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ffaliclla (JCitmria. 
 
 —♦- 
 
 THE BILL OF FARE: 
 
 A LATIN POEM, 
 
 1 MPLICITLY TRANSLATED AND FULLY EXPLAINED 
 IN COPIOUS AND INTERESTING NOTES, 
 
 RELATING 
 
 TO THE PLEASURES OF 
 
 ®&8®ia@s!K8>s(nr* 
 
 AND THE MYSTERIOUS ART OF 
 
 (smasmii* 
 
 / 
 
 Ipsa memor prsecepta canam; celabitiir anctor.—H or. 
 
 aontfoit: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY SHERWOOD, NEELY, AND JONES, PATER¬ 
 NOSTER ROW J J. ROBINS AND CO. IVY LANE, 
 PATERNOSTER ROW ; AND SOLD BY 
 ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
 
 1S20. 
 
Hobins and Sons, Printers, 5 ", Tooley Street. 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 -♦- 
 
 This little Poem was written several years ago in an 
 idle hour and at the solicitation of a few friends mostly 
 foreigners, who challenged the author upon the appa¬ 
 rent impossibility of expressing, in decent Latin verses, 
 the curious and pleasingly tangible variety of dishes 
 which French eating-houses and hotels lavishly dis¬ 
 play upon their long and hardly intelligible Bills of 
 Fare . 
 
 A translation into English was proposed as a 
 convenient appendage ; but the Author declaring him¬ 
 self exclusively fond of original and genuine dishes; 
 and a translation being, at all times, and at best, 
 what the French call (t un rechauffe,” this laudable 
 suggestion was set aside. 
 
 The Notes, at the end, are explanatory of the 
 Poem—and yet may be read without it. They are 
 especially intended to afford instruction and amuse¬ 
 ment. The commentators humbly trust that they 
 will not fall short of that intention. 
 
IV 
 
 Though apparently trifling and insignificant in its 
 object, this little if jeu d’esprit” may however prove 
 an useful companion to classic, and other, travellers, 
 since they may find in it an elucidation of many of 
 the mysteries in which the curious art of cookery in 
 this and other countries generally consists. 
 
 Being himself a conscious Gastronomer, the writer 
 anticipates a sort of reward for his spontaneous exer¬ 
 tions, in the pleasing idea and congenial hope, that 
 many of his readers may, through the means of his 
 performance, be enabled to select dishes less inacces¬ 
 sible to their understanding, and more suitable to 
 their respective tastes. 
 
 June 24, 1820. 
 
5 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 19 
 
 21 
 
 23 
 
 25 
 
 27 
 
 30 
 
 31 
 
 34 
 
 35 
 
 40 
 
 41 
 
 43 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 TO THE VERSES OP THE POEM. 
 
 la carte. 'Eabefla Cibaria. the bill of fare. 
 
 Potages. 
 
 Sorbilla. 
 
 Souji. Porridge. 
 
 Potage au riz. 
 
 Orypa. 
 
 Broth and rice. 
 
 Soupe aux clioux. 
 
 Caulis cum came . 
 
 Broth and cabbage. 
 
 Soupe maigre. 
 
 Excepta came . 
 
 Herb-pottage. 
 
 Soupe k la tortue. 
 
 Testudo. 
 
 Turtle and mock-turtle. 
 
 Bouilli aunaturel. 
 
 Bubulasine condimento Plain boiled beef. 
 
 Bouilli a la sauce. 
 
 Bubula condita. 
 
 Boiled beef with gravy. 
 
 Filet de bceuf roti. 
 
 Tei'gora bovis. 
 
 Sirloin. 
 
 Poularde au riz. 
 
 Gallina cum oryza . 
 
 Pullet and rice. 
 
 Oie rptie. 
 
 Tarpeius ales. 
 
 Goose. 
 
 Canard aux navets, Sic. 
 
 Anas aim napis , SfC. 
 
 Duck with turnips,, &c. 
 
 Fricandeau a l’ozeille. 
 
 Vitulina cum rumice. 
 
 Stewed veal and sorrel. 
 
 Fricassee de poulet. 
 
 Pullus confrixus. 
 
 Fricassee of chicken. 
 
 Cotelettes de veau en pa- 
 
 Pitulina costula . 
 
 Veal cutlets, ala Main- 
 
 pillotes. 
 
 
 tenon. 
 
 Vole-au-vent. 
 
 Artocrea. 
 
 Raised meat pye. 
 
 Foie de veau. 
 
 Vituli Jecur. 
 
 Calf’s liver. 
 
 Bceuf k la mode. 
 
 Bovilla ad solitum mo - 
 
 A-la-mode beef. 
 
 
 dum. . 
 
 
 Palais de bceuf. 
 
 Juvencorum. palati. 
 
 Ox’s palate. 
 
 Riz de veau. 
 
 Pancreas . 
 
 Sweetbread. 
 
 Cotelettes de mouton. 
 
 Veroecis costula . 
 
 Mutton chops. 
 
 Cenrelle et hachis de 
 
 Cerebrum et camis ovincc Brains and minced mut- 
 
 mouton. 
 
 minutal. 
 
 ton. 
 
VI 
 
 45 Langue de mouton. 
 
 Ovis lingua. 
 
 Sheep’s tongue. 
 
 47 Blanquette de veau. 
 
 Vitulina subalbicans. 
 
 Hashed veal. 
 
 50 T£te de cochon farcie. 
 
 Cervix farta suis. 
 
 Pig’s head stuffed. 
 
 51 Jambon. 
 
 Pema. 
 
 Ham. 
 
 53 Petit sal£ et porc- 
 
 Sus condita sale et nuda Pickled pork and roast 
 
 frais. 
 
 sale. 
 
 pork. 
 
 56 Hochepot aux saucissons. Caulis cum tucetis. 
 
 Sausage and cabbage. 
 
 57 Veau roti. 
 
 Assa vitulina. 
 
 Roast veal. 
 
 59 Epaule de mouton aux Armas ovis etfaba , $c. 
 
 Shoulder of mutton with 
 
 haricots, &c. 
 
 
 French beans, &c. 
 
 61 Pieds de cochon. 
 
 Pedes et ungues Suis. 
 
 Pettitoes. 
 
 62 Boudin noir. 
 
 Botellus. 
 
 Black pudding. 
 
 63 Rognons et queues de 
 
 Renes et Cauda bident am. Kidneys and sheep’s 
 
 mouton. 
 
 
 tails. 
 
