Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/303

 COOKERY 299 objects of special luxury, and after Rome had learned from every neighboring country their best devices of cookery, native productions were despised, while at a single festival there would be served up peacocks from Samos, chickens from Phrygia, kids from Melos, cranes from ^Etolia, tunny fishes from Chalcedon, pikes from Pessinus, oysters from Tarentum and Britain, mussel fishes from Chios, and dates from Egypt, with various foreign condiments. Some fishes were so costly that Cato once de- clared that " a city cannot endure In which a fish is sold for more than an ox." Curious artificial means were employed of raising deli- cacies for the table. According to the elder Pliny, snails were sometimes fattened till their shells would contain several quarts. Geese, peacocks, and fish were raised upon nourish- ment specially adapted to temper them as food, and swine were fattened on whey and figs. The supper, which was their principal meal, consisted of three courses : the first, of soups, lettuce, eggs, and honeyed wines ; the second, of solid meats, ragouts, broiled viands, and fish ; and the third, of crude fruits, preserves, tarts, and sweet dishes ; the meals thus, according to a common saying, " beginning with eggs and ending with apples," whence the whole dura- tion of anything was expressed by the phrase db ovo usque ad mala. Lucullus gave feasts on a scale of inordinate magnificence, expending upon each 50,000 denarii (about $8,000). Galba breakfasted before daybreak at an expense suffi- cient to enrich a hundred families. Vitellius composed a single dish which cost 1,000 sester- ces (about $40,000), of the brains of pheasants and peacocks, the tongues of nightingales, and the livers of the most precious fish ; he once en- tertained his brother on V,000 birds and 2,000 choice fishes ; and his culinary expenses for four months amounted to about $25,000,000. The favorite supper of Heliogabalus was the brains of 600 thrushes. The favorite meat of the later Romans was pork, which held the place of honor on every luxurious table. " Hog in Trojan style" was, according to Macrobius, the masterpiece of the greatest artists. It was in- herited from the Greeks, and was named from the circumstance that its interior contained myriads of thrushes, ortolans, and beccaficos, an image of the armed hosts enclosed in the Trojan horse. The manner of preparing it, long known to few, at length became public. The animal, after being bled under the shoul- der, was hung up, and its intestines were drawn out through the throat ; these were thoroughly washed, filled with hashed meat and a thick gravy, and then forced back into the body, which was also stuffed with small game. Half of it was then baked, the other half being cov- ered and protected by a thick paste of barley meal, mixed with wine and oil ; and the latter half was afterward boiled in a shallow sauce- pan. Young pigs were in especial demand, and pork, cooked in numerous styles, was eat- en to such an extent that sumptuary laws were enacted limiting its consumption. In the man- sions of the wealthier patricians, the kitchens were magnificently furnished with marble floors, pictures, and a profusion of ornaments. The culinary utensils, as gridirons, colanders, and dripping pans, were of bronze plated with silver ; and the saucepans were of brass or earth- enware, or sometimes of silver. Every article of food was served in bronze chafing dishes, " in order," says Seneca, " that no viand should be chilled." During the latter period of the empire there were not only schools of cookery, in which accomplished cooks acted as profes- sors, but a profession was also instituted for the purpose of teaching the young patriciana " how to masticate." The most curious relic of ancient literature on the subject is the Deip- nosophistce, or "Banquet of the Learned," of Athenaeus, containing philosophical discussions on the history and quality of nearly every dish known to the Romans. After the descent of the barbarians southward in the 5th century, cookery, like learning, retired into convents. The good cheer of the monks and the secular clergy at that period, and in the centuries im- mediately succeeding, is frequently alluded to in the early European poems and romances. In the 10th century refined cookery reappeared in Genoa, Venice, Florence, Milan, and other free cities of Italy, in which great fortunes had been made by commerce. It became more widely cultivated at the period of the renais- sance, and flourished with eloquence, poetry, and painting, under the protection of the houses of Este and Medici, of Leo X. and the car- dinals. The discovery of America and of the passage to the East Indies around the Cape of Good Hope contributed much to its develop- ment by enlarging the number of gastronomic productions, and especially by furnishing bet- ter seasoning than had before been known. The ancients had made use chiefly of cummin, mint, saffron, garlic, and oxymel ; to these were now added cinnamon from Ceylon, vanilla from Mexico, cloves and nutmegs from the Molucca islands, pepper from Java, and allspice from the Caribbees. In the reign of Henry II. the elegant delicacies of Italian cookery were in- troduced into France by the train of cooks which followed Catharine de' Medici. About the same time several northern cities distin- guished themselves by their gastronomic spe- cialties: Mentz and Hamburg, by their hams; Strasburg, by lard and smoked sausages ; Am- sterdam, by herrings; Hamburg, by smoked beef; Ostend, by oysters ; Perigueux, by truf- fles ; and Chartres and Ruffec, by pies. The Britons were generally simple in their diet, with no higher culinary attainment than that of bruising their grain in a mortar ; the Saxons were likewise savages in gastronomy, rejoicing in distilled barley and half-cooked game ; the Danes were more hospitable, voracious, and bibacious, carousals being almost a part of their religion ; but the Normans were the first to in- troduce in Britain the delicate refinements of