius.
The preparation of such a book is no simple task and requires a rare
combination of qualities. Mr. Vehling possesses this unusual
combination. He was born some forty-five years ago in the small town
of Duelken on the German-Dutch frontier--a town proverbial for the
dullness of its inhabitants. There was nothing of dullness about the
boy, however, for at the age of fourteen years, he had already four
years study of Latin and one of Greek to his credit. Such was his
record in Latin that his priest teachers attempted to influence him
toward the priesthood. His family, however, had other plans and
believing that he had enough schooling, decided that he should be a
cook. As he enjoyed good food, had a taste for travel and
independence, and was inclined to submit to family direction, he
rather willingly entered upon the career planned for him. He learned
the business thoroughly and for six years practiced his art in
Germany, Belgium, France, England and Scandinavia. Wherever he went,
he gave his hours of freedom to reading and study in libraries and
museums.
During his first trip through Italy and on a visit to Pompeii he
conceived the idea of depicting some day the table of the Romans and
of making the present translation. He commenced to gather all the
necessary material for this work, which included intensive studies of
the ancient arts and languages. Meanwhile, he continued his hotel work
also, quite successfully. At the age of twenty-four he was assistant
manager of the fashionable Hotel Bristol, Vienna.
However, the necessities of existence prevented his giving that time
and study to art, which is necessary if it was to become a real
career. In Vienna he found music, drama, languages, history,
literature and gastronomy, and met interesting people from all parts
of the globe. While the years at Vienna were the happiest of his life,
he had a distaste for the "superheated, aristocratic and military
atmosphere." It was at that city that he met the man who was
responsible for his coming to America. Were we writing Mr. Vehling's
biography, we would have ample material for a racy and startling
narrative. We desire only to indicate the remarkable preparation for
the work before us, which he has had. A Latin scholar of exceptional
promise, a professional cook of pronounced success, and an artist
competent to illustrate his own work! Could such a combination be
anticipated? It is the combination that has made this book possible.
The book has claims even upon our busy and practical generation. Mr.
Vehling has himself stated them:
"The important addition to our knowledge of the
ancients--for our popular notions about their table are
entirely erroneous and are in need of revision.
"The practical value of many of the ancient formulæ--for
'In Olde Things There is Newnesse.'
"The human interest--because of the amazing mentality
and the culinary ingenuity of the ancients revealed to
us from an altogether new angle.
"The curious novelty and the linguistic difficulty, the
philological interest and the unique nature of the task,
requiring unique prerequisites--all these factors
prompted us to undertake this translation."
One word as to Mr. Vehling's work in America. He was for five years
manager of catering at the Hotel Pfister in Milwaukee; for two and a
half years he was inspector and instructor of the Canadian Pacific
Railway; he was connected with some of the leading hotels in New York
City, and with the Eppley and the Van Orman Hotels chains, in
executive capacity. He not only has the practical side of food use and
preparation, he is an authority upon the science in his field. His
printed articles on food and cookery have been read with extraordinary
interest, and his lectures upon culinary matters have been well
received. It is to be hoped that both will eventually be published in
book form.
There is no financial lure in getting out an English translation of
Apicius. It is a labor of love--but worth the doing. We have claimed
that Mr. Vehling has exceptional fitness for the task. This will be
evident to anyone who reads his book. An interesting feature of his
preparation is the fact that Mr. Vehling has subjected many of the
formulæ to actual test. As Dr. Lister in the old edition of 1705
increased the value and interest of the work by making additions from
various sources, so our editor of today adds much and interesting
matter in his supplements, notes and illustrations.
It is hardly expected that many will follow Mr. Vehling in testing the
Apician formulæ. Hazlitt in speaking of "The Young Cook's Monitor"
which was printed in 1683, says:
"Some of the ingredients proposed for sauces seem to our
ears rather prodigious. In one place a contemporary
peruser has inserted an ironical calculation in MS. to
the effect that, whereas a cod's head could be bought
for fourpence, the condiments recommended for it were
not to be had for less than nine shillings."
We shall close with a plagiarism oft repeated. It was a plagiarism as
long ago as 1736, when it was admitted such in the preface of Smith's
"The Compleat Housewife":
"It being grown as fashionable for a book now to appear
in public without a preface, as for a lady to appear at
a ball without a hoop-petticoat, I shall conform to the
custom for fashion-sake and not through any necessity.
The subject being both common and universal, needs no
argument to introduce it, and being so necessary for the
gratification of the appetite, stands in need of no
encomiums to allure persons to the practice of it; since
there are but a few nowadays who love not good eating
and drinking...."
Old Apicius and Joseph Dommers Vehling really need no introduction.
FREDERICK STARR
Seattle, Washington, August 3, 1926.
PREFACE
The present first translation into English of the ancient cookery book
dating back to Imperial Roman times known as the Apicius book is
herewith presented to antiquarians, friends of the Antique as well as
to gastronomers, friends of good cheer.
Three of the most ancient manuscript books that exist today bearing
the name of Apicius date back to the eighth and ninth century. Ever
since the invention of printing Apicius has been edited chiefly in the
Latin language. Details of the manuscript books and printed editions
will be found under the heading of Apiciana on the following pages.
The present version has been based chiefly upon three principal Latin
editions, that of Albanus Torinus, 1541, who had for his authority a
codex he found on the island of Megalona, on the editions of Martinus
Lister, 1705-9, who based his work upon that of Humelbergius, 1542,
and the Giarratano-Vollmer edition, 1922.
We have also scrutinized various other editions forming part of our
collection of Apiciana, and as shown by our "family tree of Apicius"
have drawn either directly or indirectly upon every known source for
our information.
The reasons and raison d'être for this undertaking become sufficiently
clear through Dr. Starr's introduction and through the following
critical review.
It has been often said that the way to a man's heart is through his
stomach; so here is hoping that we may find a better way of knowing
old Rome and antique private life through the study of this cookery
book--Europe's oldest and Rome's only one in existence today.
J. D. V.
Chicago, in the Spring of 1926.
THANKS
For many helpful hints, for access to works in their libraries and for
their kind and sympathetic interest in this work I am especially
grateful to Professor Dr. Edward Brandt, of Munich; to Professor Dr.
Margaret Barclay Wilson, of Washington, D.C., and New York City; to
Mr. Arnold Shircliffe, and Mr. Walter M. Hill, both of Chicago.
J. D. V.
Chicago, in the Summer of 1936.
THE BOOK OF APICIUS
{Illustration: POMPEII: CASA DI FORNO--HOUSE OF THE OVEN
Ancient bakery and flour mill of the year A.D. 79. Four grain grinders
to the right. The method of operating these mills is shown in the
sketch of the slaves operating a hand-mill. These mills were larger
and were driven by donkeys attached to beams stuck in the square
holes. The bake house is to the left, with running water to the right
of the entrance to the oven. The oven itself was constructed
ingeniously with a view of saving fuel and greatest efficiency.}
{Illustration: WINE DIPPER
Found in Pompeii. Each end of the long handle takes the form of a
bird's head. The one close to the bowl holds in its bill a stout wire
which is loosely fastened around the neck of the bowl, the two ends
being interlocked. This allows the bowl to tilt sufficiently to hold
its full contents when retired from the narrow opening of the amphora.
The ancients also had dippers with extension handles to reach down to
the bottom of the deep amphora. Ntl. Mus., Naples, 73822; Field M.
24181.}
THE BOOK OF APICIUS
A STUDY OF ITS TIMES, ITS AUTHORS AND THEIR SOURCES, ITS AUTHENTICITY
AND ITS PRACTICAL USEFULNESS IN MODERN TIMES
Anyone who would know something worth while about the private and
public lives of the ancients should be well acquainted with their
table. Then as now the oft quoted maxim stands that man is what he
eats.
Much of the ancient life is still shrouded and will forever be hidden
by envious forces that have covered up bygone glory and grandeur.
Ground into mealy dust under the hoofs of barbarian armies!
Re-modeled, re-used a hundred times! Discarded as of no value by
clumsy hands! The "Crime of Ignorance" is a factor in league with the
forces of destruction. Much is destroyed by blind strokes of
fate--fate, eternally pounding this earth in its everlasting enigmatic
efforts to shape life into something, the purpose of which we do not
understand, the meaning of which we may not even venture to dream of
or hope to know.
Whatever there has been preserved by "Providence," by freaks of chance,
by virtue of its own inherent strength--whatever has been buried by
misers, fondled, treasured by loving hands of collectors and
connoisseurs during all these centuries--every speck of ancient dust,
every scrap of parchment or papyrus, a corroded piece of metal, a
broken piece of stone or glass, so eagerly sought by the archaeologists
and historians of the last few generations--all these fragmentary
messages from out of the past emphasize the greatness of their time.
They show its modernity, its nearness to our own days. They are now
hazy reminiscences, as it were, by a middle-aged man of the hopes and
the joys of his own youth. These furtive fragments--whatever they
are--now tell us a story so full and so rich, they wield so marvelous a
power, no man laying claim to possessing any intelligence may pass them
without intensely feeling the eternal pathetic appeal to our hearts of
these bygone ages that hold us down in an envious manner, begrudging us
the warm life-blood of the present, weaving invisible ties around us to
make our hearts heavy.
However, we are not here to be impeded by any sentimental
considerations. Thinking of the past, we are not so much concerned
with the picture that dead men have placed in our path like ever so
many bill boards and posters! We do not care for their "ideals"
expounded in contemporary histories and eulogies. We are hardly moved
by the "facts" such as they would have loved to see them happen, nor do
we cherish the figments of their human, very human, subconsciousness.
To gain a correct picture of the Roman table we will therefore set
aside for a while the fragments culled from ancient literature and
history that have been misused so indiscriminately and so profusely
during the last two thousand years--for various reasons. They have
become fixed ideas, making reconstruction difficult for anyone who
would gain a picture along rational lines. Barring two exceptions,
there is no trustworthy detailed description of the ancient table by
an objective contemporary observer. To be sure, there are some
sporadic efforts, mere reiterations. The majority of the ancient word
pictures are distorted views on our subject by partisan writers,
contemporary moralists on the one side, satirists on the other.
Neither of them, we venture to say, knew the subject professionally.
They were not specialists in the sense of modern writers like
Reynière, Rumohr, Vaerst; nor did they approach in technical knowledge
medieval writers like Martino, Platina, Torinus.
True there were exceptions. Athenaeus, a most prolific and voluble
magiric commentator, quoting many writers and specialists whose names
but for him would have never reached posterity. Athenaeus tells about
these gastronomers, the greatest of them, Archestratos, men who might
have contributed so much to our knowledge of the ancient world, but to
us these names remain silent, for the works of these men have perished
with the rest of the great library at the disposal of this genial host
of Alexandria.
Too, there are Anacharsis and Petronius. They and Athenaeus cannot be
overlooked. These three form the bulk of our evidence.
Take on the other hand Plutarch, Seneca, Tertullian, even Pliny,
writers who have chiefly contributed to our defective knowledge of the
ancient table. They were no gourmets. They were biased, unreliable at
best, as regards culinary matters. They deserve our attention merely
because they are above the ever present mob of antique reformers and
politicians of whom there was legion in Rome alone, under the pagan
régime. Their state of mind and their intolerance towards civilized
dining did not improve with the advent of Christianity.
The moralists' testimony is substantiated and supplemented rather than
refuted by their very antipodes, the satirists, a group headed by
Martial, Juvenal and the incomparable Petronius, who really is in a
class by himself.
There is one more man worthy of mention in our particular study,
Horace, a true poet, the most objective of all writers,
man-about-town, pet of society, mundane genius, gifted to look calmly
into the innermost heart of his time. His eyes fastened a correct
picture on the sensitive diaphragm of a good memory, leaving an
impression neither distorted nor "out of focus." His eye did not "pick
up," for sundry reasons, the defects of the objects of observation,
nor did it work with the uncanny joy of subconscious exaggeration met
with so frequently in modern writing, nor did he indulge in that
predilection for ugly detail sported by modern art.
So much for Horatius, poet. Still, he was not a specialist in our
line. We cannot enroll him among the gifted gourmets no matter how
many meals he enjoyed at the houses of his society friends. We are
rather inclined to place him among the host of writers, ancient and
modern, who have treated the subject of food with a sort of sovereign
contempt, or at least with indifference, because its study presented
unsurmountable difficulties, and the subject, _per se_, was a menial
one. With this attitude of our potential chief witnesses defined, we
have no occasion to further appeal to them here, and we might proceed
to real business, to the sifting of the trustworthy material at hand.
It is really a relief to know that we have no array of formidable
authorities to be considered in our study. We have virgin field before
us--i.e., the ruins of ancient greatness grown over by a jungle of two
thousand years of hostile posterity.
POMPEII
Pompeii was destroyed in A.D. 79. From its ruins we have obtained in
the last half century more information about the intimate domestic and
public life of the ancients than from any other single source. What is
more important, this vast wealth of information is first hand,
unspoiled, undiluted, unabridged, unbiased, uncensored;--in short,
untouched by meddlesome human hands.
Though only a provincial town, Pompeii was a prosperous mercantile
place, a representative market-place, a favorite resort for fashionable
people. The town had hardly recuperated from a preliminary attack by
that treacherous mountain, Vesuvius, when a second onslaught succeeded
in complete destruction. Suddenly, without warning, this lumbering
_force majeur_ visited the ill-fated towns in its vicinity with
merciless annihilation. The population, just then enjoying the games in
the amphitheatre outside of the "downtown" district, had had hardly
time to save their belongings. They escaped with their bare lives. Only
the aged, the infirm, the prisoners and some faithful dogs were left
behind. Today their bodies in plaster casts may be seen, mute witnesses
to a frightful disaster. The town was covered with an airtight blanket
of ashes, lava and fine pumice stone. There was no prolonged death
struggle, no perceivable decay extended over centuries as was the cruel
lot of Pompeii's mistress, Rome. There were no agonies to speak of. The
great event was consummated within a few hours. The peace of death
settled down to reign supreme after the dust had been driven away by
the gentle breezes coming in from the bay of Naples. Some courageous
citizens returned, searching in the hot ashes for the crashed-in roofs
of their villas, to recover this or that. Perhaps they hoped to salvage
the strong box in the atrium, or a heirloom from the triclinium. But
soon they gave up. Despairing, or hoping for better days to come, they
vanished in the mist of time. Pompeii, the fair, the hospitable, the
gay city, just like any individual out of luck, was and stayed
forgotten. The Pompeians, their joys, sorrows, their work and play,
their virtues and vices--everything was arrested with one single
stroke, stopped, even as a camera clicks, taking a snapshot.
The city's destruction, it appears, was a formidable opening blow
dealt the Roman empire in the prime of its life, in a war of
extermination waged by hostile invisible forces. Pompeii makes one
believe in "Providence." A great disaster actually moulding, casting a
perfect image of the time for future generations! To be exact, it took
these generations eighteen centuries to discover and to appreciate the
heritage that was theirs, buried at the foot of Vesuvius. During these
long dark and dusky centuries charming goat herds had rested unctuous
shocks of hair upon mysterious columns that, like young giant
asparagus, stuck their magnificent heads out of the ground. Blinking
drowsily at yonder villainous mountain, the summit of which is
eternally crowned with a halo of thin white smoke, such as we are
accustomed to see arising from the stacks of chemical factories, the
confident shepherd would lazily implore his patron saint to enjoin
that unreliable devilish force within lest the _dolce far niente_ of
the afternoon be disturbed, for siestas are among the most important
functions in the life of that region. Occasionally the more
enterprising would arm themselves with pick-axe and shovel, made bold
by whispered stories of fabulous wealth, and, defying the evil spirits
protecting it, they would set out on an expedition of loot and
desecration of the tomb of ancient splendor.
Only about a century and a half ago the archaeological conscience
awoke. Only seventy-five years ago energetic moves made possible a
fruitful pilgrimage to this shrine of humanity, while today not more
than two-thirds but perhaps the most important parts of the city have
been opened to our astonished eyes by men who know.
And now: we may see that loaf of bread baked nineteen centuries ago,
as found in the bake shop. We may inspect the ingenious bake oven
where it was baked. We may see the mills that ground the flour for the
bread, and, indeed find unground wheat kernels. We see the oil still
preserved in the jugs, the residue of wine still in the amphorae, the
figs preserved in jars, the lentils, the barley, the spices in the
cupboard; everything awaits our pleasure: the taverns with their
"bars"; the ancient guests' opinion of Mine Host scribbled on the
wall, the kitchens with their implements, the boudoirs of milady's
with the cosmetics and perfumes in the compacts. There are the
advertisements on the walls, the foods praised with all the _eclat_ of
modern advertising, the election notices, the love missives, the bank
deposits, the theatre tickets, law records, bills of sale.
Phantom-like yet real there are the good citizens of a good town,
parading, hustling, loafing--sturdy patricians, wretched plebeians,
stern centurios, boastful soldiers, scheming politicians, crafty
law-clerks, timid scribes, chattering barbers, bullying gladiators,
haughty actors, dusty travelers, making for Albinus', the famous host
at the _Via della Abbondanza_ or, would he give preference to Sarinus,
the son of Publius, who advertised so cleverly? Or, perhaps, could he
afford to stop at the "Fortunata" Hotel, centrally located?