 6-1 Queues debceuf. 
 
 Cauda bovine p . 
 
 Bullock’s tail. 
 
 68 Bouilli froid. 
 
 Bubula hesterna. 
 
 Cold boiled beef. 
 
 70 Faisan. 
 
 Avis Phasiaca. 
 
 Pheasant. 
 
 72 Coqde bruylre. 
 
 Tetrax . 
 
 Moor-cock. 
 
 73 Perdrix. 
 
 Perdix. 
 
 Partridge. 
 
 74 Lievre. 
 
 Lepus. 
 
 Hare. 
 
 75 Caille. 
 
 Cotumix . 
 
 Quail. 
 
 78 Grive. 
 
 Turdus. 
 
 Thrush. 
 
 79 Pigeon ramier. 
 
 Palumbes. 
 
 Wood-pigeon. 
 
 80 Pigeon biset. 
 
 Columba. 
 
 Common pigeon. 
 
 81 Pigeons en compote. 
 
 Exudat in olid . 
 
 Stewed pigeons. 
 
 82 Pigeons a la crapaudine. 
 
 Devota craticula. 
 
 Broiled pigeons. 
 
 85 Dindonroti. 
 
 Meleagrides testa. 
 
 Roast turkey. 
 
 86 Dindon aux truffes. 
 
 Cum tuberibus. 
 
 Turkey with truffles. 
 
 88 B£casse. 
 
 Rusticula. 
 
 Woodcock. 
 
 89 B^cassine. 
 
 Scolopax. 
 
 Snipe. 
 
 91 Venaison. 
 
 Cervus, Dama. 
 
 Venison. 
 
 93 Lapin. 
 
 Cuniculus. 
 
 Rabbit. 
 
 98 Sahmon. 
 
 Salmo. 
 
 Salmon. 
 
 99 Merlan. 
 
 Albumus. 
 
 Whiting. 
 
 99 Raie au beurre noir. 
 
 Squatina. 
 
 Skate with burnt butter. 
 
 100 Morue fraiche et sale£. 
 
 Capito et salsus Atellus. 
 
 Cod and salt fish. 
 
 101 Pile. 
 
 Passer. 
 
 Plaice 
 
vii 
 
 102 Maquereau, 
 
 Scomber. 
 
 Mackerel. 
 
 103 Harengsore, 
 
 Halec. 
 
 Red herring. 
 
 104 Moules. 
 
 Muscul *s. 
 
 Muscles 
 
 105 Hareng frais. 
 
 Halec sine sate. 
 
 Fresh herring. 
 
 108 Huitres. 
 
 Ostreje. 
 
 Oysters. 
 
 109 Homar. 
 
 Locust a. 
 
 Lobstet. 
 
 110 Chevrette. 
 
 Squilla. 
 
 Shrimp. 
 
 Ill Goujon, Barbeau, 
 
 Mulet. Gobio, barbatus, mullus. Gudgeon, barbel, mullet. 
 
 112 Perche. 
 
 Perea. 
 
 Perch. 
 
 114 Tenche, 
 
 Tinea. 
 
 Tench. 
 
 115 Angnille. 
 
 Anguilla. 
 
 Eel. 
 
 120 Brochet. 
 
 Lucius . 
 
 Pike. 
 
 134 Truite. 
 
 Carpio. 
 
 Trout. 
 
 135 Dorade. 
 
 Zeus. 
 
 John doree. 
 
 13&'Turbot. 
 
 Rhombus. 
 
 TuAot. 
 
 137 Esturgeon. 
 
 Elops. 
 
 Sturgeon. 
 
 140 Carpe. 
 
 Cyprinus. 
 
 Carp. 
 
 153 Fives. 
 
 Fabce. 
 
 Beans. 
 
 155 Haricots. 
 
 Phaselus. 
 
 French beans. 
 
 157 Asperge. 
 
 Asparagus. 
 
 Asparagus. 
 
 158 Artichaud. 
 
 Cinara. 
 
 Artichoke. 
 
 173 Lentilles. 
 
 Lentes. 
 
 Lentils. 
 
 175 Epinards. 
 
 Spinaceaz. 
 
 Spinach. 
 
 175 Celeri. 
 
 Solaria. 
 
 Celery. 
 
 176 Betrave. 
 
 Beta. 
 
 Beet-root. 
 
 177 Pommes de terre. 
 
 Solanum. 
 
 Potatoes. 
 
 184 (Eufs. 
 
 Ova. 
 
 Eggs. 
 
 185 (Eufs pochis. 
 
 Ovum in cochleari. 
 
 Poached eggs. 
 
 188 (Eufs a la coque. 
 
 Ova in aqua cocta. 
 
 Boiled eggs. 
 
 190 CEufs k la neige. 
 
 Ova sub verbere quassa. 
 
 Trifles. 
 
 191 (Eufs frits. 
 
 Frigitur ovum. 
 
 Fried eggs. 
 
 192 (Eufs au miroir. 
 
 Ova cocta in patella. 
 
 Eggs on an earthen pan, 
 
 193 (Eufs kl’6zeille,k la tripe, Ota cum iapatho, cepa, Eggs with sorrel, onions, 
 k la chicoree, omelette cichorea, et temibu* endive; omelet with 
 aux fines herbes. herbii. parsley, &c. 
 
 195 Beignets aux pommes. Mala tub lagano. Apple-frittere. 
 
viii 
 
 197 Pain de riz. 
 
 Oryza. 
 
 Rice-pudding. 
 
 198 Patisserie. 
 
 Placenta. 
 
 Tarts, pies, &c. 
 
 199 Beignets souths. 
 
 Monialia munera. 
 
 Puffs. 
 
 212 Fromage de Chester. 
 
 Caseus Cestriensis. 
 
 Cheshire cheese. 
 
 213 Fromage de Glocester. 
 
 Caseus Sabrinensis. 
 
 Gloucester cheese, 
 
 216 Chataignes. 
 
 Castanece. 
 
 Chestnuts. 
 
 216 Noix. 
 
 Nuces. 
 
 Walnuts. 
 
 217 Raisins. 
 
 Racemi . 
 
 Grapes. 
 
 218 Abricots. 
 
 Malu* aprica. 
 
 Apricots. 
 
Calidla 
 
 Qdas nec gustavit, nec novit Apicius unquam, 
 
 Ilic canit innumeras Musa jocosa dapes. 
 
 Quis qualisve siet G.... coquus impigerarte, 
 
 Non ego, sed melius fercula lauta probant. 
 
