Of the frumentacea, the chondrus is nutritious, and forms viscid chyme;
but a watery preparation is unwholesome, because, as it thickens
quickly, it remains raw and unconcocted; but the juice of it is better
when it is properly boiled whole, like a ptisan. The alica, in other
respects, resembles the chondrus, only that it binds the bowels more.
Wheat, when boiled and eaten, is of difficult digestion and flatulent;
but if digested it proves a very strong food. When made into bread, its
indigestible and flatulent properties are removed by the leaven and salt
which are added. The most nutritious of all the kinds of bread is that
made from siligo; next, that from the similago; and, third, that which
is composed of the entire grain. Coarse bread is less nutritious, but
more laxative than the other kinds. Starch gives little nourishment,
like washed bread. Barley is of a cold nature and detergent: when boiled
like a ptisan it humectates; but when toasted, as in polenta, it dries.
Polenta in summer, drunk with water before the bath, quenches thirst.
Barley-bread is dry and of little nourishment. The pudding (maza) is
of more difficult digestion, and more flatulent than barley-bread, and
when it receives a little honey is laxative. Oats are heating and of
little nourishment. Millet and panic are cold and dry, contain little
nourishment, and bind the bowels. But the millet is in every respect
superior to the panic. Rice is of difficult digestion, contains little
nourishment, and binds the bowels. A ptisan is prepared, by adding one
part of it to fifteen parts of water, then mixing a moderate quantity of
oil, and after it swells up, some vinegar. When properly boiled, a small
quantity of salt is to be thrown in, and sometimes leeks or dill may be
added. Oats and chondrus may be prepared in like manner as a ptisan.
* * * * *
COMMENTARY. On the cerealia consult in particular Theophrastus (H. P.
iii); Dioscorides (ii); Galen (de Aliment. i); Pliny (H. N. xviii);
Serapion (de Simpl.); and of the modern authorities see, in particular,
Harduin (Notæ in Plin. l. c.); Paucton (Metrologie); Dickson (Husbandry
of the Ancients); Sprengel (R. H. H. and Notæ in Diascor. l. c.);
Ludovicus Nonnius (de Re Cibaria, i); and J. Bruyerinus Campegius (de Re
Cibaria.)
Among the cerealia, wheat, as Galen states, deservedly holds the first
place, being in most general use and containing the most nutriment within
a small bulk. He remarks, that it is the most glutinous of all the
articles of this class.
Haly Abbas likewise states that wheat is the most nutritious of all
articles of food. Pliny asserts the same thing of it. He calls the siligo
the _deliciæ tritici_. Galen explains the siligo and similago in much the
same terms as our author. The third species, or the autopyrus, he says,
consists of all the parts of the grain, the bran not being excluded.
Actuarius, on the other hand, says that the bran only is rejected. Is
not the text of the latter corrupt? Bran, Galen adds, is detergent,
and contains little nourishment. Modern commentators have been greatly
puzzled to determine what the _siligo_, _similago_, and _autopyrus_ of
the ancients were. It appears impossible to reconcile all the different
descriptions of them given by ancient writers, and therefore we cannot
but suspect that some of them must have written from an imperfect
acquaintance with the subject. Upon the whole, we are inclined to think
that we shall not be far from the truth if we set them down as varieties
of flour or bread, as regards quality, corresponding in a great measure,
to the kinds of bread now distinguished by the names of the white, the
wheaten, and the household. At all events the _autopyrus_ is certainly
analogous to the last. The furfuraceus, or panis cibarius of Celsus, was
made solely from bran.
Theophrastus mentions that the lightest wheat imported to Greece in his
time was the Pontic. It is curious to remark that Odessa wheat still
retains its ancient character. The heaviest, he says, was the Sicilian,
which, however, was lighter than the Bœotian. Pliny says that the
lightest wheat brought to the Roman market was the Gallic, and then that
imported from the Chersonese. The first in excellence, he adds, are the
Bœotian, the Sicilian, and next to these the African.
Galen gives an interesting account of bread. The best kinds, he says, are
such as contain plenty of leaven, have been properly pounded, and exposed
to a moderate heat in the oven. When exposed to too strong a heat, he
properly remarks that a crust is burned on the outside, while the inside
is left raw or improperly concocted. Unleavened bread he wholly condemns.
Celsus appears to have had a better opinion of it, for he ranks it first
among those substances which do not spoil on the stomach. Of bread, in
general, he correctly remarks, “Siquidem plus alimenti est in pane quam
in ullo alio.” Pliny and Galen describe a soft spongy kind of bread,
which would seem to have resembled that which we call buns. Pliny adds,
that some nations prepare their bread with butter. He mentions a kind of
bread called _artolagani_, which, according to Dr. Arbuthnot, answered
to our cakes. Seth gives an interesting account of bread, but it is
mostly extracted from Galen. Haly Abbas says, that the best kind of bread
is that which is made from wheaten flour and salt, and is fermented,
and heated in an oven to such a degree as not to burn the outer crust.
Rhases disapproves entirely of unleavened bread. Serapion states that
old bread is astringent. Avenzoar prefers newly-made bread, provided it
has been cooled. Hippocrates condemns the eating of bread before it has
been properly cooled. (De Diæt. i.) He mentions only two kinds of bread,
the fine and the coarse—_autopyrus_. (De Vet. Med. 14.) According to
Actuarius, the lightest kinds of wheat form the best bread for indolent
persons, but persons actively employed require the weightiest kinds.