There are, too, the boorish hayseeds from out of town trying to sell
their produce, unaccustomed to the fashionable Latin-Greek speech of
the city folks, gaping with their mouths wide open, greedily at the
steaks of sacrificial meat displayed behind enlarging glasses in the
cheap cook shop windows. There they giggle and chuckle, those wily
landlords with their blasé habitués and their underlings, the greasy
cooks, the roguish "good mixers" at the bar and the winsome if
resolute _copæ_--waitresses--all ready to go, to do business. So
slippery are the cooks that Plautus calls one _Congrio_--sea eel--so
black that another deserves the title _Anthrax_--coal.
There they are, one and all, the characters necessary to make up what
we call civilization, chattering agitatedly in a lingo of
Latin-Greek-Oscan--as if life were a continuous market day.
It takes no particular scholarship, only a little imagination and
human sympathy to see and to hear the ghosts of Pompeii.
There is no pose about this town, no _mise-en-scène_, no
stage-setting. No heroic gesture. No theatricals, in short, no lies.
There is to be found no shred of that vainglorious cloak which humans
will deftly drape about their shoulders whenever they happen to be
aware of the camera. There is no "registering" of any kind here.
Pompeii's natural and pleasant disposition, therefore, is ever so much
more in evidence. Not a single one of this charming city's movements
was intended for posterity. Her life stands before our eyes in clear
reality, in naked, unadorned truth. Indeed, there were many things
that the good folks would have loved to point to with pride. You have
to search for these now. There are, alas and alack, a few things they
would have hidden, had they only known what was in store for them. But
all these things, good, indifferent and bad, remained in their places;
and here they are, unsuspecting, real, natural, charming like Diana
and her wood nymphs.
Were it not quite superfluous, we would urgently recommend the study
of Pompeii to the students of life in general and to those of
Antiquity in particular. Those who would know something about the
ancient table cannot do without Pompeii.
THREE ANCIENT WRITERS: ANACHARSIS, APICIUS, PETRONIUS
To those who lay stress upon documentary evidence or literary
testimony, to those trusting implicitly in the honesty and reliability
of writers of fiction, we would recommend Petronius Arbiter.
His _cena Trimalchionis_, Trimalchio's dinner, is the sole surviving
piece from the pen of a Roman contemporary, giving detailed
information on our subject. It is, too, the work of a great writer
moving in the best circles, and, therefore, so much more desirable as
an expert. Petronius deserves to be quoted in full but his work is too
well-known, and our space too short. However, right here we wish to
warn the student to bear in mind in perusing Petronius that this
writer, in his _cena_, is not depicting a meal but that he is
satirizing a man--that makes all the difference in the world as far
as we are concerned. Petronius' _cena_ is plainly an exaggeration, but
even from its distorted contours the student may recognize the true
lines of an ancient meal.
There is, not so well-known a beautiful picture of an Athenian dinner
party which must not be overlooked, for it contains a wealth of
information. Although Greek, we learn from it much of the Roman
conditions. Anacharsis' description of a banquet at Athens, dating
back to the fourth century B.C. about the time when the Periclean
régime flourished, is worth your perusal. A particularly good version
of this tale is rendered by Baron Vaerst in his book "Gastrosophie,"
Leipzig, 1854, who has based his version on the original translation
from the Greek, entitled, _Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce vers le
milieu du quatrième siècle avant l'ère vulgaire par J. J. Barthélemy_,
Paris, 1824. Vaerst has amplified the excerpts from the young
traveler's observations by quotations from other ancient Greek writers
upon the subject, thus giving us a most beautiful and authentic ideal
description of Greek table manners and habits when Athens had reached
the height in culture, refinement and political greatness.
Anacharsis was not a Hellene but a Scythian visitor. By his own
admission he is no authority on Grecian cookery, but as a reporter he
excels.
This truly Hellenic discussion of the art of eating and living at the
table of the cultured Athenians is the most profound discourse we know
of, ancient or modern, on eating. The wisdom revealed in this tale is
lasting, and, like Greek marble, consummate in external beauty and
inner worth.
We thus possess the testimony of two contemporary writers which
together with the book of Apicius and with what we learn from
Athenaeus should give a fair picture of ancient eating and cookery.
Apicius is our most substantial witness.
Unfortunately, this source has not been spared by meddlesome men, and
it has not reached us in its pristine condition. As a matter of fact,
Apicius has been badly mauled throughout the centuries. This book has
always attracted attention, never has it met with indifference. In the
middle ages it became the object of intensive study, interpretation,
controversy--in short it has attracted interest that has lasted into
modern times.
When, with the advent of the dark ages, it ceased to be a practical
cookery book, it became a treasure cherished by the few who preserved
the classical literature, and after the invention of printing it
became the object of curiosity, even mystery. Some interpreters waxed
enthusiastic over it, others who failed to understand it, condemned it
as hopeless and worthless.
The pages of our Apiciana plainly show the lasting interest in our
ancient book, particularly ever since its presence became a matter of
common knowledge during the first century of printing.
The Apicius book is the most ancient of European cookery books.
However, Platina's work, _de honesta uolvptate_, is the first cookery
book to appear in print. Platina, in 1474, was more up-to-date. His
book had a larger circulation. But its vogue stopped after a century
while Apicius marched on through centuries to come, tantalizing the
scholars, amusing the curious gourmets if not educated cooks to the
present day.
APICIUS, THE MAN
Who was Apicius? This is the surname of several renowned gastronomers
of old Rome. There are many references and anecdotes in ancient
literature to men bearing this name. Two Apicii have definitely been
accounted for. The older one, Marcus A. lived at the time of Sulla
about 100 B.C. The man we are most interested in, M. Gabius Apicius,
lived under Augustus and Tiberius, 80 B.C. to A.D. 40. However, both
these men had a reputation for their good table.
ATHENAEUS ON APICIUS
It is worth noting that the well-read Athenaeus, conversant with most
authors of Antiquity makes no mention of the Apicius book. This
collection of recipes, then, was not in general circulation during
Athenaei time (beginning of the third century of our era), that,
maybe, it was kept a secret by some Roman cooks. On the other hand it
is possible that the Apicius book did not exist during the time of
Athenaeus in the form handed down to us and that the monographs on
various departments of cookery (most of them of Greek origin, works of
which indeed Athenaeus speaks) were collected after the first quarter
of the third century and were adorned with the name of Apicius merely
because his fame as a gourmet had endured.
What Athenaeus knows about Apicius (one of three known famous eaters
bearing that name) is the following:
"About the time of Tiberius [42 B.C.-37 A.D.] there
lived a man, named Apicius; very rich and luxurious, for
whom several kinds of cheesecake called Apician, are
named [not found in our present A.]. He spent myriads of
drachmas on his belly, living chiefly at Minturnæ, a
city of Campania, eating very expensive crawfish, which
are found in that place superior in size to those of
Smyrna, or even to the crabs of Alexandria. Hearing,
too, that they were very large in Africa, he sailed
thither, without waiting a single day, and suffered
exceedingly on his voyage. But when he came near the
coast, before he disembarked (for his arrival made a
great stir among the Africans) the fishermen came
alongside in their boats and brought him some very fine
crawfish; and he, when he saw them, asked if they had
any finer; and when they said that there were none finer
than those which they had brought, he, recollecting
those at Minturnæ ordered the master of the ship to sail
back the same way into Italy, without going near the
land....
"When the emperor Trajan [A.D. 52 or 53-117] was in
Parthia [a country in Asia, part of Persia?] at a
distance of many days from the sea, Apicius sent him
fresh oysters, which he had kept so by a clever
contrivance of his own; real oysters...."
(The instructions given in our Apicius book, Recipe 14, for the
keeping of oysters would hardly guarantee their safe arrival on such
a journey as described above.)
Athenaeus tells us further that many of the Apician recipes were
famous and that many dishes were named after him. This confirms the
theory that Apicius was not the author of the present book but that
the book was dedicated to him by an unknown author or compiler.
Athenaeus also mentions one Apion who wrote a book on luxurious
living. Whether this man is identical with the author or patron of our
book is problematic. Torinus, in his _epistola dedicatoria_ to the
1541 edition expresses the same doubt.
Marcus Gabius (or Gavius) Apicius lived during Rome's most interesting
epoch, when the empire had reached its highest point, when the seeds
of decline, not yet apparent, were in the ground, when in the quiet
villages of that far-off province, Palestine, the Saviour's doctrines
fascinated humble audiences--teachings that later reaching the very
heart of the world's mistress were destined to tarnish the splendor of
that autocrat.
According to the mention by various writers, this man, M. Gabius
Apicius, was one of the many ancient gastronomers who took the subject
of food seriously. Assuming a scientific attitude towards eating and
food they were criticised for paying too much attention to their
table. This was considered a superfluous and indeed wicked luxury when
frugality was a virtue. These men who knew by intuition the importance
of knowing something about nutrition are only now being vindicated by
the findings of modern science.
M. Gabius Apicius, this most famous of the celebrated and much
maligned bon-vivants, quite naturally took great interest in the
preparation of food. He is said to have originated many dishes
himself; he collected much material on the subject and he endowed a
school for the teaching of cookery and for the promotion of culinary
ideas. This very statement by his critics places him high in our
esteem, as it shows him up as a scientist and educator. He spent his
vast fortune for food, as the stories go, and when he had only a
quarter million dollars left (a paltry sum today but a considerable
one in those days when gold was scarce and monetary standards in a
worse muddle than today) Apicius took his own life, fearing that he
might have to starve to death some day.
This story seems absurd on the face of it, yet Seneca and Martial tell
it (both with different tendencies) and Suidas, Albino and other
writers repeat it without critical analysis. These writers who are
unreliable in culinary matters anyway, claim that Apicius spent one
hundred million _sestertii_ on his appetite--_in gulam_. Finally when
the hour of accounting came he found that there were only ten million
_sestertii_ left, so he concluded that life was not worth living if
his gastronomic ideas could no longer be carried out in the accustomed
and approved style, and he took poison at a banquet especially
arranged for the occasion.
In the light of modern experience with psychology, with economics,
depressions, journalism, we focus on this and similar stories, and we
find them thoroughly unreliable. We cannot believe this one. It is too
melodramatic, too moralistic perhaps to suit our modern taste. The
underlying causes for the conduct, life and end of Apicius have not
been told. Of course, we have to accept the facts as reported. If only
a Petronius had written that story! What a story it might have been!
But there is only one Petronius in antiquity. His Trimalchio, former
slave, successful profiteer and food speculator, braggard and
drunkard, wife-beater--an upstart who arranged extravagant banquets
merely to show off, who, by the way, also arranged for his funeral at
his banquet (Apician fashion and, indeed, Petronian fashion! for
Petronius died in the same manner) and who peacefully "passed out"
soundly intoxicated--this man is a figure true to life as it was then,
as it is now and as it probably will continue to be. Last but not
least: Mrs. Trimalchio, the resolute lady who helped him "make his
pile"--these are human characters much more real, much more
trustworthy than anything and everything else ever depicted by any
ancient pen; they bring out so graphically the modernity of antiquity.
Without Petronius and Pompeii the antique world would forever remain
at an inexplicably remote distance to our modern conception of life.
With him, and with the dead city, the riddles of antiquity are cleared
up.
THE BOOK
Many dishes listed in Apicius are named for various celebrities who
flourished at a later date than the second Apicius. It is noteworthy,
however, that neither such close contemporaries as Heliogabalus and
Nero, notorious gluttons, nor Petronius, the arbiter of fashion of the
period, are among the persons thus honored. Vitellius, a later
glutton, is well represented in the book. It is fair to assume, then,
that the author or collector of our present Apicius lived long after
the second Apicius, or, at least, that the book was augmented by
persons posterior to M. Gabius A. The book in its present state was
probably completed about the latter part of the third century. It is
almost certain that many recipes were added to a much earlier edition.
PROBABLY OF GREEK PARENTAGE
We may as well add another to the many speculations by saying that it
is quite probable for our book to originate in a number of Greek
manuals or monographs on specialized subjects or departments of
cookery. Such special treatises are mentioned by Athenaeus (cf.
Humelbergius, quoted by Lister). The titles of each chapter (or book)
are in Greek, the text is full of Greek terminology. While
classification under the respective titles is not strictly adhered to
at all times, it is significant that certain subjects, that of fish
cookery, for instance, appear twice in the book, the same subject
showing treatment by widely different hands. Still more significant is
the absence in our book of such important departments as
desserts--_dulcia_--confections in which the ancients were experts.
Bakery, too, even the plainest kind, is conspicuously absent in the
Apician books. The latter two trades being particularly well
developed, were departmentalized to an astonishing degree in ancient
Greece and Rome. These indispensable books are simply wanting in our
book if it be but a collection of Greek monographs. Roman culture and
refinement of living, commencing about 200-250 years before our era
was under the complete rule of Hellas. Greek influence included
everybody from philosophers, artists, architects, actors, law-makers
to cooks.
"The conquered thus conquered the conquerors."
Humelbergius makes a significant reference to the origin of Apicius.
We confess, we have not checked up this worthy editor nor his
successor, Dr. Lister, whom he quotes in the preface as to the origin
of our book. With reference to Plato's work, Humelbergius says:
"_Que res tota spectat medicinæ partem, quæ diaitetike
appelatur, et victu medetur: at in hac tes diaitetikes
parte totus est Apicius noster._"
In our opinion, unfounded of course by positive proof, the Apicius
book is somewhat of a gastronomic bible, consisting of ten different
books by several authors, originating in Greece and taken over by the
Romans along with the rest of Greek culture as spoils of war. These
books, or chapters, or fragments thereof, must have been in vogue long
before they were collected and assembled in the present form.
Editions, or copies of the same must have been numerous, either singly
or collectively, at the beginning of our era. As a matter of fact, the
Excerpts by Vinidarius, found in the _codex Salmasianus_ prove this
theory and give rise to the assumption that the Apicius book was a
standard work for cookery that existed at one time or other in a far
more copious volume and that the present Apicius is but a fragment of
a formerly vaster and more complete collection of culinary and medical
formulæ.
Thus a fragmentary Apicius has been handed down to us in manuscript
form through the centuries, through the revolutionary era of Christian
ascendancy, through the dark ages down to the Renaissance. Unknown
agencies, mostly medical and monastic, stout custodians of antique
learning, reverent lovers of good cheer have preserved it for us until
printing made possible the book's wide distribution among the
scholars. Just prior to Gutenberg's epoch-making printing press there
was a spurt of interest in our book in Italy, as attested to by a
dozen of manuscripts, copied in the fourteenth and the fifteenth
centuries.
Apicius may justly be called the world's oldest cookery book; the very
old Sanscrit book, Vasavarayeyam, unknown to us except by name, is
said to be a tract on vegetarian cookery.
The men who have preserved this work for future generations, who have
made it accessible to the public (as was Lister's intention) have
performed a service to civilization that is not to be underestimated.
They have done better than the average archaeologist with one or
another find to his credit. The Apicius book is a living thing,
capable of creating happiness. Some gastronomic writers have pointed
out that the man who discovers a new dish does more for humanity than
the man who discovers a new star, because the discovery of a new dish
affects the happiness of mankind more pleasantly than the addition of
a new planet to an already overcrowded chart of the universe. Viewing
Apicius from such a materialistic point of view he should become very
popular in this age of ours so keen for utilities of every sort.
C{OE}LIUS-CÆLIUS
The name of another personality is introduced in connection with the
book, namely that of C{oe}lius or Cælius. This name is mentioned in
the title of the first undated edition (ca. 1483-6) as Celius.
Torinus, 1541, places "Cælius" before "Apicius"; Humelbergius, 1542,
places "C{oe}lius" after A. Lister approves of this, berating Torinus
for his willful methods of editing the book: "_En hominem in
conjecturis sane audacissimus!_" If any of them were correct about
"C{oe}lius," Torinus would be the man. (Cf. Schanz, Röm. Lit. Gesch.,
Müller's Handbuch d. klass. Altertums-Wissenschaft, V III, 112, p.
506.) However, there is no _raison d'être_ for C{oe}lius.
His presence and the unreality thereof has been cleared up by Vollmer,
as will be duly shown. The squabble of the medieval savants has also
given rise to the story that Apicius is but a joke perpetrated upon
the world by a medieval savant. This will be refuted also later on.
Our book is a genuine Roman. Medieval savants have made plenty of
Roman "fakes," for sundry reasons. A most ingenious hoax was the
"completion" of the Petronius fragment by a scholar able to hoodwink
his learned contemporaries by an exhibition of Petronian literary
style and a fertile imagination. Ever so many other "fakers" were
shown up in due time. When this version of Petronius was pronounced
genuine by the scientific world, the perpetrator of the "joke"
confessed, enjoying a good laugh at the expense of his colleagues. But
we shall presently understand how such a "joke" with Apicius would be
impossible. Meanwhile, we crave the indulgence of the modern reader
with our mention of C{oe}lius. We desire to do full justice to the
ancient work and complete the presentation of its history. The
controversies that have raged over it make this course necessary.
Our predecessors have not had the benefit of modern communication,
and, therefore, could not know all that is to be known on the subject.
We sympathize with Lister yet do not condemn Torinus. If Torinus ever
dared making important changes in the old text, they are easily
ascertained by collation with other texts. This we have endeavored to
do. Explaining the discrepancies, it will be noted that we have not
given a full vote of confidence to Lister.