 Ex tria mirificam linquent Sorbilla culinam 5 
 
 Ad libitum, quodvis si modo voce vocas. 
 
 Primum ut Oryza facit; Caulis cum came secundum ; 
 
 Tertium, at excepta came , ministrat Olus. 
 Praeteream, referamne tuum, Testudo , saporem 
 
 Magnatum mensas qua: decorare soles ? 10 
 
 Ilinc procul a nostris remanes aliena palatis, 
 
 Dum mendax titulo stat Vitulina tuo. 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 Bubula turn sequitur simplex, sine condimento ; 
 
 Si condita placet, ne crucieris, adest. 
 
 Nou quacumque die, certis sed tosta diebus. 
 In verubus sudant Tergora obesa Bovis. 
 Qua; fuit ah ! g alius, Gallinam fulcit oryza: 
 
 Sic quondam vates vir mulierque fuit. 
 
 Qui impavidos clanxit Gallos Tarpeius Ales, 
 Hie vitare avidos, dente vorante, nequit. 
 Hie circumseptus Napis producitur; illic, 
 Cepula quern sepit, saepe superbit Anas. 
 Rumice cum viridi jacet hie Vitalina, fricando 
 Obscoenos dentes qui renitere dabit. 
 Confrixus calida gallus , lit Pullus in olla : 
 
 Medeam iEsonem sic renovasse ferunt. 
 Cincinno similis vitulince Coslula tosta; 
 
 Pane, apio, et charta fumat amicta sua. 
 Nonne placet vento levior, similisque volanti , 
 Fumans e clibano cum redit Artocrea ? 
 
 An Vituli , coelo qui non detraxerit ignem, 
 
 Te piget innocuum dilacerare Jccur ? 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
 25 
 
 30 
 
3 
 
 Quam sectantis acum transfigunt spicula lartli 
 Praesto est ad solitum cocta Bovillu tnodum. 
 
 Visne juvencorum molles tentare Palatos ? 35 
 
 Hos pete; nulla in eis Colchica flamma latet; 
 
 Nostrates depasti herbas in margine rivi, 
 
 Thessalicae ignorant gramina saeva magae. 
 
 Hie quandoque tibi torrebitur, ossium et expers 
 Pancreas , et quo nil suavius esse potes. 40 
 
 Irrigat ardentes Vervecis costula prunas, 
 
 Proque uno venum tostu triente datur. 
 
 Si Cerebrum cupias, carnisve Minutul ovince, 
 
 Posce prius : cerebri plus satis esse nequit. 
 
 Gaudet ovis lapatho, fulvoque legumine Lingua 45 
 Quod mea complecti carmine Musa vetat. 
 
 Quae concocta tibi vitulina subalbicat , offam 
 Olla, Here, cum butyro miscet ahena novo. 
 
 Hie Meleagraei cervix producitur Jpri 
 
 Nulla, sed indigenae non male farta Suis. 50 
 
 Nunquid amas sapidam, quam vestit purpura, Pcrnam, 
 Quamque aluit fumo nigra culina suo ? 
 
4 
 
 Hie condita sale et circumdata caulibus adstat; 
 
 Sudat et ad longum Sus sals nuda veru. 
 
 Ecce iterum caulis ! quot enim dat fercula mens® 
 Brassica Tucetis quae comes esse solet. 
 
 Heus ! puer, assaturne caro vitulina ? —subinde. 
 
 Ocius assantur Tergus et Annus ovis. 
 
 Annus ovis modern thalamum cui saepe ministrant 
 Exilesve fab<e, vel cichorea levis. 
 
 Unguibus ipsafamem pellet, pedibusque suis Sus , 
 Et tibi, cum fusci pelle, Dotellus adest. 
 
 Edge, seu tostos renes , caudasve Bidentum ; 
 
 Vel quibus abduxit furta bovina latro, 
 
 Qui sub AventinsL insidiatus rupe, retrorsum 
 Callidus Herculeum traxit ad antra pecus. 
 
 Saepe coronatos apio, nunc frigida, discos 
 Hesternis onerat Bubula cocta focis. 
 
 II Ac tibi Phasiaco veniet de flumine nuda, 
 
 Aurea quam nitidam torques adornat avem. 
 
 Hue nec Hyperboreis fuscus mittetur ab oris 
 Tetraxj uxores qui uberat ore suas. 
 
 55 
 
 60 
 
 65 
 
 70 
 
5 
 
 Nullave lethifero plumbi sub fulmine Perdix 
 Lapsa; aut “ quadrupedum gloria prinia Lepus 
 Nec qua; Judaeas, ccelo demissa, Coturnix 75 
 
 Esca, nutrivit, deficiente, tribus. 
 iEgide pampinea tectus, vel scgmine lardi, 
 
 Nullus ibi gaudet Turdus adire focum. 
 
 Nec pro te arborea rapitur de fronde Palumbes, 
 
 At yitare veru casta Columba nequit; 80 
 
 Compositos lente succos exudat in olla, 
 
 Aut devota subit victima craticulam. 
 
 Occiduos linquent mcestas Meleagrides Indos, 
 
 Quae lugent fratris, veste nigrante, necem; 
 
 Ast nobis raro verubus torrentur acutis ; 85 
 
 Membra vel inficiunt pinguia Tuberibus. 
 
 Tuta inter junceta manet, longumque manebit 
 Rusticula baud morsu dilaceranda tuo. 
 
 Hie nec prcelongo Scolopax celeberrima rostro 
 Irrigat appositos, ventre liquente, rogos. 
 
 Nec venatorum, vel Cervus, Damave , pra;da, 
 Ornabunt lances, munera opima, tuas. 
 
 90 
 
G 
 
 Ast humili pastus si caule Cummins adsit, 
 
 Hunc jurant inter delituisse feras. 
 
 Si minus arrident carnalia fercula, posce 95 
 
 Quas mittit varias Nereis alma dapes. 
 
 Coccinea iuterdum, squamis argenteus, exta 
 Craticula, torret Salmo, calente, sua. 
 
 Frigitur Alburnus ; butyro sed Squatina nigrat; 
 Insulsus Capito et salsus Asellus adest. 100 
 
 Hie RhomBb similis, maculoso et tergore Passer, 
 Infamique pudens nomine Scomber erit: 
 
 Hie tostus prodit, pisis comitantibus, Halec , 
 
 Cumque domo in butyrum Musculus hospes abit. 
 