Unleavened bread, he says, is very indigestible. Bread prepared with
oil, he adds, is very nutritious, but requires a strong stomach to
digest it. See an interesting account of the various kinds of bread in
Athenæus (Deipnos. ii, 26.) He makes the remark that the worst kind is
the most laxative. Among the kinds of bread described by ancient authors
may be noticed the _oxylipus_ mentioned by Galen (Meth. Med. viii, 5),
which, as Manardus remarks, was prepared with vinegar. Another kind,
called νάστος, was fermented with honey, dried grapes, &c. See Tzetzes
(ad Lycoph. Casan. 640.) It is to be borne in mind that the ancients
generally used _leaven_ to ferment their bread. Pliny, however, mentions
that the Gauls and Spaniards were in the practice of using _yeast_. (H.
N. xviii, 7.)
The zea, typha, and olyra of the Greeks, and the far and adoreum of
the Romans, were all varieties of spelt, a species of grain bearing
some resemblance to wheat; in short, it was the _triticum spelta_ L.
Actuarius calls it a light, and not very nutritious grain. The chondrus
was prepared from spelt, by first separating the husks, and then breaking
it down into granules. The alica was the same as the chondrus, with only
the addition of a small quantity of chalk; and, indeed, almost all the
writers on Dietetics, except our author, use them as synonymous terms. A
more complicated method of preparing them is described by Pliny, and in
the ‘Geoponics’ (iii, 7) Sprengel says that chondrus is what is called
_perlgraupen_ by the Germans. It was therefore nearly the same as the
pearl-barley of this country, only that it was prepared from the grain
called spelt, _triticum spelta_, and not from common barley. Galen, like
our author, explains that a gruel, or decoction from it, is unwholesome,
as it thickens before it is properly concocted.
Starch, according to Galen and Oribasius, is lubricant, and not
calefacient like bread. They say that it is not very nutritious. Serapion
gives the same account of it.
Galen, Rhases, Haly Abbas, and, in fact, all the authorities, agree that
barley is of a colder nature, and less nutritious than wheat. Polenta
was prepared by first steeping the grain in water, and afterwards drying
it at the fire, and grinding it down to meal. It was therefore a sort
of malt. Galen, like our author, remarks that barley-meal sprinkled on
wine and water, or water alone, makes an excellent beverage. Actuarius
recommends barley-water as a diluent drink in fevers. Ptisan of barley
was thus prepared: Barley was boiled until it swelled; it was then dried
in the sun, and afterwards pounded and freed of its husk, and again
pounded but not ground. This flour was boiled with fifteen parts of
water, to which a small quantity of oil, and, when it swelled, some
vinegar were added. Salt also was often added to it. It was either
used as thus prepared, or it was strained, when it got the name of the
juice of ptisan. (Hippocrates de Regim. in acut.; see Galen’s treatise
de Ptisana.) A long-lived race of people in Chaldea are said to have
subsisted principally upon barley-bread. See Lucian (Macrobii). Galen
states that it is very deficient in nutritive properties. (De Re Alim. i,
10.) According to Athenæus barley-bread was among the worst kinds of it.
Galen says of oats that they are the food of horses and not of men.
Aëtius and Simeon Seth call them refrigerant.
Galen, Dioscorides, Simeon Seth, and Serapion agree that rice is
astringent, and recommend it for ulcers of the intestines. Galen reckons
the bread prepared from it next in quality to that from wheat. Simeon
Seth calls it nutritious. Celsus ranks it with things of a weak nature.
Galen and Serapion say that millet and panic being devoid of oily matter
are desiccative, and therefore useful in defluxions of the belly. Simeon
Seth says that the millet is of difficult digestion, and not nutritious.
Rhases directs panic to be eaten with fresh milk, butter, and sugar.
Pliny mentions a sweet species of bread prepared from millet. Galen says
that it is not possessed of much nourishment. He says it was only used
for bread in times of scarcity. The panic was merely a variety of the
millet, i. e. of the _panicum Italicum_. It was looked upon as inferior
to the common millet.
The maza, as Zeunius explains it, consisted of the flour of toasted
barley pounded with some liquor, such as water, oil, milk, oxycrate,
oxymel, or honied water. Galen calls it flatulent and unwholesome food.
Hesiod recommends the maza, or cake prepared with milk, as an article
of food during the heat of the dog-days. (Opera et Dies, 588.) In the
_Prytoneum_ or House of Refuge, at Athens, persons were fed on it.
(Athen. Deipnos. iv.)
The bellaria, called also placentæ, liba, and crustulæ, by the Romans,
and by the Greeks πέμματα, ἴτρια, and πλάκουντες, were cakes of various
kinds, prepared with flour, water, oil, honey, and sometimes fruits.
See Athenæus (Deipnos. xiv.) They were served up towards the conclusion
of a banquet, as appears evident from Matron’s Parody, (in Athenæus iv.
5.) The _obelius panis_, mentioned by him in the 3d book, is supposed
by Ludovicus Nonnius to have been a species of pastry. According to
Schweighäuser the French _oublie_ is derived from it. (Ad Athen. iii, 76.)
The _bucellatum_, mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus and Ælius Spartianus,
was a species of bread used by the Roman soldiers, and appears to have
resembled our ship-biscuit. (See Not. Gronovii, in Amm. Marcell. xvii,
8.) This kind of bread was called δίπυρος by the Greeks (see Hesychius),
that is to say, _bis coctus_, and hence the English biscuit.