Why should the mysterious C{oe}lius or Cælius, if such an author or
compiler of a tome on cookery existed affix the name of "Apicius" to
it? The reason would be commercial gain, prestige accruing from the
name of that cookery celebrity. Such business sense would not be
extraordinary. Modern cooks pursue the same method. Witness the
innumerable à la soandsos. Babies, apartment houses, streets, cities,
parks, dogs, race horses, soap, cheese, herring, cigars, hair
restorers are thus named today. "Apicius" on the front page of any
ancient cookery book would be perfectly consistent with the ancient
spirit of advertising. It has been stated, too, that C{oe}lius had
more than one collaborator. Neither can this be proven.
The copyists have made many changes throughout the original text.
Misspelling of terms, ignorance of cookery have done much to obscure
the meaning. The scribes of the middle ages had much difficulty in
this respect since medieval Latin is different from Apician language.
The very language of the original is proof for its authenticity. The
desire of Torinus to interpret to his medieval readers the ancient
text is pardonable. How much or how little he succeeded is attested to
by some of his contemporary readers, former owners of our copies.
Scholars plainly confess inability to decipher Apicius by groans
inscribed on the fly leaves and title pages in Latin, French and other
languages. One French scholar of the 16th century, apparently "kidded"
for studying an undecipherable cook book, stoically inscribes the
title page of our Lyon, 1541, copy with: "This amuses me. Why make fun
of me?" This sort of message, reaching us out of the dim past of
bygone centuries is among the most touching reading we have done, and
has urged us on with the good though laborious and unprofitable work.
Notwithstanding its drawbacks, our book is a classic both as to form
and contents. It has served as a prototype of most ancient and modern
books. Its influence is felt to the present day.
The book has often been cited by old writers as proof of the
debaucheries and the gluttony of ancient Rome. Nothing could be
further from the truth because these writers failed to understand the
book.
The Apicius book reflects the true condition (partly so, because it is
incomplete) of the kitchen prevailing at the beginning of our era when
the mistress of the Old World was in her full regalia, when her ample
body had not yet succumbed to that fatty degeneration of the interior
so fatal to ever so many individuals, families, cities and nations.
We repeat, our Apicius covers Rome's healthy epoch; hence the
importance of the book. The voluptuous concoctions, the fabulous
dishes, the proverbial excesses that have made decent people shudder
with disgust throughout the ages are not known to Apicius. If they
ever existed at all in their traditional ugliness they made their
appearance after Apicius' time. We recall, Petronius, describing some
of these "stunts" is a contemporary of Nero (whom he satirizes as
"Trimalchio"). So is Seneca, noble soul, another victim of Cæsarean
insanity; he, too, describes Imperial excesses. These extremely few
foolish creations are really at the bottom of the cause for this
misunderstanding of true Roman life. Such stupidity has allowed the
joy of life which, as Epikuros and Platina believe, may be indulged in
with perfect virtue and honesty to become a byword among all good
people who are not gastronomers either by birth, by choice or by
training.
With due justice to the Roman people may we be permitted to say that
proverbial excesses were exceedingly rare occurrences. The follies and
the vices of a Nero, a boy Heliogabalus, a Pollio, a Vitellius and a
few other notorious wasters are spread sporadically over a period of
at least eight hundred years. Between these cases of gastronomic
insanity lie wellnigh a thousand years of everyday grind and drudgery
of the Roman people. The bulk was miserably fed as compared with
modern standards of living. Only a few patricians could afford "high
living." Since a prosperous bourgeoisie (usually the economic and
gastronomic background of any nation) was practically unknown in Rome,
where the so-called middle classes were in reality poor, shiftless and
floating freedmen, it is evident that the bulk of the population
because of the empire's unsettled economic conditions, its extensive
system of slavery (precluding all successful practice of trades by
freemen), the continuous military operations, the haphazard financial
system, was forced to live niggardly. The contrast between the middle
classes and the upper classes seemed very cruel. This condition may
account for the many outcries against the "extravagances" of the few
privileged ones who could afford decent food and for the exaggerated
stories about their table found in the literature of the time.
The seemingly outlandish methods of Apician food preparation become
plain and clear in the light of social evolution. "Evolution" is
perhaps not the right word to convey our idea of social perpetual
motion.
Apicius used practically all the cooking utensils in use today. He
only lacked gas, electricity and artificial refrigeration, modern
achievements while useful in the kitchen and indispensable in
wholesale production and for labor saving, that have no bearing on
purely gastronomical problems. There is only one difference between
the cooking utensils of yore and the modern products: the old ones are
hand-made, more individualistic, more beautiful, more artistic than
our machine-made varieties.
Despite his strangeness and remoteness, Apicius is not dead by any
means. We have but to inspect (as Gollmer has pointed out) the table
of the Southern Europeans to find Apician traditions alive. In the
Northern countries, too, are found his traces. To think that Apicius
should have survived in the North of Europe, far removed from his
native soil, is a rather audacious suggestion. But the keen observer
can find him in Great Britain, Scandinavia and the Baltic provinces
today. The conquerors and seafarers coming from the South have carried
the pollen of gastronomic flowers far into the North where they
adjusted themselves to soil and climate. Many a cook of the British
isles, of Southern Sweden, Holstein, Denmark, Friesland, Pomerania
still observes Apicius rules though he may not be aware of the fact.
We must realize that Apicius is only a book, a frail hand-made record
and that, while the record itself might have been forgotten, its
principles have become international property, long ago. Thus they
live on. Like a living thing--a language, a custom, they themselves
may have undergone changes, "improvements," alterations, augmentation,
corruption. But the character has been preserved; a couple of thousand
years are, after all, but a paltry matter. Our own age is but the
grandchild of antiquity. The words we utter, in their roots, are those
of our grandfathers. And so do many dishes we eat today resemble those
once enjoyed by Apicius and his friends.
Is it necessary to point the tenacity of the spirit of the Antique,
reaching deep into the modern age? The latest Apicius edition in the
original Latin is dated 1922!
The gastronomic life of Europe was under the complete rule of old Rome
until the middle of the seventeenth century. Then came a sudden change
for modernity, comparable to the rather abrupt change of languages
from the fashionable Latin to the national idioms and vernacular, in
England and Germany under the influence of literary giants like
Luther, Chaucer, Shakespeare.
All medieval food literature of the continent and indeed the early
cookery books of England prior to La Varenne (Le Cuisinier François,
1654) are deeply influenced by Apicius. The great change in eating,
resulting in a new gastronomic order, attained its highest peak of
perfection just prior to the French revolution. Temporarily suspended
by this social upheaval, it continued to flourish until about the
latter part of last century. The last decades of this new order is
often referred to as the classical period of gastronomy, with France
claiming the laurels for its development. "Classic" for reasons we do
not know (Urbain Dubois, outstanding master of this period wrote "La
Cuisine classique") except that its precepts appeal as classical to
our notion of eating. This may not correspond to the views of
posterity, we had therefore better wait a century or two before
proclaiming our system of cookery "classical."
Disposing of that old "classic," Apicius, as slowly as a conservative
cooking world could afford to do, the present nations set out to
cultivate a taste for things that a Roman would have pronounced unfit
for a slave. Still, the world moves on. Conquest, discovery of foreign
parts, the New World, contributed fine things to the modern
table,--old forgotten foods were rediscovered--endless lists of
materials and combinations, new daring, preposterous dishes that made
the younger generation rejoice while old folks looked on gasping with
dismay, despair, contempt.
Be it sufficient to remark that the older practitioners of our own
days, educated in "classic" cuisine again are quite apprehensive of
their traditions endangered by the spirit of revolt of the young
against the old. Again and again we hear of a decline that has set in,
and even by the best authorities alarmist notes are spread to the
effect that "we have begun our journey back, step by step to our
primitive tree and our primitive nuts" (Pennell. Does Spengler
consider food in his "Decline of the West?").
It matters not whether we share this pessimism, nor what we may have
to say _pro_ or _con_ this question of "progress" or "retrogression"
in eating (or in anything else for that matter). In fact we are not
concerned with the question here more than to give it passing
attention.
If "classic" cookery is dying nowadays, if it cannot reassert itself
that would be a loss to mankind. But this classic cookery system has
so far only been the sole and exclusive privilege of a dying
aristocracy. It seems quite in order that it should go under in the
great _Götterdämmerung_ that commenced with the German peasants wars
of the sixteenth century, flaring up (as the second act) in the French
revolution late in the eighteenth century, the Act III of which drama
has been experienced in our own days.
The common people as yet have never had an active part in the
enjoyment of the classic art of eating. So far, they always provided
the wherewithal, and looked on, holding the bag. Modern hotels,
because of their commercial character, have done little to perpetuate
it. They merely have commercialized the art. Beyond exercising
ordinary salesmanship, our _maîtres d'hôtel_ have not educated our
_nouveaux riches_ in the mysteries and delights of gastronomy.
Hotelmen are not supposed to be educators, they merely cater to a
demand. And our new aristocracy has been too busy with limousines,
golf, divorces and electricity to bemourn the decline of classic
cookery.
Most people "get by" without the benefit of classic cookery,
subsisting on a medley of edibles, tenaciously clinging to mother's
traditions, to things "as she used to make them," and mother's methods
still savor of Apicius. Surely, this is no sign of retrogression but
of tenacity.
The only fundamental difference between Roman dining and that of our
own times may be found in these two indisputable facts--
(First) Devoid of the science of agriculture, without any advanced
mechanical means, food was not raised in a very systematic way; if it
happened to be abundant, Roma lacked storage and transportation
facilities to make good use of it. There never were any food supplies
on any large, extensive and scientific scale, hence raw materials, the
wherewithal of a "classic" meal, were expensive.
(Second) Skilled labor, so vital for the success of any good dinner,
so imperative for the rational preparation of food was cheap to those
who held slaves.
Hence, the culinary conditions of ancient Rome were exactly the
opposite of today's state of affairs. Then, good food was expensive
while good labor was cheap. Now, good food is cheap while skilled
labor is at a premium. Somehow, good, intelligent "labor" is reluctant
to devote itself to food. That is another story. The chances for a
good dinner seemed to be in favor of the Romans--but only for a
favored few. Those of us, although unable to command a staff of
experts, but able to prepare their own meals rationally and serve them
well are indeed fortunate. With a few dimes they may dine in royal
fashion. If our much maligned age has achieved anything at all it has
at least enabled the working "slave" of the "masses" to dine in a
manner that even princes could hardly match in former days, a manner
indeed that the princes of our own time could not improve upon. The
fly in the ointment is that most modern people do not know how to
handle and to appreciate food. This condition, however, may be
remedied by instruction and education.
Slowly, the modern masses are learning to emulate their erstwhile
masters in the art of eating. They have the advantages of the great
improvements in provisioning as compared with former days, thanks
chiefly to the great lines of communication established by modern
commerce, thanks to scientific agriculture and to the spirit of
commercial enterprise and its resulting prosperity.
There are two "Ifs" in the path to humanity's salvation, at least,
that of its table. If the commercialization of cookery, i.e., the
wholesale production of ready-made foods for the table does not
completely enthrall the housewife and if we can succeed to educate the
masses to make rational, craftsmanlike use of our wonderful stores of
edibles, employing or modifying to this end the rules of classic
cookery, there really should be no need for any serious talk about our
journey back to the primitive nuts. Even Spengler might be wrong then.
Adequate distribution of our foods and rational use thereof seem to be
one of the greatest problems today.
THE AUTHENTICITY OF APICIUS
Age-old mysteries surrounding our book have not yet been cleared up.
Medieval savants have squabbled in vain. Mrs. Pennell's worries and
the fears of the learned Englishmen that Apicius might be a hoax have
proven groundless. Still, the mystery of this remarkable book is as
perplexing as ever. The authorship will perhaps never be established.
But let us forever dispel any doubt about its authenticity.
Modern writers have never doubted the genuineness. To name but a few
who believe in Apicius: Thudichum, Vollmer, Brandt, Vicaire, Rumohr,
Schuch, Habs, Gollmer.
What matters the identity of the author? Who wrote the Iliad, the
Odyssey, the Nibelungen-Lied? Let us be thankful for possessing them!
Apicius is a genuine document of Roman imperial days. There can be no
doubt of that!
The unquestionable age of the earliest known manuscripts alone
suffices to prove this.
The philologist gives his testimony, too. A medieval scholar could
never have manufactured Apicius, imitating his strikingly original
terminology. "Faking" a technical treatise requires an intimate
knowledge of technical terms and familiarity with the ramifications of
an intricate trade. We recommend a comparison of Platina's text with
Apicius: the difference of ancient and medieval Latin is convincing.
Striking examples of this kind have been especially noted in our
dictionary of technical terms.
LATIN SLANG
H. C. Coote, in his commentary on Apicius (cit. Apiciana) in speaking
of pan gravy, remarks:
"Apicius calls this by the singular phrase of _jus de
suo sibi_! and sometimes though far less frequently,
_succus suus_. This phrase is curious enough in itself
to deserve illustration. It is true old fashioned
Plautian Latinity, and if other proof were wanting would
of itself demonstrate the genuineness of the Apician
text."
This scholar goes on quoting from Plautus, _Captivi_, Act I, sc. 2,
vv. 12, 13; _Amphitruo_, Act I, sc. q.v. 116 and _ibid._ v. 174; and
from _Asinaria_, Act IV, sc. 2, vv. 16 and 17 to prove this, and he
further says:
"The phrase is a rare remnant of the old familiar
language of Rome, such as slaves talked so long, that
their masters ultimately adopted it--a language of which
Plautus gives us glimpses and which the _graffiti_ may
perhaps help to restore. When Varius was emperor, this
phrase of the kitchen was as rife as when Plautus
wrote--a proof that occasionally slang has been long
lived."
Coote is a very able commentator. He has translated in the article
quoted a number of Apician formulæ; and betrays an unusual culinary
knowledge.
MODERN RESEARCH
Modern means of communication and photography have enabled scientists
in widely different parts to study our book from all angles, to
scrutinize the earliest records, the Vatican and the New York
manuscripts and the codex Salmasianus in Paris.
Friedrich Vollmer, of Munich, in his _Studien_ (cit. Apiciana) has
treated the manuscripts exhaustively, carrying to completion the
research begun by Schuch, Traube, Ihm, Studemund, Giarratano and
others with Brandt, his pupil, carrying on the work of Vollmer. More
modern scientists deeply interested in the origin of our book! None
doubting its genuineness.
Vollmer is of the opinion that there reposed in the monastery of
Fulda, Germany, an _Archetypus_ which in the ninth century was copied
twice: once in a Turonian hand--the manuscript now kept in the
Vatican--the other copy written partly in insular, partly in
Carolingian minuscle--the Cheltenham _codex_, now in New York. The
common source at Fulda of these two manuscripts has been established
by Traube. There is another testimony pointing to Fulda as the oldest
known source. Pope Nicholas V commissioned Enoche of Ascoli to acquire
old manuscripts in Germany. Enoche used as a guide a list of works
based upon observations by Poggio in Germany in 1417, listing the
Apicius of Fulda. Enoche acquired the Fulda Apicius. He died in
October or November, 1457. On December 10th of that year, so we know,
Giovanni de'Medici requested Stefano de'Nardini, Governor of Ancona,
to procure for him from Enoche's estate either in copy or in the
original the book, entitled, _Appicius de re quoquinaria_ (cf. No. 3,
Apiciana). It is interesting to note that one of the Milanese editions
of 1498 bears a title in this particular spelling. Enoche during his
life time had lent the book to Giovanni Aurispa.
It stands to reason that Poggio, in 1417, viewed at Fulda the
_Archetypus_ of our Apicius, father of the Vatican and the New York
manuscripts, then already mutilated and wanting books IX and X. Six
hundred years before the arrival of Poggio the Fulda book was no
longer complete. Already in the ninth century its title page had been
damaged which is proven by the title page of the Vatican copy which
reads:
___
INCP
API
CÆ
That's all! The New York copy, it has been noted, has no title page.
This book commences in the middle of the list of chapters; the first
part of them and the title page are gone. We recall that the New York
manuscript was originally bound up with another manuscript, also in
the Phillipps library at Cheltenham. The missing page or pages were
probably lost in separating the two manuscripts. It is possible that
Enoche carried with him to Italy one of the ancient copies, very
likely the present New York copy, then already without a title. At any
rate, not more than twenty-five years after his book hunting
expedition we find both copies in Italy. It is strange, furthermore,
that neither of these two ancient copies were used by the fifteenth
century copyists to make the various copies distributed by them, but
that an inferior copy of the Vatican Ms. became the _vulgata_--the
progenitor of this series of medieval copies. One must bear in mind
how assiduously medieval scribes copied everything that appeared to be
of any importance to them, and how each new copy by virtue of human
fallibility or self-sufficiency must have suffered in the making, and
it is only by very careful comparison of the various manuscripts that
the original text may be rehabilitated.
This, to a large extent, Vollmer and Giarratano have accomplished.
Vollmer, too, rejects the idea invented by the humanists, that Apicius
had a collaborator, editor or commentator in the person of C{oe}lius
or Cælius. This name, so Vollmer claims, has been added to the book by
medieval scholars without any reason except conjecture for such
action. They have been misled by the mutilated title: Api... Cæ...;
Vollmer reconstructs this title as follows:
API[cii artis magiri- (or) opsartyti-]
CÆ[libri X]
Remember, it is the title page only that is thus mutilated. The ten
books or chapters bear the full name of Apicius, never at any time
does the name of C{oe}lius appear in the text, or at the head of the
chapters.