 Halec , quern nee sal tetigit nee fumus adussit, 105 
 Invocat ardores, acre sinapi, tuos. 
 
 Hie scopulis avulsa suis tibi rara patebit 
 Ostrea , at interdum sumitur ante dapes. 
 
 Nee tibi curvabit lances monstrosa Locustce 
 
 Cauda, sed eliciet parvula Squilla sitim. 110 
 
 Gobio, Barbatus , Mullus , genus omne natantum 
 E fluviis venient, Na'is arnica, tuis. 
 
7 
 
 Rubris Perea subit pianis, nigra inclyta cauda ; 
 
 Tinea petit butyrum, tincta colore, novum. 
 
 Nunc Anguilla tenax vitas damnatur ad ollam, 115 
 Quam caesam in partes olla tenere nequit: 
 
 Se rotat, et volvit, medios et saltat in ignes, 
 
 Ac si speraret se superesse sibi. 
 
 At notus lacuum terror, stagnique vorago, 
 
 Lucius ad superas gestiet ire domos ; 120 
 
 Coctus ubi in vino, cum cep&, apioque virenti, 
 
 Cum pipere et mic4 dissiliente salis, 
 
 Alba sufFultus mappa, similisque minanti, 
 
 Ostentat dentes, ore rigente, suos. 
 
 Ccenosos inter lucos, foedasque paludes, 125 
 
 Olim praedator Lucius ille fuit: 
 
 Insidians teneris, sera sub nocte, puellis, 
 
 Et Nymphas jactans proposuisse dolos : 
 
 Indignata diu non pertulit horrida monstri 
 
 Crimina—at ultores invocat ilia Deos. 130 
 
 Jupiter in piscem mutavit, et occulit undis ; 
 
 At remanet praedae, qui fuit ante, furor. 
 
8 
 
 Vallibus irriguis, ripis et amicus amcenis, 
 
 Rard pro nobis Carpio carpet acum ; 
 
 Rarius, aut numquam proponitur auratus Zeus; 135 
 Magnave Damnoniae gloria Rhombus aquae. 
 
 Hirtus Elops, qui se multis provolvit in undis, 
 
 Exiguas spernit caesus adire casas ; 
 
 Integer ad mensas incedit et ore minatur, 
 
 Muria dum nigrum condit amara jecur. 140 
 
 Tranquillos saltern linquet queis nascitur amnes 
 Cyprinus, a pulchra Cypride nomen habens. 
 
 Olim notus erat nullo cognomine piscis : 
 
 Quis celebrem fecit fabula prisca docet. 
 
 Quaerebat Venerem, nirei sub imagine Cycni, 145 
 Jupiter in gremio, Candida Leda, tuo; 
 
 Cum subito advolitat coelo Junonius ales, 
 
 Perfungens dominae conscia jussa suae. 
 
 Vidit, ut affini piscis ludebat in unda, 
 
 Et nigrum Cycni vellicat ore pedem ; 150 
 
 Sensit, et auratas Deus, hoc pro munere, pisci 
 Dat squamas ; nomen Cypris habere dedit. 
 
9 
 
 QujE fecere Fubce Fabianae nomina genti 
 
 Hie coctas Samius non vetatesse senex. 
 
 Intumet ardenti saltatque Phaselus in olla 155 
 
 Qui nimium ^Eolii daminis intus habet. 
 
 Hie jacet Asparagus viridi cervice renidens; 
 
 Hie circum Cinaram spicula densa rigent. 
 
 Illis Palladius liquor admiscetur Aceto ; 
 
 Molli vel but pro gaudet uterque suo. 160 
 
 Deperit Asparagus Martis de stirpe puellam; 
 
 Et Ciuara horticolam deperit Asparagum. 
 
 At pater indignans iri insectatur amantes, 
 
 Disparia et votis nectere vota negat. 
 
 Urget amor : patrius crescit furor; ilia precatur; 165 
 
 Ille tonat rabidas, ore sonante, minas. 
 
 Quid faciam ? Gradive, precor, succurre puellae; 
 
 Si tibi nota Venus, notus Amorque tibi est. 
 
 Dixit, et innumeris subito circumdatur hastis; 
 
 Et pater attonitus pangere vota sinit. 170 
 
 Ambo inter cyatbos sic sorte fruuntur eadem : 
 
 Nee quos vinxit amor, jungere mensa vetat. 
 c 
 
to 
 
 At mihi non sordent fusca ferruglne Lentes 
 Quae steterunt tanto feenore, Esave, tibi. 
 
 Spinacece yirides, albaque Salaria caule ; 175 
 
 Et Tyrio gaudens murice Beta subit. 
 
 Tu quoque, Solatium, priscis ignota culinis 
 Radix ; in nostro carmine nomen habes. 
 
 Te Vespusiaco misit de Iittore Tellus 
 Quam fervente sinu foverat ante suo : 180 
 
 Te viridis missam suscepit Hibernia in ulnas; 
 
 Susceptam te gens omnis in orbe colit. 
 
 Pollucem ex ovis quondam, cum Castore, natos 
 Noveris, audacter tu tamen ova petis. 
 
 Alba sub chlamyde ecce offerttibi cochlear ovum, 185 
 Septus ut argento saepe topazus adest. 
 
 Ova, ferunt, mollit Balearica turbine funda ; 
 
 At melius calida, crede, coquentur aqua. 
 
 En Zephyro lexiora tument, niveoque colore 
 
 Ova sub immiti verbere quassa nitent; 190 
 
 Sed meliora decent ccenacula. Frigitur ovum : 
 
 Aut u xeluti in speculo,” tersa patella coquit. 
 
II 
 
 Cum lapatho , cep a, cicliorea et tenuibus herbis , 
 Unaque sub formis millibus ova placent. 
 
 Sub flavo latitant lagano fragrantia mala, 195 
 
 Quae spargunt parca sacchara cana uive. 
 
 Ultima quae prodit cum lacte tumescit Oryza ; 
 
 Aut levis ad rapidos cocta placenta focos; 
 
 Aut quae, pace tua, Monialia ymnera , Vesta, 
 
 Dicuntur; Comus praestitit ipse jocum. 200 
 
 \ 
 
 Vestalis quondam cum percitus esset amore 
 Virginis, occlusas constitit ante fores : 
 
 Auscultans si quid faustive, malive sonaret; 
 
 Aut quid, per rimas, cernere posset amans. 
 
