The cetacea, such as the whales, seals, balance-fish, dolphin, and great
tunnies, have hard and indigestible flesh, containing thick juices. When
pickled, they are more moderately so. And of the other fishes, those
which are most humid and excrementitious are most fitted for pickling;
but there is the same difference in pickles as in the fishes from which
they are formed.
* * * * *
COMMENTARY. Under the class cetacea (κῆτος), the ancient naturalists
ranked all the large fishes, such as the whale, the dolphin, the shark,
&c. Aristotle was aware that the class called _plagiuri_ by Artedi,
comprehending the whale, the dolphin, &c. are viviparous, and have lungs
like quadrupeds, instead of gills like fishes. The balæna of the Greeks
was a species of physeter, or cachelot.
Galen states that the flesh of all the cetacea in its recent state is
excrementitious, but when pickled becomes more attenuate, and easier
converted into blood. He gives them, in short, the same characters as our
author does.
For a full account of the pickled fishes of the ancients, we refer to
the Fragment of Xenocrates, and the third book of Athenæus. We shall
give the general character of them as delivered by the latter, upon the
authority of the Siphnian Diphilus. He says that the pickles prepared
from sea, lake, and river fishes afford little nourishment, contain few
juices, are of a heating nature, are good for the belly, and whet the
appetite. The old, he adds, are better and more acrid. Of all the pickled
fishes, the most celebrated was the one brought from the Pontus, called
_saperda_. According to Athenæus, it was prepared from the umber (_sciæna
umbra_ L.) See also Galen (de Alim. Facult. iii, 41.) Hippocrates says
they are desiccant, attenuant, and for the most part laxative. (De
Diæta.) Diphilus says they are whetters and laxatives; and hence Galen
directs them to be taken at the commencement of a meal, and particularly
recommends them for old men. Rhases speaks more unfavorably of them.
It may be proper in this place to give some account of the _isitia_,
or _isicia_ of the ancients. With regard to the etymology of the word,
then, it is derived by Macrobius ab insectione. They consisted of minced
meat, either flesh or fish, boiled or roasted, and seasoned with pepper,
cumin, lovage, and the like. Apicius gives receipts for preparing several
dishes of this kind, from the loligo, sepia, locusta, and swine’s liver.
The last mentioned was inclosed in the omentum, or cowl, and must
therefore have resembled the dish now called a haggis. Lampridius says
that the emperor Heliogabalus was the first who prepared isicia from
fishes, oysters, lobsters, squillæ, and the like. If this statement be
true, the works of Apicius which we possess cannot be genuine. _Isicia_
from shell-fish, the sepia, loligo, &c. are very favorably spoken of by
Alexander Trallian (xi.) On the _Isicia_, see further Ludovicus Nonnius
(de Piscium Esu, xxxviii), and Lambecius (ad Apic.)