The _Archetypus_, with the book and the chapters carefully indexed and
numbered as they were, with each article neatly titled, the captions
and capital letters rubricated--heightened by red color, and with its
proper spacing of the articles and chapters must once have been a
representative example of the art of book making as it flourished
towards the end of the period that sealed the fate of the Roman
empire, when books of a technical nature, law books, almanacs, army
lists had been developed to a high point of perfection. Luxurious
finish, elaborate illumination point to the fact that our book (the
Vatican copy) was intended for the use in some aristocratic household.
THE EXCERPTS OF VINIDARIUS
And now, from a source totally different than the two important
manuscripts so much discussed here, we receive additional proof of the
authenticity of Apicius. In the _codex Salmasianus_ (cf. III,
Apiciana) we find some thirty formulæ attributed to Apicius, entitled:
_Apici excerpta a Vinidario vir. inl._ They have been accepted as
genuine by Salmasius and other early scholars. Schuch incorporated the
_excerpta_ with his Apicius, placing the formulæ in what he believed
to be the proper order. This course, for obvious reasons, is not to be
recommended. To be sure, the _excerpta_ are Apician enough in
character, though only a few correspond to, or are actual duplicates
of, the Apician precepts. They are additions to the stock of authentic
Apician recipes. As such, they may not be included but be appended to
the traditional text. The _excerpta_ encourage the belief that at the
time of Vinidarius (got. Vinithaharjis) about the fifth century there
must have been in circulation an Apicius (collection of recipes) much
more complete than the one handed down to us through Fulda. It is
furthermore interesting to note that the _excerpta_, too, are silent
about C{oe}lius.
We may safely join Vollmer in his belief that M. Gabius Apicius,
celebrated gourmet living during the reign of Tiberius was the real
author, or collector, or sponsor of this collection of recipes, or at
least of the major part thereof--the formulæ bearing the names of
posterior gourmets having been added from time to time. This theory
also applies to the two instances where the name of Varro is mentioned
in connection with the preparation of beets and onions (bulbs). It is
hardly possible that the author of the book made these references to
Varro. It is more probable that some well-versed posterior reader,
perusing the said articles, added to his copy: "And Varro prepared
beets this way, and onions that way...." (cf. Book III, [70]) Still,
there is no certainty in this theory either. There were many persons
by the names of Commodus, Trajanus, Frontinianus, such as are
appearing in our text, who were contemporaries of Apicius.
With our mind at ease as regards the genuineness of our book we now
may view it at a closer range.
OBSCURE TERMINOLOGY
Apicius contains technical terms that have been the subject of much
speculation and discussion. _Liquamen_, _laser_, _muria_, _garum_,
etc., belong to these. They will be found in our little dictionary.
But we cannot refrain from discussing some at present to make
intelligible the most essential part of the ancient text.
Take _liquamen_ for instance. It may stand for broth, sauce, stock,
gravy, drippings, even for _court bouillon_--in fact for any liquid
appertaining to or derived from a certain dish or food material. Now,
if Apicius prescribes _liquamen_ for the preparation of a meat or a
vegetable, it is by no means clear to the uninitiated what he has in
mind. In fact, in each case the term _liquamen_ is subject to the
interpretation of the experienced practitioner. Others than he would
at once be confronted with an unsurmountable difficulty. Scientists
may not agree with us, but such is kitchen practice. Hence the many
fruitless controversies at the expense of the original, at the
disappointment of science.
_Garum_ is another word, one upon which much contemptuous witticism
and serious energy has been spent. _Garum_ simply is a generic name
for fish essences. True, _garus_ is a certain and a distinct kind of
Mediterranean fish, originally used in the manufacture of _garum_; but
this product, in the course of time, has been altered, modified,
adulterated,--in short, has been changed and the term has naturally
been applied to all varieties and variations of fish essences, without
distinction, and it has thus become a collective term, covering all
varieties of fish sauces. Indeed, the corruption and degeneration of
this term, _garum_, had so advanced at the time of Vinidarius in the
fifth century as to lose even its association with any kind of fish.
Terms like _garatum_ (prepared with g.) have been derived from it.
Prepared with the addition of wine it becomes _{oe}nogarum_,--wine
sauce--and dishes prepared with such wine sauce receive the adjective
of _{oe}nogaratum_, and so forth.
The original _garum_ was no doubt akin to our modern anchovy sauce, at
least the best quality of the ancient sauce. The principles of
manufacture surely are alike. _Garum_, like our anchovy sauce, is the
_purée_ of a small fish, named _garus_, as yet unidentified. The fish,
intestines and all, was spiced, pounded, fermented, salted, strained
and bottled for future use. The finest _garum_ was made of the livers
of the fish only, exposed to the sun, fermented, somehow preserved. It
was an expensive article in old Rome, famed for its medicinal
properties. Its mode of manufacture has given rise to much criticism
and scorn on the part of medieval and modern commentators and
interpreters who could not comprehend the "perverse taste" of the
ancients in placing any value on the "essence from putrified
intestines of fish."
However, _garum_ has been vindicated, confirmed, endorsed, reiterated,
rediscovered, if you please, by modern science! What, pray, is the
difference in principle between _garum_ (the exact nature of which is
unknown) and the oil of the liver of cod (or less expensive fish)
exposed to the beneficial rays of ultraviolet light--artificial
sunlight--to imbue the oil with an extra large and uniform dose of
vitamin D? The ancients, it appears, knew "vitamin D" to exist. Maybe
they had a different name for "vitamins," maybe none at all. The name
does not matter. The thing which they knew, does. They knew the
nutritive value of liver, proven by many formulæ. Pollio, one of the
vicious characters of antiquity, fed murenas (sea-eel) with slaves he
threw into the _piscina_, the fish pond, and later enjoyed the liver
of the fish.
Some "modern" preparations are astonishingly ancient, and _vice
versa_. Our anchovy sauce is used freely to season fish, to mix with
butter, to be made into solid anchovy or fish paste. There are sardine
pastes, lobster pastes, fish forcemeats found in the larder of every
good kitchen--preparations of Apician character. A real platter of
_hors d'oeuvres_, an _antipasto_ is not complete unless made according
to certain Apician precepts.
_Muria_ is salt water, brine, yet it may stand for a fluid in which
fish or meat, fruits or vegetables have been pickled.
The difficulties of the translator of Apicius who takes him literally,
are unconsciously but neatly demonstrated by the work of Danneil. Even
he, seasoned practitioner, condemns _garum_, _muria_, _asa
f{oe}tida_, because professors before him have done so, because he
forgets that these very materials still form a vital part of some of
his own sauces only in a different shape, form or under a different
name. Danneil calls some Apician recipes "incredibly absurd,"
"fabulous," "exaggerated," but he thinks nothing of the serving of
similar combinations in his own establishment every day in the year.
Danneil would take pride in serving a Veal Cutlet à la Holstein. (What
have we learned of Apicius in the Northern countries?). The ancient
Holsteiner was not satisfied unless his piece of veal was covered with
a nice fat herring. That "barbarity" had to be modified by us moderns
into a veal cutlet, turned in milk and flour, eggs and bread crumbs,
fried, covered with fried eggs, garnished with anchovies or bits of
herring, red beets, capers, and lemon in order to qualify for a
restaurant favorite and "best seller." Apicius hardly has a dish more
characteristic and more bewildering.
What of combinations of fish and meat?
_De gustibus non est disputandum._ It all goes into the same stomach.
May it be a sturdy one, and let its owner beware. What of our turkey
and oyster dressing? Of our broiled fish and bacon? Of our clam
chowder, our divine _Bouillabaisse_? If the ingredients and component
parts of such dishes were enumerated in the laconic and careless
Apician style, if they were stated without explicit instructions and
details (supposed to be known to any good practitioner) we would have
recipes just as mysterious as any of the Apician formulæ.
Danneil, like ever so many interpreters, plainly shared the
traditional belief, the egregious errors of popular history. People
still are under the spell of the fantastic and fanciful descriptions
of Roman conviviality and gastronomic eccentricities. Indeed, we
rather believe in the insanity of these descriptions than in the
insane conduct of the average Roman gourmet. It is absurd of course to
assume and to make the world believe that a Roman patrician made a
meal of _garum_, _laserpitium_, and the like. They used these
condiments judiciously; any other use thereof is physically
impossible. They economized their spices which have caused so much
comment, too. As a matter of fact, they used condiments niggardly and
sparingly as is plainly described in some formulæ, if only for the one
good and sufficient reason that spices and condiments which often came
from Asia and Africa were extremely expensive. This very reason,
perhaps, caused much of the popular outcry against their use, which,
by the way, is merely another form of political propaganda, in which,
as we shall see, the mob guided by the rabble of politicians excelled.
We moderns are just as "extravagant" (if not more) in the use of
sauces and condiments--Apician sauces, too! Our Worcestershire,
catsup, chili, chutney, walnut catsup, A I, Harvey's, Punch, Soyer's,
Escoffier's, Oscar's (every culinary coryphee endeavors to create
one)--our mustards and condiments in their different forms, if not
actually dating back to Apicius, are, at least lineal descendants from
ancient prototypes.
To readers little experienced in kitchen practice such phrases (often
repeated by Apicius) as, "crush pepper, lovage, marjoram," etc.,
etc., may appear stereotyped and monotonous. They have not survived in
modern kitchen parlance, because the practice of using spices, flavors
and aromas has changed. There are now in the market compounds,
extracts, mixtures not used in the old days. Many modern spices come
to us ready ground or mixed, or compounded ready for kitchen use. This
has the disadvantage in that volatile properties deteriorate more
rapidly and that the goods may be easily adulterated. The Bavarians,
under Duke Albrecht, in 1553 prohibited the grinding of spices for
that very reason! Ground spices are time and labor savers, however.
Modern kitchen methods have put the old mortar practically out of
existence, at the expense of quality of the finished product.
THE "LABOR ITEM"
The enviable Apicius cared naught for either time or labor. He gave
these two important factors in modern life not a single thought. His
culinary procedures required a prodigious amount of labor and effort
on the part of the cooks and their helpers. The labor item never
worried any ancient employer. It was either very cheap or entirely
free of charge.
The selfish gourmet (which gourmet is not selfish?) almost wonders
whether the abolition of slavery was a well-advised measure in modern
social and economic life. Few people appreciate the labor cost in
excellent cookery and few have any conception of the cost of good food
service today. Yet all demand both, when "dining out," at least. Who,
on the other hand, but a brute would care to dine well, "taking it out
of the hide of others?"
Hence we moderns with a craving for _gourmandise_ but minus
appropriations for skilled labor would do well to follow the example
of Alexandre Dumas who cheerfully and successfully attended to his own
cuisine. Despite an extensive fiction practice he found time to edit
"Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine" and was not above writing mustard
advertisements, either.
SUMPTUARY LAWS
The appetite of the ancients was at times successfully curbed by
sumptuary laws, cropping out at fairly regular intervals. These laws,
usually given under the pretext of safeguarding the morals of the
people and accompanied by similar euphonious phrases were, like modern
prohibitions, vicious and virulent effusions of the predatory instinct
in mankind. We cannot give a chronological list of them here, and are
citing them merely to illustrate the difficulty confronting the
prospective ancient host.
During the reign of Cæsar and Augustus severe laws were passed, fixing
the sums to be spent for public and private dinners and specifying the
edibles to be consumed. These laws classified gastronomic functions
with an ingenious eye for system, professing all the time to protect
the public's morals and health; but they were primarily designed to
replenish the ever-vanishing contents of the Imperial exchequer and
to provide soft jobs for hordes of enforcers. The amounts allowed to
be spent for various social functions were so ridiculously small in
our own modern estimation that we may well wonder how a Roman host
could have ever made a decent showing at a banquet. However, he and
the cooks managed somehow. Imperial spies and informers were
omnipresent. The market places were policed, the purchases by
prospective hosts carefully noted, dealers selling supplies and cooks
(the more skillful kind usually) hired for the occasion were bribed to
reveal the "menu." Dining room windows had to be located conveniently
to allow free inspection from the street of the dainties served; the
passing Imperial food inspector did not like to intrude upon the
sanctity of the host's home. The pitiable host of those days, his
unenviable guests and the bewildered cooks, however, contrived and
conspired somehow to get up a banquet that was a trifle better than a
Chicago quick lunch.
How did they do it?
In the light of modern experience gained by modern governments
dillydallying with sumptuary legislation that has been discarded as a
bad job some two thousand years ago, the question seems superfluous.
_Difficile est satyram non scribere!_ To make a long story short: The
Roman host just broke the law, that's all. Indeed, those who made the
laws were first to break them. The minions, appointed to uphold the
law, were easily accounted for. Any food inspector too arduous in the
pursuit of his duty was disposed of by dispatching him to the rear
entrance of the festive hall, and was delivered to the tender care of
the chief cook.
Such was the case during the times of Apicius. Indeed, the Roman idea
of good cheer during earlier epochs was provincial enough. It was
simply barbaric before the Greeks showed the Romans a thing or two in
cookery. The methods of fattening fowl introduced from Greece was
something unheard-of! It was outrageous, sacrilegious! Senators,
orators and other self-appointed saviors of humanity thundered against
the vile methods of tickling the human palate, deftly employing all
the picturesque tam-tam and _élan_ still the stock in trade of ever so
many modern colleagues in any civilized parliament. The speeches, to
be sure, passed into oblivion, the fat capons, however, stayed in the
barnyards until they had acquired the saturation point of tender
luscious calories to be enjoyed by those who could afford them. How
the capon was "invented" is told in a note on the subject.
Many other so-called luxuries, sausage from Epirus, cherries from the
Pontus, oysters from England, were greeted with a studied hostility by
those who profited from the business of making laws and public
opinion.
Evidently, the time and the place was not very propitious for
gastronomic over-indulgence. Only when the ice was broken, when the
disregard for law and order had become general through the continuous
practice of contempt for an unpopular sumptuary law, when corruption
had become wellnigh universal chiefly thanks to the examples set by
the higher-ups, it was then that the torrent of human passion and
folly ran riot, exceeding natural bounds, tearing everything with
them, all that is beautiful and decent, thus swamping the great empire
beyond the hopes for any recovery.
APICIUS THE WRITER
Most of the Apician directions are vague, hastily jotted down,
carelessly edited. One of the chief reasons for the eternal
misunderstandings! Often the author fails to state the quantities to
be used. He has a mania for giving undue prominence to expensive
spices and other (quite often irrelevant) ingredients. Plainly,
Apicius was no writer, no editor. He was a cook. He took it for
granted that spices be used within the bounds of reason, but he could
not afford to forget them in his formulæ.
Apicius surely pursues the correct culinary principle of incorporating
the flavoring agents during the process of cooking, contrary to many
moderns who, vigorously protesting against "highly seasoned" and
"rich" food, and who, craving for "something plain" proceed to
inundate perfectly good, plain roast or boiled dishes with a deluge of
any of the afore-mentioned commercial "sauces" that have absolutely no
relation to the dish and that have no mission other than to grant
relief from the deadening monotony of "plain" food. Chicken or mutton,
beef or venison, finnan haddie or brook trout, eggs or oysters thus
"sauced," taste all alike--sauce! To use such ready-made sauces with
dishes cooked _à l'anglaise_ is logical, excusable, almost advisable.
Even the most ascetic of men cannot resist the insidiousness of spicy
delights, nor can he for any length of time endure the insipidity of
plain food sans sauce. Hence the popularity of such sauces amongst
people who do not observe the correct culinary principle of seasoning
food judiciously, befitting its character, without spoiling but rather
in enhancing its characteristics and in bringing out its flavor at the
right time, namely during coction to give the kindred aromas a chance
to blend well.
Continental nations, adhering to this important principle of cookery
(inherited from Apicius) would not dream of using ready-made (English)
sauces.
We have witnessed real crimes being perpetrated upon perfectly
seasoned and delicately flavored _entrées_. We have watched
ill-advised people maltreat good things, cooked to perfection, even
before they tasted them, sprinkling them as a matter of habit, with
quantities of salt and pepper, paprika, cayenne, daubing them with
mustards of every variety or swamping them with one or several of the
commercial sauce preparations. "Temperamental" chefs, men who know
their art, usually explode at the sight of such wantonness. Which
painter would care to see his canvas varnished with all the hues in
the rainbow by a patron afflicted with such a taste?
Perhaps the craving for excessive flavoring is an olfactory delirium,
a pathological case, as yet unfathomed like the excessive craving for
liquor, and, being a problem for the medical fraternity, it is only of
secondary importance to gastronomy.
To say that the Romans were afflicted on a national scale with a
strange spice mania (as some interpreters want us to believe) would be
equivalent to the assertion that all wine-growing nations were nations
of drunkards. As a matter of fact, the reverse is the truth.
Apicius surely would be surprised at some things we enjoy. _Voilà_, a
recipe, "modern," not older than half a century, given by us in the
Apician style or writing: Take liquamen, pepper, cayenne, eggs, lemon,
olive oil, vinegar, white wine, anchovies, onions, tarragon, pickled
cucumbers, parsley, chervil, hard-boiled eggs, capers, green peppers,
mustard, chop, mix well, and serve.