 Hunc simul atque videt de celsa virgo fenestra 205 
 Melle et farre novo crustula mixta jacit; 
 
 Undique sphaerarum referentia crustula formas, 
 Virgineoque balitu turgida facta, pluunt; 
 
 Sensit, et arrisit, quo nemo jocosior unquam, 
 
 Comus, et inflixit nomina ficta cibo. 210 
 
 F-xactis dapibus, si vis, die Caseus adsit 
 Quern premit emulso Ceslria lacte Pales. 
 
12 
 
 Aut quem viminibus secluso in littore finxit 
 
 I 
 
 Villica, ubi virides Sabrina volvit aquas. 
 
 Denique, si qui sint, maturos elige fructus, 215 
 Molles Casfaneas, frangibilesve Nuces ; 
 
 Vel quos parca tibi suaves dabit uva Racemos; 
 
 Pomave quae gremio Malus aprica fovet. 
 
 At satis est, nec nostra cupit te Musa morari; 
 
 Prandistin ?—sumptus solve tuos—et abi. 220 
 
 i* ■. 
 
NOTES, 
 
 Indocti discant et anient meminisse periti. 
 
 Henault. 
 
 Content if hence th’ unleam’d their wants may view 
 The learn’d reflect on what before they knew. 
 
 Pope’s Ess, on Crtt. 739. 
 
 V. 1.—Apicius. Three brothers of that name were 
 known at Rome—but no otherwise than on account of 
 their unparalleled love of good living, and their sump¬ 
 tuous tables, daily loaded with an extravagant and ex¬ 
 pensive show of dishes. Among other whimsical spe¬ 
 culations to please their visitors, torment their rivals 
 in the same line of folly, and gratify their own pride, 
 these noted epicures sometimes presented ragouts ex¬ 
 clusively composed of tongues of peacocks and nightin¬ 
 gales. Once a large charger was brought in, with 
 all the pomp usual at that time, filled with 3000 small 
 birds, each of which had been taught, at great ex¬ 
 pence and trouble, to sing or speak; as if the ac¬ 
 quired talents of these little creatures could have 
 enhanced the delicacy of their flesh—or as if their 
 warbling and innocent souls (to use here an ancient 
 and highly poetical expression) might have infused 
 harmony and virtue into the breast of those brutal 
 devourers of such costly meats. 
 
14 
 
 Pliny calls the second of these brothers, nepotum 
 omnium altissimus gurges ; “ the deepest gulph of 
 the time,” as to high feeding and lielluation, or 
 professional gluttonism. He instituted a gorman¬ 
 dizing academy , and wrote a treatise de opsoniis et 
 condimentis, upon market-purchases and seasonings. 
 His work still exists, and though exceedingly curious, 
 gives a disgusting idea of what the art of cookery must 
 have been among the Romans. 
 
 Having heard that shrimps and prawns were of a 
 much better flavour on the coasts of Africa than on 
 the Italian shores, this celebrated and intrepid Gas¬ 
 tronomer freighted a ship at his own expense; em¬ 
 barked at Minturnum , and boldly sailed in search 
 of the renowned dainty. But his voyage had not 
 the success he expected; for, alighting from the 
 ship on the Libyan shore, he saw a poor fisherman 
 preparing a dish of these far-famed marine insects, 
 tasted a few of them, and, convinced of liis mis¬ 
 take, sailed immediately back to Italy, much disap¬ 
 pointed of course, and terribly out of humour. 
 
 It is reported that he spent more than sixty thousand 
 pounds sterling merely to vary the taste of sauces; 
 and that finding, after many other expensive expe¬ 
 riments, that his follies had reduced his immense for¬ 
 tune to the comparatively small sum of little more 
 than one hundred thousand pounds—he poisoned him¬ 
 self. 
 
 Apicius, the third of that name, was excessively 
 fond of oysters. For them he used willingly to pay a 
 most enormous price. Those of the Lucrine lake, of 
 
15 
 
 Brundusium and Abydos on the Hellespont, being 
 reckoned by far the best, were sent as delicate pre¬ 
 sents to men of great rank. The Emperor Trajan, 
 when waging war against the Parthians, received from 
 this Apicius several baskets or barrels of them. 
 
 However extravagant and foolish the whims of 
 those rich personages of ancient Rome may appear 
 to a sober and sensible mind, we must, injustice 
 to their taste, cursorily observe that there exists 
 a material difference between a gormand and a, glut¬ 
 ton. The first seeks for peculiar delicacy and distinct 
 flavour in the various dishes presented to the judg¬ 
 ment and enjoyment of his discerning palate; while 
 the other lays aside nearly all that relates to the 
 rational pleasure of creating or stimulating an appe¬ 
 tite by the excellent quality of the cates, and looks 
 merely to quantity. This has his stomach in view, 
 and tries how heavily it may be laden without en¬ 
 dangering his health. The gormand never loses 
 sight of the exquisite organs of taste, so admi¬ 
 rably disposed by Providence in the crimson cham¬ 
 ber where sits the discriminating judge, the human 
 tongue. The glutton is anathematized in the scripture 
 with those brutes, quorum deus venter est. The other 
 appears guilty of no other sin than of too great and 
 too minute an attention to refinement in commensal 
 sensuality. 
 
 We find besides a curious shade between the French 
 appellations gourmand and gourmet. In the idiom 
 of that nation, so famous for indulging in the worship 
 of Comus, the word gourmand means, as we stated 
 
16 
 
 above, a man who, by having accidentally been able 
 to study the different tastes of eatables, does accor¬ 
 dingly select the best food, and the most pleasing 
 to his palate. His character is that of a practitioner, 
 and answers to the appellation of an epicure in the 
 full sense of the word, as we use it in English. The 
 gourmet on the other hand considers the theoretical 
 part of Gastronomy; he speculates more than he 
 practises; and eminently prides himself in discerning 
 the nicest degrees and most evanescent shades of 
 goodness and perfection in the different subjects pro¬ 
 posed to him. In fact, the word gourmet has long been 
 used to designate a man who, by sipping a few drops 
 out of the silver cup of the vintner, can instantly 
 tell from what country the wine comes, and its age. 
 This denomination has lately acquired a greater lati¬ 
 tude of signification, and not improperly, since it 
 expresses what the two other words could not mean. 
 
 From the foregoing observations we must conclude 
 that the glutton practises without any regard to theory; 
 and we call him Gastrophile. The gormand unites 
 theory with practice, and may be denominated Gas¬ 
 tronomer. The gourmet is merely theoretical, cares 
 little about practising, and deserves the higher appel¬ 
 lation of Gastrologer. 
 