Do you recognize it? This formula sounds as phantastic, as "weird" and
as "vile" as any of the Apician concoctions, confusing even a
well-trained cook because we stated neither the title of this
preparation nor the mode of making it, nor did we name the ingredients
in their proper sequence. This mystery was conceived with an
illustrative purpose which will be explained later, which may and may
not have to do with the mystery of Apicius. Consider, for a moment,
this mysterious creation No. 2: Take bananas, oranges, cherries,
flavored with bitter almonds, fresh pineapple, lettuce, fresh peaches,
plums, figs, grapes, apples, nuts, cream cheese, olive oil, eggs,
white wine, vinegar, cayenne, lemon, salt, white pepper, dry mustard,
tarragon, rich sour cream, chop, mix, whip well.
Worse yet! Instead of having our appetite aroused the very perusal of
this quasi-Apician _mixtum compositum_ repels every desire to partake
of it. We are justly tempted to condemn it as being utterly
impossible. Yet every day hundreds of thousand portions of it are sold
under the name of special fruit salad with _mayonnaise mousseuse_. The
above mystery No. 1 is the justly popular tartar sauce.
Thus we could go on analyzing modern preparations and make them appear
as outlandish things. Yet we relish them every day. The ingredients,
obnoxious in great quantities, are employed with common sense. We are
not mystified seeing them in print; they are usually given in clear
logical order. This is not the style of Apicius, however.
LATIN CUNNING
We can hardly judge Apicius by what he has revealed but we rather
should try to discover what he--purposely or otherwise--has concealed
if we would get a good idea of the ancient kitchen. This thought
occurred to us at the eleventh hour, after years of study of the text
and after almost despairing of a plausible solution of its mysteries.
And it seems surprising that Apicius has never been suspected before
of withholding information essential to the successful practice of his
rather hypothetical and empirical formulæ. The more we scrutinize
them, the more we become convinced that the author has omitted vital
directions--same as we did purposely with the two modern examples
above. Many of the Apician recipes are dry enumerations of ingredients
supposed to belong to a given dish or sauce. It is well-known that in
chemistry (cookery is but applied chemistry) the knowledge of the
rules governing the quantities and the sequence of the ingredients,
their manipulation, either separately or jointly, either successively
or simultaneously, is a very important matter, and that violation or
ignorance of the process may spell failure at any stage of the
experiment. In the kitchen this is particularly true of baking and
soup and sauce making, the most intricate of culinary operations.
There may have been two chief reasons for concealing necessary
information. Apicius, or more likely the professional collectors of
the recipes, may have considered technical elaboration of the formulæ
quite superfluous on the assumption that the formulæ were for
professional use only. Every good practitioner knows, with ingredients
or components given, what manipulations are required, what effects are
desired. Even in the absence of detailed specifications, the
experienced practitioner will be able to divine correct proportions,
by intuition. As a matter of fact, in cookery the mention in the right
place of a single ingredient, like in poetry the right word, often
suffices to conjure up before the gourmet's mental eye vistas of
delight. Call it inspiration, association of ideas or what you please,
a single word may often prove a guide, a savior.
Let us remember that in Apicii days paper (parchment, papyrus) and
writing materials were expensive and that, moreover, the ability of
correct logical and literary expression was necessarily limited in the
case of a practising cook who, after all, must have been the collector
of the Apician formulæ. This is sufficiently proven by the _lingua
coquinaria_, the vulgar Latin of our old work. In our opinion, the
ancient author did not consider it worth his while to give anything
but the most indispensable information in the tersest form. This he
certainly did. A comparison of his literary performance with that of
the artistic and accomplished writer of the Renaissance, Platina, will
at once show up Apicius as a hard-working practical cook, a man who
knew his business but who could not tell what he knew.
Like ever so many of his successors, he could not refrain from
beginning and concluding many of his articles with such superfluities
as "take this" and "And serve," etc., all of which shows him up as a
genuine cook. These articles, written in the most laconic language
possible--the language of a very busy, very harassed, very hurried
man, are the literary product of a cook, or several of them.
The other chief motive for condensing or obscuring his text has a more
subtle foundation. Indeed, we are surprised that we should possess so
great a collection of recipes, representing to him who could use them
certain commercial and social value. The preservation of Apicius seems
entirely accidental. Experienced cooks were in demand in Apicii times;
the valuation of their ministrations increased proportionately to the
progress in gastronomy and to the prosperity of the nation. During
Rome's frugal era, up to 200 B.C. the primitive cooks were just slaves
and household chattels; but the development of their trade into an
art, stimulated by foreign precepts, imported principally from Greece,
Sicily and Asia Minor, opened up to the practitioners not only the
door to freedom from servitude but it offered even positions of wealth
with social and political standing, often arousing the envy, satire,
criticism of bona-fide politicians, journalists, moralists, satirists
and of the ever-present hordes of parasites and hangers-on. Some cooks
became confidants, even friends and advisors of men in high places,
emperors, (cf. life of Vitellius) and through their subtle influence
upon the mighty they may have contributed in no mean measure to the
fate of the nation. But such invisible string-pullers have not been
confined to those days alone. (Take Rasputin! Take the valet to
William I, reputed to have had more "say" than the mighty Bismarck,
who, as it developed, got "the air" while the valet died in his
berth.)
Such being the case, what potential power reposed in a greasy cookery
manuscript! And, if so, why bare such wonderful secrets to Tom, Dick
and Harry?
Weights and measures are given by Apicius in some instances. But just
such figures can be used artfully to conceal a trap. Any mediocre
cook, gaining possession of a choice collection of detailed and
itemized recipes would have been placed in an enviable position.
Experimenting for some time (at his master's expense) he would soon
reach that perfection when he could demand a handsome compensation for
his ministrations. Throughout antique times, throughout the middle
ages down to the present day (when patent laws no longer protect a
secret) strict secrecy was maintained around many useful and lucrative
formulæ, not only by cooks, but also by physicians, alchemists and the
various scientists, artisans and craftsmen. Only the favorite
apprentice would be made heir to or shareholder in this important
stock in trade after his worthiness had been proven to his master's
satisfaction, usually by the payment of a goodly sum of
money--apprentice's pay. We remember reading in Lanciani (Rodolfo L.:
Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries) how in the entire
history of Rome there is but one voice, that of a solitary,
noble-minded physician, complaining about the secrecy that was being
maintained by his colleagues as regards their science. To be sure,
those fellows had every reason in the world for keeping quiet: so
preposterous were their methods in most cases! This secrecy indeed
must have carried with it a blessing in disguise. Professional reserve
was not its object. The motive was purely commercial.
Seeing where the information given by Apicius is out of reason and
unintelligible we are led to believe that such text is by no means to
be taken very literally. On the contrary, it is quite probable that
weights and measures are not correct: they are quite likely to be of
an artful and studied unreliability. A secret private code is often
employed, necessitating the elimination or transposition of certain
words, figures or letters before the whole will become intelligible
and useful. If by any chance an uninitiated hand should attempt to
grasp such veiled directions, failure would be certain. We confess to
have employed at an early stage of our own career this same strategy
and time-honored camouflage to protect a precious lot of recipes.
Promptly we lost this unctuous manuscript, as we feared we would; if
not deciphered today, the book has long since been discarded as being
a record of the ravings of a madman.
The advent of the printing press changed the situation. With Platina,
ca. 1474, an avalanche of cookery literature started. The secrets of
Scappi, "_cuoco secreto_" to the pope, were "scooped" by an
enterprising Venetian printer in 1570. The guilds of French mustard
makers and sauce cooks (precursors of modern food firms and
manufacturers of ready-made condiments) were a powerful tribe of
secret mongers in the middle ages. English gastronomic literature of
the 16th, 17th and even the 18th century is crowded with "closets
opened," "secrets let out" and other alluring titles purporting to
regale the prospective reader with profitable and appetizing secrets
of all sorts. Kitchen secrets became commercial articles.
These remarks should suffice to illustrate the assumption that the
Apicius book was not created for publication but that it is a
collection of abridged formulæ for private use, a treasure chest as it
were, of some cook, which after the demise of its owner, collector,
originator, a curious world could not resist to play with, although
but a few experienced masters held the key, being able to make use of
the recipes.
MEAT DIET
In perusing Apicius only one or two instances of cruelty to animals
have come to our attention (cf. recipes No. 140 and 259). Cruel
methods of slaughter were common. Some of the dumb beasts that were to
feed man and even had to contribute to his pleasures and enjoyment of
life by giving up their own lives often were tortured in cruel,
unspeakable ways. The belief existed that such methods might increase
the quality, palatability and flavor of the meat. Such beliefs and
methods may still be encountered on the highways and byways in Europe
and Asia today. Since the topic, strictly speaking does not belong
here, we cannot depict it in detail, and in passing make mention of it
to refer students interested in the psychology of the ancients to such
details as are found in the writings of Plutarch and other ancient
writers during the early Christian era. It must be remembered,
however, that such writers (including the irreproachable Plutarch)
were advocates of vegetarianism. Some passages are inspired by true
humane feeling, but much appears to be written in the interest of
vegetarianism.
The ancients were not such confirmed meat eaters as the modern Western
nations, merely because the meat supply was not so ample. Beef was
scarce because of the shortage of large pastures. The cow was sacred,
the ox furnished motive power, and, after its usefulness was gone, the
muscular old brute had little attraction for the gourmet. Today lives
a race of beef eaters. Our beef diet, no doubt is bound to change
somewhat. Already the world's grazing grounds are steadily
diminishing. The North American prairies are being parcelled off into
small farms the working conditions of which make beef raising
expensive. The South American pampas and a strip of coastal land in
Australia now furnish the bulk of the world's beef supply. Perhaps
Northern Asia still holds in store a large future supply of meat but
this no doubt will be claimed by Asia. Already North America is
acclimating the Lapland reindeer to offset the waning beef, to utilize
its Northern wastes.
With the increasing shortage of beef, with the increasing facilities
for raising chicken and pork, a reversion to Apician methods of
cookery and diet is not only probably but actually seems inevitable.
The ancient bill of fare and the ancient methods of cookery were
entirely guided by the supply of raw materials--precisely like ours.
They had no great food stores nor very efficient marketing and
transportation systems, food cold storage. They knew, however, to take
care of what there was. They were good managers.
Such atrocities as the willful destruction of huge quantities of food
of every description on the one side and starving multitudes on the
other as seen today never occurred in antiquity.
Many of the Apician dishes will not appeal to the beef eaters. It is
worthy of note that much criticism was heaped upon Apicius some 200
years ago in England when beef eating became fashionable in that
country. The art of Apicius requires practitioners of superior
intellect. Indeed, it requires a superior clientèle to appreciate
Apician dishes. But practitioners that would pass the requirements of
the Apician school are scarce in the kitchens of the beef eaters. We
cannot blame meat eaters for rejecting the average _chef d'{oe}uvre_
set before them by a mediocre cook who has learned little besides the
roasting or broiling of meats. Once the average man has acquired a
taste for the refined compositions made by a talented and experienced
cook, say, a composition of meats, vegetables or cereals, properly
"balanced" by that intuition that never fails the real artist, the
fortunate diner will eventually curtail the preponderant meat diet. A
glance at some Chinese and Japanese methods of cookery may perhaps
convince us of the probability of these remarks.
Nothing is more perplexing and more alarming than a new dish, but we
can see in a reversion to Apician cookery methods only a dietetic
benefit accruing to this so-called white race of beef eaters.
Apicius certainly excels in the preparation of vegetable dishes (cf.
his cabbage and asparagus) and in the utilization of parts of food
materials that are today considered inferior, hardly worth preparing
for the table except by the very careful and economical housekeeper.
Properly prepared, many of these things are good, often more
nutritious than the dearer cuts, and sometimes they are really
delicious.
One has but to study the methods of ancient and intelligent people who
have suffered for thousands of years under the perennial shortage of
food supplies in order to understand and to appreciate Apician
methods. Be it far from us to advocate their methods, or to wish upon
us the conditions that engendered such methods; for such practices
have been pounded into these people by dire necessity. They have
graduated from the merciless school of hunger.
Food materials, we repeat, were never as cheap and as abundant as they
are today. But who can say that they always will be so in the future?
SCIENCE CONFIRMING ANCIENT METHODS
We must not overlook the remarkable intuition displayed by the
ancients in giving preference to foods with body- and blood-building
properties. For instance, the use of liver, particularly fish liver
already referred to. The correctness of their choice is now being
confirmed by scientific re-discoveries. The young science of nutrition
is important enough to an individual who would stimulate or preserve
his health. But since constitutions are different, the most carefully
conceived dietary may apply to one particular individual only,
provided, however, that our present knowledge of nutrition be correct
and final. This knowledge, as a matter of fact, is being revised and
changed constantly.
If dietetics, therefore, were important enough to have any bearing at
all upon the well-defined methods of cookery, we might go into detail
analyzing ancient methods from that point of view. To call attention
to the "economy," the stewardship, or craftsmanship, in ancient
methods and to the truly remarkable intuition that guided the ancient
cooks is more important. Without these qualities there can be no
higher gastronomy. Without high gastronomy no high civilization is
possible. The honest and experienced nutrition expert, though perhaps
personally opposed to elaborate dining, will discover through close
study of the ancient precepts interesting pre-scientific and
well-balanced combinations and methods designed to jealously guard the
vitamins and dietetic values in dishes that may appear curiously "new"
to the layman that would nevertheless receive the unqualified approval
of modern science.
We respect the efforts of modern dietitians and food reformers; but we
are far removed from the so-called "simple" and "plain" foods
advocated by some well-meaning individuals. With the progress of
civilization we are farther and farther drifting away from it. Even
barbaric and beastly food is not "simple."
This furtive "intuition" in cookery (in the absence of scientific
facts because of the inability of cooks to transform empirical
traditions into practical rules emanating from understood principles)
still prevails today. It guides great chefs, saves time spent in
scientific study.
The much criticized "unnatural union of sugar and meats" of the
ancients still exists today in many popular examples of cookery: lamb
and mint sauce, steak and catsup, mutton and currant jelly, pork and
apples (in various forms), oyster cocktail, poultry and compôte, goose
with apple and raisin dressing, venison and Cumberland sauce, mince
pie, plum pudding--typical survivals of ancient traditions.
"Intuition" is still preceding exact science, and "unnatural unions"
as in social, political and any other form of life, seem to be the
rule rather than the exception.
DISGUISING FOODS
Apicius is often blamed for his endeavor to serve one thing under the
guise of another. The reasons for such deceptions are various ones.
Fashion dictated it. Cooks were not considered "clever" unless they
could surprise guests with a commonplace food material so skillfully
prepared that identification was difficult or impossible. Another
reason was the absence of good refrigeration, making "masking"
necessary. Also the ambition of hosts to serve a cheaper food for a
more expensive one--veal for chicken, pork for partridge, and so on.
But do we not indulge in the same "stunts" today? We either do it with
the intention of deceiving or to "show off." Have we not "Mock Turtle
Soup," _Mouton à la Chasseur_, mutton prepared to taste like venison,
"chicken" salad made of veal or of rabbit? In Europe even today much
of the traditional roast hare is caught in the alley, and it belongs
to a feline species. "Roof hare."
FOOD ADULTERATIONS
There is positive evidence of downright frauds and vicious food
adulteration in the times of Apicius. The old rascal himself is not
above giving directions for rose wine without roses, or how to make a
spoiled honey marketable, and other similar adulterations. Those of
our readers with sensitive gastronomic instinct had better skip the
paragraphs discussing the treatment of "birds with a goatish smell."
But the old food adulterators are no match for their modern
successors.
Too, some of our own shams are liable to misinterpretation. In
centuries to come our own modern recipes for "Scotch Woodcock" or
"Welsh rabbit" may be interpreted as attempts on our part to hoodwink
guests by making game birds and rabbits out of cheese and bread, like
Trimalchio's culinary artists are reputed to have made suckling pigs
out of dough, partridges of veal, chicken of tunny fish, and _vice
versa_. What indeed would a serious-minded research worker a thousand
years hence if unfamiliar with our culinary practice and traditions
make of such terms as _pette de nonne_ as found in many old French
cookery books, or of the famous _suttelties_ (subtleties)--the
confections once so popular at medieval weddings?
The ramifications of the _lingua coquinaria_ in any country are
manifold, and the culinary wonderland is full of pitfalls even for the
experienced gourmet.
REACHING THE LIMIT
Like in all other branches of ancient endeavor, cookery had reached a
state of perfection around the time of Apicius when the only chance
for successful continuation of the art lay in the conquest of new
fields, i.e., in expansion, generalization, elaboration and in
influence from foreign sources. We have witnessed this in French
cookery which for the last hundred years has successfully expanded and
has virtually captured the civilized parts of the globe, subject
however, always to regional and territorial modifications.
This desirable expansion of antique cookery did not take place. It was
violently and rather suddenly checked principally by political and
economic events during the centuries following Apicius, perhaps
principally by the forces that caused the great migration (the very
quest of food!). Suspension ensued instead. The heirs to the ancient
culture were not yet ready for their marvelous heritage. Besides their
cultural unpreparedness, the cookery of the ancients, like their
humor, did not readily appeal to the "Nordic" heirs. Both are so
subtle and they depend so much upon the psychology and the economic
conditions of a people, and they thus presented almost unsurmountable
obstacles to the invaders. Still lo! already in the fifth century, the
Goth Vinithaharjis, started to collect the Apician precepts.
OUR PREDECESSORS
The usefulness in our days of Apicius as a practical cookery book has
been questioned, but we leave this to our readers to decide after the
perusal of this translation.
If not useful in the kitchen, if we cannot grasp its moral, what,
then, is Apicius? Merely a curio?
The existing manuscripts cannot be bought; the old printed editions
are highly priced by collectors, and they are rare. Still, the few
persons able to read the messages therein cannot use them: they are
not practitioners in cookery.
None of the Apician editors (except Danneil and the writer) were
experienced practising gastronomers. Humelbergius, Lister, Bernhold
were medical men. Two serious students, Schuch and Wuestemann, gave up
academic positions to devote a year to the study of modern cookery in
order to be able to interpret Apicius. These enthusiasts overlooked,
however, two facts: Apicius cannot be understood by inquiring into
modern average cookery methods, nor can complete mastery of cookery,
practical as well as theoretical, including the historical and
physiological aspects of gastronomy be acquired in one year. Richard
Gollmer, another Apicius editor, declares that the results of this
course in gastronomy were negative. We might add here that Schuch's
edition of Apicius, apart from the unwarranted inclusion of the
_excerpta_ of Vinidarius is the least reliable of all editions.
Gollmer published a free version of Apicius in German in 1909. If he
did not render the original very faithfully and literally, it must
be said in all fairness that his methods of procedure were correct.
Gollmer attempted to interpret the ancient text for the modern
reader. Unfortunately he based his work upon that of Schuch and
Wuestemann and Lister. A year or so later Eduard Danneil published a
version of his own, also based on Schuch. This editor is a
practising _chef_,--_Hof-Traiteur_ or caterer to the court of one of
the then reigning princes of Germany. Danneil's preface is dated
1897, though the date of publication is 1911. In view of the fact
that Gollmer had covered the ground and that Danneil added nothing
new to Apician lore, his publication seems superfluous. Danneil's
translation differs in that the translator adhered literally to the
questionable Schuch version whereas Gollmer aspired to a free and
readable version for an educated public.
A comparison reveals that the one author is not a cook while the other
is not a savant.
Like the scholars who tried their hand at cookery, there are a number
of worthy and ambitious practitioners of cookery who have endeavored
to reach the heights of scholarship, among them Carême and Soyer, men
of great calibre. Unfortunately, the span of human life is short, the
capacity of the human mind is limited. Fruitful achievements in widely
different fields of endeavor by one man are rare. This is merely to
illustrate the extreme difficulty encountered by anyone bent on a
venturesome exploration of our subject and the very narrow chances of
success to extricate himself with grace from the two-thousand year old
labyrinth of philosophical, historical, linguistical and gastronomical
technicalities.
This task will become comparatively easy, however, and surely
interesting and with a foreboding of many delights and surprises if we
penetrate the jungle aided by the experience of predecessors,
steadfastly relying on the "theory of evolution" as a guide, and armed
with the indispensable equipment for gastronomical research, i.e., the
practical and technical knowledge of cookery, mastery of languages,
augmented by practical experience gathered by observations and travel
in many lands, and last but not least, if we are obsessed with the
fixed idea that so menial a subject is worth all the bother.
We have purposely refrained from presenting here a treatise in the
customary scientific style. We know, there are repetitions,
digressions, excursions into adjacent fields that may be open to
criticism. We really do not aim to make this critical review an
exhibition of scholarly attainments with all the necessary brevity,
clarity, scientific restraint and etiquette. Such style would be
entirely out of our line. Any bookish flavor attaching itself to our
work would soon replace a natural fragrance we aim to preserve, namely
our close contact with the subject. Those interested in the scholarly
work that has been contributed to this cause are referred to modern
men like Vollmer, Giarratano, Brandt and others named in the
bibliography. Of the older scientists there is Martinus Lister, a man
whose knowledge of the subject is very respectable and whose devotion
to it is unbounded, whose integrity as a scientist is above reproach.
His notes and commentaries together with those of Humelbergius, the
editor-physician of Zürich, will be enjoyed and read with profit by
every antiquary. The labors of Bernhold and Schuch are meritorious
also, the work, time, and _esprit_ these men have devoted to the
subject is enormous. As for Torinus, the opinions are divided.
Humelbergius ignores him, Gryphius pirates him, Lister scorns him, we
like him. Lister praises his brother physician, Humelbergius: _Doctus
quidem vir et modestus!_ So he is! The notes by Humelbergius alone and
his word: _Nihil immutare ausi summus!_ entitles him to all the praise
Lister can bestow. Unfortunately, the sources of his information are
unknown.
Lacking these, we have of course no means of ascertaining whether he
always lived up to his word that he is not privileged to change.
Humelbergius and Lister may have made contributions of value from a
philological point of view but their work appears to have less merit
gastronomically than that of Torinus. To us the Basel editor often
seems surprisingly correct in cases where the gastronomical character
of a formula is in doubt.
In rendering the ancient text into English we, too, have endeavored to
follow Humelbergii example; hence the almost literal translation of
the originals before us, namely, Torinus, Humelbergius, Lister,
Bernhold, Schuch and the latest, Giarratano-Vollmer which reached us
in 1925 in time for collating. We have wavered often and long whether
or not to place alongside this English version the original Latin
text, but due to the divergencies we have finally abandoned the idea,
for practical reasons alone.
In translating we have endeavored to clear up mysteries and errors;
this interpretation is a work quite apart and independent of that of
the translation. It is merely the sum and substance of our practical
experience in gastronomy. It is not to be taken as an attempt to
change the original but is presented in good faith, to be taken on its
face value. This interpretation appears in the form of notes directly
under each article, for quick reference and it is our wish that it be
of some practical service in contributing to the general understanding
and appreciation of our ancient book.
For the sake of expediency we have numbered and placed a title (in
English) on each ancient recipe, following the example of Schuch. This
procedure may be counted against us as a liberty taken with the text.
The text has remained inviolate. We have merely aimed at a rational
and legible presentation--work within the province and the duty of an
editor-translator and technical expert.
We do not claim credit for any other work connected with the task of
making this most unique book accessible to the English speaking public
and for the competition for scholastic laurels we wish to stay _hors
de combat_. We feel we are not privileged to pass final judgment upon
the excellent work done by sympathetic and erudite admirers of our
ancient book throughout the better part of four centuries, and we
cannot side with one or the other in questions philological,
historical, or of any other nature, except gastronomical. We are
deeply indebted to all of our predecessors and through conversations
and extensive correspondence with other modern researchers, Dr. Edward
Brandt and Dr. Margaret B. Wilson, we are enabled to predict new
developments in Apician research. The debates of the scientists, it
appears, are not yet closed.
As a matter of fact, the various differences of opinion in minor
questions are of little import to us as compared with the delightful
fact that we here possess an Apicius, not only a genuine Roman, but an
"honest-to-goodness" human being besides. A jolly fellow is Apicius
with a basketful of happy messages for a hungry world. We therefore
want to make this work of ours the entertainment and instruction the
subject deserves to be. If we succeed in proving that Apicius is not a
mummified, bone-dry classic but that he has "the goods," namely some
real human merit we shall have accomplished more than the savants to
whom this popularization of our hero has been denied so far.
After all, we live in a practical age, and it is the practical value,
the matter-of-fact contribution to our happiness and well-being by the
work of any man, ancient or modern, which counts in these days of
materialism.
So let us tell the truth, and let us sum up in a few words:
We do not know who Apicius is. We do not know who wrote the book
bearing his name. We do not know when it was written, or whether it
is of Greek or of Roman origin. Furthermore, we do not understand many
of its precepts!
We do know, however, that it is the oldest work dealing with the food
and the cookery of the ancient world's greatest empire, and that, as
such, it is of the utmost interest and importance to us.
In this sense we have endeavored to treat the book.
DINING IN APICIAN STYLE
Past attempts to dine à l'Apicius invariably have ended disastrously.
Eager _gourmets_, ever on the look-out for something new, and curious
scholars have attempted to prepare dishes in the manner prescribed by
Apicius. Most of such experimenters have executed the old precepts
literally, instead of trying to enter into their spirit.
"_Das Land der Griechen mit der Seele suchen!_" says Goethe. The
friends of Apicius who failed to heed this advice, also failed to
comprehend the precepts, they were cured of their curiosity, and
blamed the master for their own shortcomings. Christina, queen of
Sweden, was made ill by an attempt of this kind to regale her majesty
with a rare Apician morsel while in Italy as the guest of some noble.
But history is dark on this point. Here perhaps Apicius is blamed for
a dastardly attempt on the royal lady's life for this daughter of the
Protestant Gustavus Adolphus was in those days not the only crowned
head in danger of being dispatched by means of some tempting morsel
smilingly proffered by some titled rogue. A deadly dish under the
disguise of "Apicius" must have been particularly convenient in those
days for such sinister purposes. The sacred obligations imposed upon
"barbarians" by the virtue of hospitality had been often forgotten by
the super-refined hosts of the Renaissance.
But Apicius continued to prove unhealthful to a number of later
amateurs. Lister, with his perfectly sincere endeavor to popularize
Apicius, achieved precisely the opposite. The publication of his work
in London, 1705, was the signal for a number of people, scholars and
others, to crack jokes, not at the expense of Apicius, as they
imagined, but to expose their own ignorance. Smollet, Dr. W. King
("Poor starving wit"--Swift), Dr. Hunter and others. More recently, a
party of English dandies, chaperoned, if we remember correctly, by the
ponderous George Augustus Sala, fared likewise badly in their attempt
to stage a Roman feast, being under the impression that the days of
Tiberius and the mid-Victorian era may be joined with impunity, _à la
minute_, as it were.
Even later, in one of the (alas! not so many) good books on
gastronomy, "Kettner's Book of the Table," London, 1877, the excellent
author dismisses Roman cookery with a few lines of "warning." Kettner,
admirer of Sala, evidently was still under the baneful influence.
Twenty years later, Danneil, colleague of Kettner's, joined the chorus
of "irreverent critics." They all based their judgment on mere idle
conversation, resulting from disappointments in ill-fated attempts to
cook in the Apician style. Even the best experts, it appears, fall
victims to the mysterious spell surrounding, protecting things of
sacred antiquity, hovering like an avenging angel over them, to ward
off all "irreverent critics" and curious intruders.
THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING
After all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. This homely
solid wisdom is literally true of our good old Apicius. We have tested
many of his precepts, and have found them practical, good, even
delightful. A few, we will say, are of the rarest beauty and of
consummate perfection in the realm of gastronomy, while some others
again are totally unintelligible for reasons sufficiently explained.
Always remembering Humelbergius, we have "laid off" of these torsos,
recommending them to some more competent commentator. Many of the
ancient formula tried have our unqualified gastronomic approval.
If our work has not differed from that of our predecessors, if it
shows the same human frailties and foibles, we have at least one mark
of distinction among the editors in that we have subjected the
original to severe practical tests as much as this is possible with
our modern food materials. We experienced difficulty in securing
certain spices long out of use. Nevertheless, the experience of
actually sampling Apician dishes and the sensation of dining in the
manners of the Cæsars are worth the trouble we took with Apicius. This
is a feeling of partaking of an entirely new dish, met with both
expectancy and with suspicion, accentuated by the hallowed traditions
surrounding it which has rewarded us for the time and expense devoted
to the subject. Ever since we have often dined in the classical
fashion of the ancients who, after all, were but "folks" like
ourselves.
If you care not for the carnal pleasures in Apician gastronomy--for
_gulam_,--if you don't give a fig for philology, there still is something
healthy, something infinitely soothing and comforting--"educational"--in
the perusal of the old book and in similar records.
When we see Apicius, the famous "epicure" descending to the very level
of a common food "fakir," giving directions for making Liburnian oil
that has never seen that country....
When we note, with a gentle shudder, that the grafters of Naples,
defying even the mighty Augustus, leveled the "White Earth Hill" near
Puteoli because an admixture of plaster paris is exceedingly
profitable to the milling profession....
When Apicius--celebrated glutton--resorts to the comparatively
harmless "stunt" of keeping fresh vegetables green by boiling them in
a copper kettle with soda....
When we behold hordes of ancient legislators, posing as dervishes of
moderation, secretly and openly breaking the prohibition laws of their
own making....
When we turn away from such familiar sights and, in a more jovial
mood, heartily laugh at the jokes of that former mill slave, Plautus
(who could not pay his bills) and when we wonder why his wise cracks
sound so familiar we remember that we have heard their modern versions
only yesterday at the Tivoli on State Street....
When, finally, in the company of our respected Horatius we hear him
say in the slang of his day: _Ab ovo usque ad mala_, and compare this
bright saying with our own dear "From Soup to Nuts."...
Then we arrive at the comforting conclusion that we moderns are either
very ancient and backward or that indeed the ancients are very modern
and progressive; and it is our only regret that we cannot decide this
perplexing situation to our lasting satisfaction.
Very true, there may be nothing new under the sun, yet nature goes on
eternally fashioning new things from old materials. Eternally
demolishing old models in a manner of an economical sculptor, nature
uses the same old clay to create new specimens. Sometimes nature
slightly alters the patterns, discarding what is unfit for her
momentary enigmatic purposes, retaining and favoring that which
pleases her whimsical fancy for the time being.
Cookery deals exclusively with nature's works. Books on cookery are
essentially books on nature's actions and reactions.
In the perpetual search for perfection, life has accomplished one
remarkable thing: the development of man, the animal which cooks.
Gradually nature has revealed herself to man principally through the
food he takes, cooks and prepares for the enjoyment of himself and his
fellow men.
THE COOKING ANIMAL
The gastronomer is the highest development of the cooking animal.
He--artist, philosopher, metaphysician, religionist--stands with his
head bared before nature: overawed, contemplating her gifts, feasting
his eyes on beauteous forms and colors, inhaling intoxicating
fragrances, aromas, odors, matching them all artistically, partaking
only of what he needs for his own subsistence--eternally marveling at
nature's inexhaustible resources and inventiveness, at her everlasting
bounty born of everlasting fierce struggles.
The gastronomer is grateful for the privilege of holding the
custodianship of such precious things, and he guards it like an office
of a sacred rite--ever gratefully, reverently adoring, cherishing the
things before him ... ever marveling ... ever alone, alone with
nature.
As for the overwhelming majority of the cooking animals, they behave
much more "naturally." They are a merry crowd, ever anticipating a
good time, ever jolly, eager, greedy. Or, they are cranky, hungry,
starved, miserable, and they turn savage now and then. Some are
gluttonous. Many contract indigestion--nature's most subtle
punishment.
If they were told that they must kill before they may cook--that might
spoil the appetite and dinner joy of many a tender-hearted devourer of
fellow-creatures.
Heaven forbid! Being real children of nature, and behaving naturally,
nature likes them, and we, too, certainly are well pleased with the
majority.
The only fly in the ointment of life is that we don't know what it is
all about, and probably never will know.
PRO{OE}MII FINIS
{Illustration: TRIPOD FOR THE GREAT CRATER
Hildesheim Treasure}
THE RECIPES OF APICIUS
AND
THE EXCERPTS FROM APICIUS
BY VINIDARIUS
ORIGINAL TRANSLATION FROM THE TEXTS
OF TORINUS, HUMELBERGIUS, LISTER
AND GIARRATANO-VOLLMER
WITH NOTES AND COMMENTS
{Illustration: "DINNER GONG"
Heavy bronze disk and substantial "knocker" to signal slaves. Found in
Pompeii. "Hurry, fellows, the cakes are piping hot!"--Plautus. Ntl.
Mus., Naples, 78622; Field M., 24133.}
{Illustration: OVAL SERVICE DISH
With two decorated handles. Hildesheim Treas.}
THE TEN BOOKS OF APICIUS
I. THE CAREFUL EXPERIENCED COOK. II. MINCES. III. THE GARDENER. IV.
MISCELLANEOUS DISHES. V. LEGUMES. VI. POULTRY. VII. FANCY DISHES.
VIII. QUADRUPEDS. IX. SEA FOOD. X. FISH SAUCES. THE EXCERPTS OF
VINIDARIUS.
[V. The Greek titles of the ten books point to a common Greek origin,
indicating that Apicius is a collection of Greek monographs on various
branches of cookery, specialization such as highly developed
civilizations would produce. Both the literary style and the contents
of the books point to different authors, as may be seen from the very
repetitions of and similarities in subjects as in VI and VIII, and in
IX and X. The absence of books on bread and cake baking, dessert
cookery indicates that the present Apicius is not complete.]
BOOK I. THE CAREFUL EXPERIENCED COOK
_Lib. I. Epimeles_
CHAP. I. FINE SPICED WINE. HONEY REFRESHER FOR TRAVELERS.
CHAP. II. ROMAN VERMOUTH.
CHAP. III. ROSE WINE. VIOLET WINE. ROSE WINE WITHOUT ROSES.
CHAP. IV. LIBURNIAN OIL.
CHAP. V. TO CLARIFY MUDDY WINE.
CHAP. VI. TO IMPROVE A BROTH WITH A BAD ODOR.
CHAP. VII. TO KEEP MEATS FRESH WITHOUT SALT. TO KEEP COOKED
SIDES OF PORK.
CHAP. VIII. TO MAKE SALT MEATS SWEET.