 We need not inform the classical reader that the 
 Greek word yasrig, gaster, means the stomach , and 
 all that relates to it, in a more extensive and somewhat 
 figurative sense. The words vo/xor, nomos , Qihos, phi- 
 los, and hoy os, logos , added to it, classify the practical, 
 physical, and theoretical varieties. 
 
17 
 
 V. 2. Innumerus dapes. According to Horace, 
 <( all licences have been allowed to poets and painters,” 
 who have made, at all times and in all nations, a full 
 exercise of that prerogative. Here the word in¬ 
 numeras, numberless, is rather hyperbolical; and 
 therefore not to be understood in a strict and arith¬ 
 metical sense. The “ Bill of Fare,” which is but an 
 extract and yet mentions about one hundred dishes, 
 might have been swelled to a very considerable bulk, 
 had not the author had the prudence to stop in time, 
 and just before his reader would have felt disposed 
 to oscitate. 
 
 V. 3. Coquus impiger arte. The name of the cook 
 at whose house the poem was originally thought of, 
 is of no sort of interest to the reader, since he left 
 England more than twenty years since. However, as 
 the author hates mysteries in common things, he 
 allows the commentators to say that the name was 
 Guidon , and that he lived in the precincts of Leices- 
 ter-square. 
 
 Coquus is also spelt cocus. The etymology of this word 
 has long been the torment of philologists ; but like 
 the sources of the “ Father of Plenty,” the majestic 
 stream which feeds the Egyptian sands, the origin 
 of Cook is still enveloped in obscurity; and we enjoy 
 the pleasures which the artist procures for us, just 
 as well as if we knew more about it. 
 
 Cooks at Athens and Rome, and other places of 
 Greece and Italy, were commonly hired for the occa¬ 
 sion, as they did not generally constitute an essential 
 part in a domestic establishment. They stood in the 
 
 n 
 
18 
 
 streets, or in the coquinum forum, their arms negli¬ 
 gently folded on their half-naked breasts; their aprons 
 on, if they could afford to buy, or happened to steal, 
 any; a few culinary attributes dangling at their sides; 
 and, with chubby faces and red noses, (as their calling 
 and professional operations give us reason to suppose,) 
 impatiently and peevishly waiting till they were 
 ealled in to perform. An enumeration of that crowd 
 of hirelings will be found in the following lines : 
 
 Ad macellum ubi advcnimus 
 
 Concurrunt mi obviam cupedinarii omnes, 
 
 Cetarii, lanii, coqui, fartores, piscatores, aucupes. 
 
 Plautus. 
 
 “ As soon as we come to the market-place, I am sur¬ 
 rounded by confectioners, fishmongers, butchers, cooks, 
 sausage-makers, fishermen, birdcatchers.” 
 
 The circumstance of cooks being not in general, as 
 mentioned above, a constituent part of a family, was 
 the natural cause of their not being trusted with any 
 utensils of value in the kitchen ; for they commonly 
 proved unfaithful to the confidence reposed in them. 
 They were so apt to run away with kettles, forks, 
 spoons, &c. that their thievish propensity nearly be¬ 
 came proverbial. Plautus, in his most interesting 
 comedy entitled Pseudolus, gives us a curious, and 
 undoubtedly accurate, idea of what such a cook was 
 in his time. 
 
 Ballio , a man of an infamous character, holds a 
 parley with a cook whom he wishes to hire ; and the 
 fellow is one of the most boastingly jocose chaps in 
 
19 
 
 his trade. He asserts that his ragouts and fricassees 
 possess such a flavour, and emit so delightful a scent, 
 that, whenever he is employed, Jove himself makes 
 a daily repast on the delicate perfume issuing from 
 his curious dishes : 
 
 Eum in odorem ccenat Jupiter cotidie. 
 
 But, says Ballio, 
 
 Si numquam is coclum, quidnam ccenat Jupiter? 
 
 ** If you remain unemployed, what has Jupiter to feed 
 upon J ” 
 
 It inccenalus cubitum. 
 
 “ Well, then, he goes to bed without his supper.” 
 
 This unblushing rascal does not hesitate to ask, 
 a Do you expect to find a cook without the rapacious 
 talons of a kite or an eagle ? ” 
 
 An invenire postulas quemquam coquum. 
 
 Nisi milvinis aut aquilinis unguilus ? 
 
 From this it clearly appears that the word coquus , 
 in its diminutive coquinus , was adopted by the French, 
 who call coquin a thief, a dishonest fellow, a man not 
 to be trusted. 
 
 By a passage in Cicero, Fam. ix. 20, we are led to 
 understand that, among other miseries of life which 
 constantly attended this consular personage and elo¬ 
 quent orator, he laboured under the disappointment 
 of not having an excellent cook of his own ; for he 
 says : Coquus mens , prater jus fervens, nihil potest 
 imituri: “ Except hot broth, my cook can do nothing 
 cleverly.” Of all servants, however, cooks, though 
 
20 
 
 most useful, are often most abused : they are expected 
 to guess what their masters like, and Martial says, 
 with great propriety and truth : 
 
 Non satis est ars sola coquo; servire palato, 
 
 Atque coquus domini debet habere gulam. 
 
 “ The art of the cook avails him not to please his 
 master, if he does not possess his master’s taste.” 
 
 A French author observes that, from the blaze and 
 bustle of the kitchen, cooks half stewed and half 
 roasted, when unable to work any longer, generally 
 retire to some unknown corners, and die in forlornness 
 and want. But he adds most emphatically, Corneille, 
 the famous dramatic writer, had not a better fate, since 
 he died in obscurity and distress ; and this similarity 
 ought to contribute to their consolation !—Manuel des 
 Amphitryons. 
 
 When severity of manners and austerity of habits 
 gave way to extravagance and luxury at the fall of the 
 Roman Republic, cooks began to be better treated by 
 their employers. The salary of some of them was 
 nearly one thousand pounds sterling. M. Antony 
 hearing Cleopatra (whom he had invited to a splendid 
 supper, and who was as great a gormand as she was 
 handsome) loudly praise the elegance and delicacy of 
 the dishes, sent for the cook and presented him with 
 the unexpected gift of a corporate town, Municipium. 
 This man must have been as clever as Trimalcion, 
 who, when rare and exquisite fishes were out of season, 
 used to imitate them so well with common ones, that 
 Gastrologers were often deceived ; and we have been 
 
 % 
 
21 
 
 told of a culinary artist, who, on Good Friday, made 
 up for Louis XV. a dinner apparently composed of 
 beef, Teal, mutton, poultry, and game, well repre¬ 
 sented by vegetables, “ accommodes au maigre.” 
 Such metamorphoses are still in vogue at great enter¬ 
 tainments. 
 