CHAP. IX. TO KEEP FRIED FISH. TO KEEP OYSTERS.
CHAP. X. TO MAKE LASER GO A LONG WAY.
CHAP. XI. TO MAKE HONEY CAKES LAST. TO MAKE SPOILED HONEY GOOD.
TO TEST SPOILED HONEY.
CHAP. XII. TO KEEP GRAPES. TO KEEP POMEGRANATES. TO KEEP QUINCES.
TO PRESERVE FRESH FIGS. TO KEEP CITRON. TO KEEP
MULBERRIES. TO KEEP POT HERBS. TO PRESERVE SORREL. TO
KEEP TRUFFLES. TO KEEP HARD-SKINNED PEACHES.
CHAP. XIII. SPICED SALTS FOR MANY ILLS.
CHAP. XIV. TO KEEP GREEN OLIVES.
CHAP. XV. CUMIN SAUCE FOR SHELLFISH. ANOTHER.
CHAP. XVI. LASER FLAVOR. ANOTHER.
CHAP. XVII. WINE SAUCE FOR TRUFFLES. ANOTHER.
CHAP. XVIII. OXYPORUM.
CHAP. XIX. HYPOTRIMA.
CHAP. XX. OXYGARUM, DIGESTIVE. ANOTHER.
CHAP. XXI. MORTARIA.
I
[1] FINE SPICED WINE
_CONDITUM PARADOXUM_
THE COMPOSITION OF [this] EXCELLENT SPICED WINE [is as follows]. INTO
A COPPER BOWL PUT 6 SEXTARII [1] OF HONEY AND 2 SEXTARII OF WINE; HEAT
ON A SLOW FIRE, CONSTANTLY STIRRING THE MIXTURE WITH A WHIP. AT THE
BOILING POINT ADD A DASH OF COLD WINE, RETIRE FROM STOVE AND SKIM.
REPEAT THIS TWICE OR THREE TIMES, LET IT REST TILL THE NEXT DAY, AND
SKIM AGAIN. THEN ADD 4 OZS. OF CRUSHED PEPPER [2], 3 SCRUPLES OF
MASTICH, A DRACHM EACH OF [nard or laurel] LEAVES AND SAFFRON, 5
DRACHMS OF ROASTED DATE STONES CRUSHED AND PREVIOUSLY SOAKED IN WINE
TO SOFTEN THEM. WHEN THIS IS PROPERLY DONE ADD 18 SEXTARII OF LIGHT
WINE. TO CLARIFY IT PERFECTLY, ADD [crushed] CHARCOAL [3] TWICE OR AS
OFTEN AS NECESSARY WHICH WILL DRAW [the residue] TOGETHER [and
carefully strain or filter through the charcoal].
[1] _Sextarii._ Tor. _partes XV_; G.-V. _pondo XV_;
List. _partes XV ... pondo lib.... qui continent
sextarios sex_. One sextarius (a "sixth") equals about
1-1/2 pint English.
[2] Pepper. _Piperis uncias IV_--ordinarily our black or
white pepper grains, but in connection with honey,
sweets, and so forth, the term "pepper" may just as well
stand for our allspice, or even for any spicing in
general.
[3] Charcoal. Still a favorite filterer for liquors.
List. Apicius is correct in starting his book with this
formula, as all meals were started with this sort of
mixed drink.
Tor. deviates from the other texts in that he elaborates
on the cooking process.
[2] HONEY REFRESHER FOR TRAVELERS
_CONDITUM MELIZOMUM _[1]_ VIATORIUM_
THE WAYFARER'S HONEY REFRESHER (SO CALLED BECAUSE IT GIVES ENDURANCE
AND STRENGTH TO PEDESTRIANS) [2] WITH WHICH TRAVELERS ARE REFRESHED BY
THE WAYSIDE IS MADE IN THIS MANNER: FLAVOR HONEY WITH GROUND PEPPER
AND SKIM. IN THE MOMENT OF SERVING PUT HONEY IN A CUP, AS MUCH AS IS
DESIRED TO OBTAIN THE RIGHT DEGREE OF SWEETNESS, AND MIX SPICED WINE
NOT MORE THAN A NEEDED QUANTITY; ALSO ADD SOME WINE TO THE SPICED
HONEY TO FACILITATE ITS FLOW AND THE MIXING.
[1] Tor. _Melirhomum_; _non extat_. G.-V. M.
_perpetuum_, i.e., having good keeping qualities.
[2] Tor. reads thus whereas others apply "endurance" to
the honey itself. The honey could not be preserved
(_perpetuum_) by the addition of pepper. Any addition,
as a matter of fact, would hasten its deterioration
unless the honey were boiled and sealed tight, which the
original takes for granted.
II
[3] ROMAN VERMOUTH
_ABSINTHIUM ROMANUM_ [1]
ROMAN VERMOUTH [or Absinth] IS MADE THUS: ACCORDING TO THE RECIPE OF
CAMERINUM [2] YOU NEED WORMWOOD FROM SANTO [3] FOR ROMAN VERMOUTH OR,
AS A SUBSTITUTE, WORMWOOD FROM THE PONTUS [4] CLEANED AND CRUSHED, 1
THEBAN OUNCE [5] OF IT, 6 SCRUPLES OF MASTICH, 3 EACH OF [nard]
LEAVES, COSTMARY [6] AND SAFFRON AND 18 QUARTS OF ANY KIND OF MILD
WINE. [Filter cold] CHARCOAL IS NOT REQUIRED BECAUSE OF THE
BITTERNESS.
[1] G.-V. _Apsinthium_.
[2] The mention of a name in a recipe is very
infrequent. Camerinum is a town in Umbria.
[3] Now Saintonge, Southern France.
[4] Black Sea Region.
[5] Weight of indefinite volume, from Thebæ, one of the
several ancient cities by that name. List. thinks it is
an Egyptian ounce, and that the author of the recipe
must be an African.
[6] Wanting in Tor.; G.-V. _costi scripulos senos_.
III
[4] ROSE WINE [1]
_ROSATUM_
MAKE ROSE WINE IN THIS MANNER: ROSE PETALS, THE LOWER WHITE PART
REMOVED, SEWED INTO A LINEN BAG AND IMMERSED IN WINE FOR SEVEN DAYS.
THEREUPON ADD A SACK OF NEW PETALS WHICH ALLOW TO DRAW FOR ANOTHER
SEVEN DAYS. AGAIN REMOVE THE OLD PETALS AND REPLACE THEM BY FRESH ONES
FOR ANOTHER WEEK; THEN STRAIN THE WINE THROUGH THE COLANDER. BEFORE
SERVING, ADD HONEY SWEETENING TO TASTE. TAKE CARE THAT ONLY THE BEST
PETALS FREE FROM DEW BE USED FOR SOAKING.
[1] Used principally as a laxative medicine. List. These
wines compounded of roses and violets move the bowels
strongly.
[5] VIOLET WINE
_VIOLATIUM_
IN A SIMILAR WAY AS ABOVE LIKE THE ROSE WINE VIOLET WINE IS MADE OF
FRESH VIOLETS, AND TEMPERED WITH HONEY, AS DIRECTED.
[6] ROSE WINE WITHOUT [1] ROSES
_ROSATUM SINE ROSA_
ROSE WINE WITHOUT ROSES IS MADE IN THIS FASHION: A PALM LEAF BASKET
FULL OF FRESH CITRUS LEAVES IS IMMERSED IN THE VAT OF NEW WINE BEFORE
FERMENTATION HAS SET IN. AFTER FORTY DAYS RETIRE THE LEAVES, AND, AS
OCCASION ARISES, SWEETEN THE WINE WITH HONEY, AND PASS IT UP FOR ROSE
WINE.
[1] A substitute.
IV
[7] LIBURNIAN OIL
_OLEUM LIBURNICUM_
IN ORDER TO MAKE AN OIL SIMILAR TO THE LIBURNIAN OIL PROCEED AS
FOLLOWS: IN SPANISH OIL PUT [the following mixture of] ELECAMPANE,
CYPRIAN RUSH AND GREEN LAUREL LEAVES THAT ARE NOT TOO OLD, ALL OF IT
CRUSHED AND MACERATED AND REDUCED TO A FINE POWDER. SIFT THIS IN AND
ADD FINELY GROUND SALT AND STIR INDUSTRIOUSLY FOR THREE DAYS OR MORE.
THEN ALLOW TO SETTLE. EVERYBODY WILL TAKE THIS FOR LIBURNIAN OIL. [1]
[1] Like the above a flagrant case of food adulteration.
V
[8] TO CLARIFY MUDDY WINE
_VINUM EX ATRO CANDIDUM FACIES_
PUT BEAN MEAL AND THE WHITES OF THREE EGGS IN A MIXING BOWL. MIX
THOROUGHLY WITH A WHIP AND ADD TO THE WINE, STIRRING FOR A LONG TIME.
THE NEXT DAY THE WINE WILL BE CLEAR [1]. ASHES OF VINES HAVE THE SAME
EFFECT.
[1] Ex Lister whose version we prefer. He says, _Alias
die erit candidum_ while Tor. adds white salt, saying,
_sal si adieceris candidum_, same as Tac. This is
unusual, although the ancients have at times treated
wine with sea water.
VI
[9] TO IMPROVE A BROTH [1]
_DE LIQUAMINE EMENDANDO_ [2]
IF BROTH HAS CONTRACTED A BAD ODOR, PLACE A VESSEL UPSIDE DOWN AND
FUMIGATE IT WITH LAUREL AND CYPRESS AND BEFORE VENTILATING [3] IT,
POUR THE BROTH IN THIS VESSEL. IF THIS DOES NOT HELP MATTERS [4] AND
IF THE TASTE IS TOO PRONOUNCED, ADD HONEY AND FRESH SPIKENARD [5] TO
IT; THAT WILL IMPROVE IT. ALSO NEW MUST SHOULD BE LIKEWISE EFFECTIVE
[6].
[1] List. _Liquamen, id est, garum_. Goll. Fish sauce.
[2] Tor. _Qui liquamen corruptum corrigatur_.
[3] Dann. Ventilate it. Goll. Whip the sauce in fresh
air.
[4] List., G.-V. _si salsum fuerit_--if this makes it
too salty--Tor. _si hoc nihil effecerit_.
[5] Tor. _novem spicam immittas_; List. _Move spica_;
Goll.-Dann. stir with a whip.
[6] A classic example of Apician confusion when one
interpreter reads "s" for "f" and "_novem_" for "_move_"
and another reads something else. Tor. is more correct
than the others, but this formula is beyond redemption.
Fate has decreed that ill-smelling broths shall be
discarded.
VII
[10] TO KEEP MEATS FRESH WITHOUT SALT FOR ANY LENGTH OF TIME
_UT CARNES SINE SALE QUOVIS TEMPORE RECENTES SINT_
COVER FRESH MEAT WITH HONEY, SUSPEND IT IN A VESSEL. USE AS NEEDED; IN
WINTER IT WILL KEEP BUT IN SUMMER IT WILL LAST ONLY A FEW DAYS. COOKED
MEAT MAY BE TREATED LIKEWISE.
[11] TO KEEP COOKED SIDES OF PORK OR BEEF OR TENDERLOINS
_CALLUM PORCINUM VEL BUBULUM ET UNGUELLÆ COCTÆ UT DIU DURENT_
PLACE THEM IN A PICKLE OF MUSTARD, VINEGAR, SALT AND HONEY, COVERING
MEAT ENTIRELY, AND WHEN READY TO USE YOU'LL BE SURPRISED.
V. Method still popular today for pickling raw meats.
The originals treat of cooked meats (Tor. _nucula
elixa_; G.-V. _unguellæ coctæ_; Tac. _nucella cocta_).
Dispensing with the honey, we use more spices, whole
pepper, cloves, bay leaves, also onions and root
vegetables. Sometimes a little sugar and wine is added
to this preparation which the French call _marinade_ and
the Germans _Sauerbraten-Einlage_.
VIII
[12] TO MAKE SALT MEAT SWEET
_UT CARNEM SALSAM DULCEM FACIAS_
YOU CAN MAKE SALT MEATS SWEET BY FIRST BOILING THEM IN MILK AND THEN
FINISHING THEM IN WATER.
V. Method still in practice today. Salt mackerel, finnan
haddie, etc., are parboiled in milk prior to being
boiled in water or broiled or fried.
IX
[13] TO KEEP FRIED FISH
_UT PISCES FRICTI DIU DURENT_
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THEY ARE FRIED POUR HOT VINEGAR OVER THEM.
Dann. Exactly as we today with fried herring and river
lamprey.
[14] TO KEEP OYSTERS
_OSTREA UT DIU DURENT_
FUMIGATE A VINEGAR BARREL WITH PITCH [1], WASH IT OUT WITH VINEGAR AND
STACK THE OYSTERS IN IT [2]
[1] Tor. _vas ascernum_, corrected on margin, _ab
aceto_. List. _vas ab aceto_, which is correct. G.-V.
_lavas ab aceto_; V. the oysters? unthinkable! Besides
it would do no good.
[2] Goll. Take oysters out of the shell, place in
vinegar barrel, sprinkle with laurel berries, fine salt,
close tight. V. Goll's authority for this version is
not found in our originals.
V. There is no way to keep live oysters fresh except in
their natural habitat--salt water. Today we pack them in
barrels, feed them with oatmeal, put weights on them--of
no avail. The only way English oysters could have
arrived fresh in Imperial Rome was in specially
constructed bottoms of the galleys.
X
[15] MAKING A LITTLE LASER GO A LONG WAY
_UT NUCIA _[1]_ LASERIS TOTO TEMPORE UTARIS_
PUT THE LASER [2] IN A SPACIOUS GLASS VESSEL; IMMERSE ABOUT 20 PINE
KERNELS [pignolia nuts]
IF YOU NEED LASER FLAVOR, TAKE SOME NUTS, CRUSH THEM; THEY WILL IMPART
TO YOUR DISH AN ADMIRABLE FLAVOR. REPLACE THE USED NUTS WITH A LIKE
NUMBER OF FRESH ONES [3]
[1] List. and G.-V. _uncia_--ounce. Making an ounce of
laser go a long way. Tor. _nucea_; Tac. _nucia_. Lister,
fond of hair-splitting, is irreconcilably opposed to
Tor., and berates Caspar Barthius for defending Tor.
List. _Quam futilis sit in multis labor C. Barthii ut
menda Torini passim sustineat, vel ex hoc loco
intelligere licet: Et enim lege modo uncia pro nucea cum
Humelbergio, & ista omnia glossemata vana sunt._
V. both readings, _uncia_ or _nucia_ are permissible,
and make very little difference. We side with Tor. and
Tac. because it takes more than an ounce of laser to
carry out this experiment.
[2] _Laser_, _laserpitium_, cf. dictionary.
[3] V. This article illustrates how sparingly the
ancients used the strong and pungent laser flavor [by
some believed to be _asa foetida_] because it was very
expensive, but principally because the Roman cooks
worked economically and knew how to treat spices and
flavors judiciously. This article alone should disperse
for all time all stories of ancient Rome's extravagance
in flavoring and seasoning dishes. It reminds of the
methods used by European cooks to get the utmost use out
of the expensive vanilla bean: they bury the bean in a
can of powdered sugar. They will use the sugar only
which has soon acquired a delicate vanilla perfume, and
will replace the used sugar by a fresh supply. This is
by far a superior method to using the often rank and
adulterated "vanilla extract" readily bottled. It is
more gastronomical and more economical. Most commercial
extracts are synthetic, some injurious. To believe that
any of them impart to the dishes the true flavor desired
is of course ridiculous. The enormous consumption of
such extracts however, is characteristic of our
industrialized barbarism which is so utterly indifferent
to the fine points in food. Today it is indeed hard for
the public to obtain a real vanilla bean.
Cf. also notes regarding flavoring to Nos. 276-7, 345
and 385.
XI
[16] TO MAKE HONEY CAKES LAST
_UT DULCIA DE MELLE DIU DURENT_
TO MAKE HONEY CAKES THAT WILL KEEP TAKE WHAT THE GREEKS CALL YEAST [1]
AND MIX IT WITH THE FLOUR AND THE HONEY AT THE TIME WHEN MAKING THE
COOKY DOUGH.
[1] Tor. and Tac. _nechon_; G.-V. _cnecon_; Dann.
_penion_.
[17] SPOILED HONEY MADE GOOD
_UT MEL MALUM BONUM FACIAS_
HOW BAD HONEY MAY BE TURNED INTO A SALEABLE ARTICLE IS TO MIX ONE PART
OF THE SPOILED HONEY WITH TWO PARTS OF GOOD HONEY.
List. _indigna fraus_! V. We all agree with Lister that
this is contemptible business. This casts another light
on the ancients' methods of food adulteration.
[18] TO TEST SPOILED HONEY
_MEL CORRUPTUM UT PROBES_
IMMERSE ELENCAMPANE IN HONEY AND LIGHT IT; IF GOOD, IT WILL BURN
BRIGHTLY.
XII
[19] TO KEEP GRAPES
_UVÆ UT DIU SERVENTUR_
TAKE PERFECT GRAPES FROM THE VINES, PLACE THEM IN A VESSEL AND POUR
RAIN WATER OVER THEM THAT HAS BEEN BOILED DOWN ONE THIRD OF ITS
VOLUME. THE VESSEL MUST BE PITCHED AND SEALED WITH PLASTER, AND MUST
BE KEPT IN A COOL PLACE TO WHICH THE SUN HAS NO ACCESS. TREATED IN
THIS MANNER, THE GRAPES WILL BE FRESH WHENEVER YOU NEED THEM. YOU CAN
ALSO SERVE THIS WATER AS HONEY MEAD TO THE SICK.
ALSO, IF YOU COVER THE GRAPES WITH BARLEY [bran] YOU WILL FIND THEM
SOUND AND UNINJURED.
V. We keep grapes in cork shavings, bran and saw dust.
[20] TO KEEP POMEGRANATES
_UT MALA GRANATA DIU DURENT_ [1]
STEEP THEM INTO HOT [sea] WATER, TAKE THEM OUT IMMEDIATELY AND HANG
THEM UP. [Tor.] THEY WILL KEEP.
[1] Tor. _conditura malorum Punicorum_; Tac. _mala
granata_; G.-V. _mala et mala granata_.
[21] TO KEEP QUINCES
_UT MALA CYDONIA DIU SERVENTUR_
PICK OUT PERFECT QUINCES WITH STEMS [1] AND LEAVES. PLACE THEM IN A
VESSEL, POUR OVER HONEY AND DEFRUTUM [2] AND YOU'LL PRESERVE THEM FOR
A LONG TIME [3].
[1] V. Excellent idea, for the stems, if removed, would
leave a wound in the fruit for the air to penetrate and
to start fermentation. Cf. also the next formula.
[2] G.-V. _defritum_, from _defervitum_; _defrutum_ is
new wine, spiced, boiled down to one half of its volume.
[3] This precept would not keep the fruit very long
unless protected by a closefitting cover and
sterilization. Cf. No. 24.
[22] TO PRESERVE FRESH FIGS, APPLES, PLUMS, PEARS AND CHERRIES
_FICUM RECENTEM, MALA, PRUNA, PIRA, CERASIA UT DIU SERVES_
SELECT THEM ALL VERY CAREFULLY WITH THE STEMS ON [1] AND PLACE THEM IN
HONEY SO THEY DO NOT TOUCH EACH OTHER.
[1] See the preceding formula.
[23] TO KEEP CITRON
_CITRIA UT DIU DURENT_ [1]
PLACE THEM IN A GLASS [2] VESSEL WHICH IS SEALED WITH PLASTER AND
SUSPENDED.
[1] Tor. _conditura malorum Medicorum quæ et citria
dicuntur_. V. Not quite identified. Fruit coming from
Asia Minor, Media or Persia, one of the many varieties
of citrus fruit. Probably citron because of their size.
Goll. Lemon-apples; Dann. lemons (oranges). List.
_Scilicet mala, quæ Dioscorides Persica quoque & Medica,
& citromala, Plinius item Assyria appellari dicit_.
[2] G.-V. _vas vitreum_; Tac. and Tor. _vas citrum_; V.
a glass vessel could not be successfully sealed with
plaster paris, and the experiment would fail; cf. note 3
to No. 21.
[24] TO KEEP MULBERRIES
_MORA UT DIU DURENT_
MULBERRIES, IN ORDER TO KEEP THEM, MUST BE LAID INTO THEIR OWN JUICE
MIXED WITH NEW WINE [boiled down to one half] IN A GLASS VESSEL AND
MUST BE WATCHED ALL THE TIME [so that they do not spoil].
V. This and the foregoing formulæ illustrate the
ancients' attempts at preserving foods, and they betray
their ignorance of "processing" by heating them in
hermetically sealed vessels, the principle of which was
not discovered until 1810 by Appert which started the
now gigantic industry of canning.
[25] TO KEEP POT HERBS
[_H_]_OLERA UT DIU SERVENTUR_
PLACE SELECTED POT HERBS, NOT TOO MATURE, IN A PITCHED VESSEL.
[26] TO PRESERVE SORREL OR SOUR DOCK
_LAPÆ _[1]_ UT DIU SERVENTUR_
TRIM AND CLEAN [the vegetable] PLACE THEM TOGETHER SPRINKLE MYRTLE
BERRIES BETWEEN, COVER WITH HONEY AND VINEGAR.
ANOTHER WAY: PREPARE MUSTARD HONEY AND VINEGAR ALSO SALT AND COVER
THEM WITH THE SAME.
[1] The kind of vegetable to be treated here has not
been sufficiently identified. List. and G.-V.
_rapæ_--turnips--from _rapus_, seldom _rapa_,--a rape,
turnip, navew. Tac. and Tor. _Lapæ_ (_lapathum_), kind
of sorrel, monk's rhubarb, dock. Tor. explaining at
length: _conditura Rumicis quod lapathon Græci, Latini
Lapam quoque dicunt_.
V. Tor. is correct, or nearly so. Turnips, in the first
place, are not in need of any special method of
preservation. They keep very well in a cool,
well-ventilated place; in fact they would hardly keep
very long if treated in the above manner. These
directions are better applied to vegetables like dock or
monk's rhubarb. Lister, taking Humelbergii word for it,
accepts "turnips" as the only truth; but he has little
occasion to assail Torinus as he does: _Torinus lapam
legit, & nullibi temeritatem suam atque inscientiam
magis ostendit._
Now, if Torinus, according to Lister, "nowhere displays
more nerve and ignorance" we can well afford to trust
Torinus in cases such as this.
[27] TO KEEP TRUFFLES
_TUBERA UT DIU SERVENTUR_
THE TRUFFLES WHICH MUST NOT BE TOUCHED BY WATER ARE PLACED ALTERNATELY
IN DRY SAWDUST; SEAL THE VESSEL WITH PLASTER AND DEPOSIT IT IN A COOL
PLACE.
Dann. Clean [peel] the truffles ... in another vessel
place the peelings, seal the vessels.... V. this would
be the ruin of the truffles, unless they were
"processed" in the modern way. Our originals have
nothing that would warrant this interpretation.
[28] TO KEEP HARD-SKINNED PEACHES
_DURACINA PERSICA UT DIU DURENT_
SELECT THE BEST AND PUT THEM IN BRINE. THE NEXT DAY REMOVE THEM AND
RINSING THEM CAREFULLY SET THEM IN PLACE IN A VESSEL, SPRINKLE WITH
SALT AND SATURY AND IMMERSE IN VINEGAR.
XIII
[29] SALTS FOR MANY [ILLS]
_SALES CONDITOS AD MULTA_
THESE SPICED SALTS ARE USED AGAINST INDIGESTION, TO MOVE THE BOWELS,
AGAINST ALL ILLNESS, AGAINST PESTILENCE AS WELL AS FOR THE PREVENTION
OF COLDS. THEY ARE VERY GENTLE INDEED AND MORE HEALTHFUL THAN YOU
WOULD EXPECT. [Tor. MAKE THEM IN THIS MANNER]: 1 LB. OF COMMON SALT
GROUND, 2 LBS. OF AMMONIAC SALT, GROUND [List. AND G.-V. 3 OZS. WHITE
PEPPER, 2 OZS. GINGER] 1 OZ. [Tor. 1-1/2 OZ.] OF AMINEAN BRYONY, 1 OF
THYME SEED AND 1 OF CELERY SEED [Tor. 1-1/2 OZ.] IF YOU DON'T WANT TO
USE CELERY SEED TAKE INSTEAD 3 OZS. OF PARSLEY [SEED] 3 OZS. OF
ORIGANY, 1 OZ. OF SAFFRON [List. and G.-V. ROCKET] 3 OZS. OF BLACK
PEPPER [1] 1-1/2 OZS. ROCKET SEED, 2 OZS. OF MARJORAM [List. and G.-V.
CRETAN HYSSOP] 2 OZS. OF NARD LEAVES, 2 OZS. OF PARSLEY [SEED] AND 2
OZS. OF ANISE SEED.
[1] In view of the white pepper as directed above, this
seems superfluous. White pepper and ginger omitted by
Tor.
This is one of the few medical formulæ found in Apicius.
Edward Brandt, _op. cit._, Apiciana No. 29, points out
the similarity of this formula with that of the
physician, Marcellus, who lived at Rome under Nero,
Marcell. med. 30, 51.
XIV
[30] TO KEEP GREEN OLIVES
_OLIVAS VIRIDES SERVARE_
TO KEEP OLIVES, FRESH FROM THE TREE, IN A MANNER ENABLING YOU TO MAKE
OIL FROM THEM ANY TIME YOU DESIRE JUST PLACE THEM [in brine]. [1]
HAVING BEEN KEPT THUS FOR SOME TIME THE OLIVES MAY BE USED AS IF THEY
HAD JUST COME OFF THE TREE FRESH IF YOU DESIRE TO MAKE GREEN OIL OF
THEM.
[1] The original does not state the liquid in which the
olives are to be placed.
Hum. _in illud, legendum puto, in muriam_.
Hum. is correct. Olives are preserved in brine to this
day.
Schuch's version of this formula (his No. 27) follows
our No. 28, together with his own No. 28, To Keep
Damascene Plums [etc.] which is wanting in List., G.-V.,
and all the earlier editions because it is from the
codex Salmasianus and will be found among the Excerpts
of Vinidarius at the end of the Apician recipes.
XV
[CUMINATUM. Hum., List. and G.-V.--Tac. and Tor. at the
end of Book I.]
XVI
[31] LASER FLAVOR
_LASERATUM_
[Tor.] LASER IS PREPARED IN THIS MANNER: LASER (WHICH IS ALSO CALLED
LASERPITIUM BY THE ROMANS, WHILE THE GREEKS CALL IT SILPHION) FROM
CYRENE [1] OR FROM PARTHIA [2] IS DISSOLVED IN LUKEWARM MODERATELY
ACID BROTH; OR PEPPER, PARSLEY, DRY MINT, LASER ROOT, HONEY, VINEGAR
AND BROTH [are ground, compounded and dissolved together].
[1] Cyrene, a province in Africa, reputed for its fine
flavored laser.
[2] Parthia, Asiatic country, still supplying _asa
f{oe}tida_.
The African root furnishing laser was exterminated by
the demand for it. Cf. Laser in Index.
[32] ANOTHER [LASER]
_ALITER_
[ANOTHER LASER FLAVOR WHICH TAKES] PEPPER, CARAWAY, ANISE, PARSLEY,
DRY MINT, THE LEAVES [1] OF SILPHIUM, MALOBATHRUM [2] INDIAN
SPIKENARD, A LITTLE COSTMARY, HONEY, VINEGAR AND BROTH.
[1] Tor. _Silphij folium_; List. _Sylphium, folium_;
G.-V. _Silfi, folium_, the latter two interpretations
meaning _silphium_ (laser) _and leaves_ (either nard or
bay leaves) while both Tor. and Tac. (_silfii folium_)
mean the leaves of _silphium_ plant.
[2] _Malobathrum_, _malobatrum_, _malabathrum_--leaves
of an Indian tree, wild cinnamon.
XVII
[33] WINE SAUCE FOR TRUFFLES
_{OE}NOGARUM _[1]_ IN TUBERA_
PEPPER, LOVAGE, CORIANDER, RUE, BROTH, HONEY AND A LITTLE OIL.
ANOTHER WAY: THYME, SATURY, PEPPER, LOVAGE, HONEY, BROTH AND OIL.
[1] Also _Elæogarum_.
V. Directions wanting whether the above ingredients are
to be added to the already prepared _garum_, which see
in dictionary. Gollmer gives the following direction for
_garum_: Boil a _sextarium_ of anchovies and 3
_sextarii_ of good wine until it is thick _purée_.
Strain this through a hair sieve and keep it in glass
flask for future use. This formula, according to Goll.
should have followed our No. 9; but we find no authority
for it in the original.
_Oenogarum_ proper would be a _garum_ prepared with
wine, but in this instance it is the broth in which the
truffles were cooked that is to be flavored with the
above ingredients. There is no need and no mention of
_garum_ proper. Thus prepared it might turn out to be a
sensible sauce for truffles in the hands of a good
practitioner.
Note the etymology of the word "garum," now serving as a
generic name for "sauce" which originally stood for a
compound of the fish _garus_.
Cf. _Garum_ in index.
XVIII
[34] OXYPORUM
_OXYPORUM_
[Tor. OXYPORUM (WHICH SIGNIFIES "EASY PASSAGE") SO NAMED BECAUSE OF
ITS EFFECT, TAKES] 2 OZS. OF CUMIN, 1 OZ. OF GINGER [List. 1 OZ. OF
GREEN RUE] 6 SCRUPLES OF SALTPETER, A DOZEN SCRUPLES OF PLUMP DATES, 1
OZ. OF PEPPER AND 11 [List. 9] OZS. OF HONEY. THE CUMIN MAY BE EITHER
ÆTHIOPIAN, SYRIAN OR LYBIAN, MUST BE FIRST SOAKED IN VINEGAR, BOILED
DOWN DRY AND POUNDED. AFTERWARDS ADD YOUR HONEY. THIS COMPOUND, AS
NEEDED, IS USED AS OXYPORUM.
Cf. No. 111, A Harmless Salad.
Bran. _op. cit._, p. 25-6, of Greek origin.
XIX
[35] HYPOTRIMA [1]
_HYPOTRIMA_
[Tor. HYPOTRIMA, MEANING IN LATIN A PERFECT MESS OF POTAGE, REQUIRES
THIS]: PEPPER, LOVAGE, DRY MINT, PIGNOLIA NUTS, RAISINS, DATE WINE,
SWEET CHEESE, HONEY, VINEGAR, BROTH, WINE, OIL, MUST OR REDUCED MUST
[2]
[1] List. and G.-V. _Hypotrimma_.
V. This formula, lacking detailed instructions, is of
course perfectly obscure, and it would be useless to
debate over it.
[2] Tor. and Tac. _cariotam_; Sch. _cariotum_; List. and
G.-V. _car{oe}num_. This (_carenum_) is new wine boiled
down one half of its volume. _Cariotum_ is a palm wine
or date wine.
XX
[36] OXYGARUM, AN AID TO DIGESTION
_OXYGARUM DIGESTIBILE_
[Tor. OXYGARUM (WHICH IS SIMILAR TO GARUM OR RATHER AN ACID SAUCE) IS
DIGESTIBLE AND IS COMPOSED OF]: 1/2 OZ. OF PEPPER, 3 SCRUPLES OF
GALLIC SILPHIUM, 6 SCRUPLES OF CARDAMOM, 6 OF CUMIN, 1 SCRUPLE OF
LEAVES, 6 SCRUPLES OF DRY MINT. THESE [ingredients] ARE BROKEN SINGLY
AND CRUSHED AND [made into a paste] BOUND BY HONEY. WHEN THIS WORK IS
DONE [or whenever you desire] ADD BROTH AND VINEGAR [to taste].
Cf. Note to No. 33.
[37] ANOTHER [OXYGARUM] [1]
_ALITER_
1 OZ. EACH OF PEPPER, PARSLEY, CARRAWAY, LOVAGE, MIX WITH HONEY. WHEN
DONE ADD BROTH AND VINEGAR.
[1] Wanting in Torinus.
XXI
[38] MORTARIA [1]
_MORTARIA_
MORTARIA ARE PREPARATIONS MADE IN THE MORTAR. PLACE IN THE MORTAR
[Tor.] MINT, RUE, CORIANDER AND FENNEL, ALL FRESH AND GREEN AND CRUSH
THEM FINE. LOVAGE, PEPPER, HONEY AND BROTH [2] AND VINEGAR [3] TO BE
ADDED WHEN THE WORK IS DONE.
Ex Tor. first sentence wanting in other texts.
[1] List. and G.-V. _moretaria_, from _moretum_.
[2] Dann. calls this "_Kalte Schale_" which as a rule is
a drink or a cold refreshing soup, popular on the
Continent in hot weather. Not a bad interpretation if
instead of the broth the original called for wine or
fruit juices.
V. _Mortaria_ are ingredients crushed in the mortar,
ready to be used in several combinations, similar to
the ground fine herbs, _remoulade_, in French cuisine
that may be used for various purposes, principally for
cold green sauces.
[3] Wanting in Tor.
[XV]
[39] CUMIN SAUCE FOR SHELLFISH
_CUMINATUM IN OSTREA ET CONCHYLIA_
[Tor. CUMIN SAUCE (SO CALLED BECAUSE CUMIN IS ITS CHIEF INGREDIENT)
FOR OYSTERS AND CLAMS IS MADE OF] PEPPER, LOVAGE, PARSLEY, DRY MINT,
MALABAR LEAVES, QUITE SOME CUMIN, HONEY, VINEGAR, AND BROTH.
[40] ANOTHER [CUMIN SAUCE] [1]
_ALITER_
PEPPER, LOVAGE, PARSLEY, DRY MINT, PLENTY OF CUMIN, HONEY, VINEGAR AND
BROTH.
[1] wanting in List.
The cumin sauce formulæ are under chap. XV in G.-V.,
following our No. 30.
END OF BOOK I
_EXPLICIT APICII EPIMELES LIBER PRIMUS_ [Tac.]
{Illustration: COLANDER FOR STRAINING WINE
The intricate design of the perforation denotes that this strainer was
used for straining wine. Various other strainers of simpler design,
with and without handles, were used in the kitchen and bakery. Ntl.
Mus., Naples, 77602; Field M., 24307.}
APICIUS