 V. 5. Sorbilla (from sorbere Lat. to swallow) means 
 the mere secretion or dissolution of the various juices 
 contained in the muscles and fat of animals, as bul¬ 
 locks, calves, sheep, chicken, &c. in a menstruum of 
 boiling water. c< The soup,'’ says a gastronomic 
 writer, (c might be called the portal of fhe edifice of 
 a French dinner, either plain or sumptuous.” It is a 
 sine-qua-non article. Itleads to the several courses con¬ 
 stituting the essence of the repast, and lays the unso¬ 
 phisticated foundation upon which the whole is to rest, 
 as upon a solid basis, in the stomach. It is the first 
 stratum deposited to support, with the congenial asso¬ 
 ciation of natural and gastric acids, the mysterious work 
 of digestion. It is, perhaps, the most wholesome food 
 that can be used; and the gaunt, yet strong frame of 
 the French soldiery has long experienced the benefit 
 of it. They vulgarly say, “ C’est la soupe qui fait 
 le soldat; ” It is the soup that makes the soldier. 
 Partial to this mess, they have it daily in barracks, on 
 their marches, and in the camp; and they often swallow 
 a large bowl of broth with bread in the morning, a 
 few minutes before the trumpet calls them to the field 
 of battle. 
 
 It seems as if, anciently, leeks (Lat. porrum , 
 Fr. porrcau) were in this country an indispensable 
 
22 
 
 ingredient in the soup ; since porridge is evidently 
 derived from porrurn. It has been asserted, but 
 upon what authority we do not know, that leeks 
 came originally from Arabia. Martial, in his 
 Xenia, Ep. 13, 19, mentions Aricia , a town of the 
 Latium, recommended for the excellent qualities of 
 this vegetable, which was cultivated there with great 
 success: 
 
 Mitlil prcecipuos nemoralis Aricia porros. 
 
 And Columella, 10, 139 says, mater Aricia porri — 
 Aricia the mother of leeks. Although a distant or 
 slight flavour of leek may prove agreeable, yet it leaves 
 about the mouth strong miasmata which affect the 
 breath. We read again in Martial,— 
 
 Porri SECTIVI. 
 
 Fila Tarentini graviler redolentia porri 
 Edisli quo lies, oscula clausa dato. 
 
 The juice of leeks who fondly sips, 
 
 To kiss the fair must close his lips. 
 
 Hence it appears also that Tarentum cultivated the 
 most pungent species of this root; and Nero, on ac¬ 
 count of his fondness for it, was called in scorn 
 Porrophagus u leek eater.” (Gerard’s Herbal, ad 
 verbum.) The leek is said to be inimical to the wel¬ 
 fare of the eyes. 
 
 Rabelais, the humorous vicar of Meudon, distin¬ 
 guishes, in his jocose way, two sorts of soups. 
 Soupe de Prime, Prime-soup; and soupe de levriers, 
 soup good for hounds ; the meaning of which stands 
 
23 
 
 as follows. The first designates that premature deliba¬ 
 tion of broth which the young monks in the convent 
 used to steal, when they could, from the kitchen, 
 in their way to the choir at the hour of “ Prime,” 
 a service which was performed at about seven or eight 
 in the morning, when the porridge-pot, with all its in¬ 
 gredients, had been boiling for the space of one or two 
 hours, (the dinner was served at eleven) and when the 
 broth, full of eyes swimming gently on the golden sur¬ 
 face, had already obtained an interesting appearance 
 and taste. It was a sort of beef-tea, the lusciousness of 
 which was enhanced by the pleasing idea of its being 
 stolen —nitimur in vetitum semper. On the contrary, 
 Soupe de levriers, greyhound’s soup, means that 
 portion of the porridge which was served to the no¬ 
 vices after an ample presumption in favour of the 
 Magnates of the monastery. This was good for no¬ 
 thing, and monks of inferior ranks were ready to 
 throw it to the dogs. The French call rain u soupe 
 de chien.” The egg-broth of the miser, who fed 
 his valet with the water in which eggs had been 
 boiled, comes under the denomination of the said 
 (( soupe de chien,” or harrier’s broth. 
 
 Y. 7. Primum ut oryza facit. The poet mentions 
 only three sorts of soups, among many others. The 
 first is rice soup , “ potage au riz.” Here rice is 
 boiled in broth made of the best meat; beef, veal, 
 and chicken. Rice was known to the Romans, if we 
 can take for granted that the Latin oryza means ex¬ 
 actly this seed. The miser Opimius is advised to 
 take a Ptisane of rice , Horat. Sat. 2, 3, v. 155. 
 
24 
 
 Sumc hoc ptisanarium oryza. But the wretch re¬ 
 fuses to touch it on account of the price, which 
 is supposed to hare been about two-pence. “ Eau 
 de riz, ptisane de riz,” are commonly used in France, 
 and for the same purpose as u water-gruel ” in Eng¬ 
 land. When in partnership with u Patience ” they 
 do wonders. 
 
 V. 7. Caulis cum came , broth and cabbage. To 
 the same broth, as a common basis, this porridge 
 unites cabbage, and, with it, onions, celery, lettuce, 
 carrots, and turnips. These ingredients refine, 
 in the chemical process of ebullition, the gross¬ 
 ness of the carnal juices, and make the pottage both 
 more exhilarating to the palate, and less injurious to 
 the stomach; for strong meat-broth by itself would 
 prove indigestible on account of its heavy and viscous 
 adipousness, were it not neutralized by the addition of 
 vegetable substances. For the same reason vermicelli, 
 bread, and other materials borrowed from the vege¬ 
 table kingdom, are often mixed with the tasteful broth. 
 
 Cabbages of all species, playing a principal part in 
 the porridge and other dishes, and holding emi¬ 
 nent situations among the Dramatis Personce, from 
 the first act to the catastrophe, in the interesting 
 entertainment of a good dinner, deserve to be par¬ 
 ticularly mentioned. 
 
 The Romans are said to have brought into Gal¬ 
 lia the use of the green and red ones which they 
 had received from Egypt. But, upon looking more 
 intimately into the case, it appears that the white 
 brassica migrated from the northern regions to Italy. 
 
I 
 
 25 
 
 Indeed the horticular art of obtaining that round and 
 close form, which distinguishes some species of this 
 useful plant, does not seem to date farther than the 
 age of Charlemagne. The bigness and rotundity 
 of that head gave origin to the name. Cabus 
 from Caput, and Cabbage evidently from Cabus , with 
 the Italian augmentative, accio or aggio — cabbaggio. 
 
 Chrysippus, a famous physician of Cnidos, wrote 
 upon the multifarious qualities of this Olus , not a 
 single chapter, but a large volume. Galenus and 
 Matthiolus have been very loud in its praise. Pliny, 
 in reckoning the various kinds of cabbage , gives a 
 long account of its virtues, but says little upon its use 
 in cookery, as a noted plant among the esculent ones. 
 Cato is very lavish in his encomiums upon this cruci¬ 
 ferous vegetable; and, with Pythagoras, holds it 
 as a general remedy for all diseases. 
 
 The red cabbage stewed in veal broth is accounted, 
 upon the continent, a specific cure against pulmo¬ 
 nary complaints, and what is called here consump¬ 
 tion. Pistachios and calf’s lights are added to it. 
 For thispurpose red cabbage is especially cultivatedin 
 French kitchen-gardens. This reminds us of an anec¬ 
 dote which passed current at the time we heard it:—A 
 young clergyman, rector of a country parish, was 
 called upon to preach a sermon upon a grand solem¬ 
 nity, at which the bishop of the diocese, who was a 
 cardinal, appeared in the Roman purple, surrounded 
 by his clergy in their white surplices. The preacher 
 performed his task to the approbation of every one. 
 After the ceremony, his eminence, meeting him, 
 
 E 
 
26 
 
 seemed to wonder at his not having been abashed 
 when in the presence of a cardinal in the full blaze of 
 his red paraphernalia. The simple and honest clergy¬ 
 man replied: <c Your eminence will cease to wonder, 
 when you know that I learnt my discourse by heart 
 in my garden, and used to practise declamation before 
 a plot of white cabbages, in the centre of which stood 
 a red one.”—A preferment was the reward of this 
 answer. 
 
 Were we to attend scrupulously to the Greek 
 adage often quoted and never rightly understood, 
 Air xpip^Qn SavxTos, “ Twice cabbage brings death,” 
 we might be afraid of using it freely in soups and 
 other dishes; but after hunting most strenuously 
 the sense of this saying through the intricate meanders 
 of the Delphini and variorum notes, and other com¬ 
 mentators, concerning the follow ing line of Juvenal, 
 Sat. vii. 154. 
 
 Occidit miseros cramlie repetila magistros. 
 
 we must confess that we see no harm in it, and 
 would boldly advise the whole fraternity of snips 
 to go on, undauntedly as they do, in their daily and 
 furious onset upon this, their most favourite, mess. 
 
 The signification of the adage remains still unenu¬ 
 cleated. Our opinion is that, in the numerous Greek 
 schools erected at Rome, the first declension of sub¬ 
 stantives was xpocpiQ-n, zir, rt ; crambe , crambes , crambe , 
 as we have here musu , musee , niusce, a song, of a 
 song, to a song, as a specimen. The daily repetition 
 of this noun by the hesitating, stammering, simpering 
 
27 
 
 school-boys, must have been exceedingly tiresome, 
 and enough to kill the disgusted masters —experlo 
 crede Roberto. Gifford in his translation of Juvenal, 
 eludes, or rather misunderstands the sense; for he 
 says ^ 
 
 —Like hash’d cabbage serv’d for each repast, 
 
 The repetition kills the wretch at last. 
 
 however, Juvenal, who points at the Greek pro¬ 
 verb, does not explain it. 
 
 I cannot help mentioning here a very curious 
 superstition of the ancients concerning this plant. 
 We read in Athenazus that they used to swear by 
 it. Nicander in his Georgies says, u Our forefathers 
 have named thij^plant /x«vnv xpapt,Cw,” the prophetic 
 cabbage. Wherefore ? is a question perfectly unanswer¬ 
 able in our days. The Abbe de Marolles most inno¬ 
 cently translates: 
 
 -prophete entre les choux. 
 
 La Brassique a son air qui montre qu’il est doux. 
 
 Obscurum per obscurius. Hipponax calls it a holy, a 
 sacred plant; and adds : 
 
 But when the dawn Aurora’s pearly doors 
 Unbars, the sev’n-leav’d Brassic he adores* 
 
 And culls it for Apollo’s feasts. 
 
 The Abbe says here literally, 
 
 -La Brassique il adore, 
 
 De sept feuilles orn^e, au lever de l’aurore. 
 
 Pour la sacrifier aux fetes d’Apollon. 
 
28 
 
 Eupolis, quoted by Athenaeus, goes farther : he 
 introduces this formula of friendly compellation— 
 (( By the sacred cabbage, I doloveyou;” and suspects 
 this oath to have been peculiar to Ionia. In the ab¬ 
 sence of substantial and credible authorities to quote, 
 it is not very easy to guess how and why superstition 
 should have been attached to one of the most vulgar 
 plants in the kitchen-garden : for what has the mon¬ 
 strous head of a cabbage to do with the Godhead ? 
 Yet if we consider the inside of this curious globe, the 
 enwrappings and close foldings of the leaves, centri- 
 cally bent over and nursing the germen , the seed, 
 the hope of never-ceasing propagation, breathed into 
 that spherical canopy by the Creator himself;—we can 
 hardly wonder at the folly of men, who, unenlightened 
 by divine revelation, knelt, like the Egyptians, before 
 the produce of their gardens. Juvenal exclaims, Sat. 
 xv. 10. 
 
 O sacras gentes quibus hcec nascuntur in hortis 
 Numina !— 
 
 O pious nations, whose most pow’rful gods 
 In gardens grow, and swell the rattling pods. 
 
 Y. 8. Olus excepta came. The third pottage or 
 soup, mentioned in the poem, is that which, admit¬ 
 ting of no broth from any sort of meat, obtains its 
 flavour and taste from a mixture of vegetables with 
 butter, eggs, and milk. The necessity of recurring 
 to dishes made up without the help of animal sub¬ 
 stance, has from time to time roused the ingenuity of 
 cooks in Roman Catholic families, in order to invent 
 
20 
 
 adequate substitutes for those in which the carnal sub¬ 
 sidy is generally used. All sorts of pulse, carrots 
 and their kin, turnips and parsnips reduced to a 
 sort of puree or pudding, are great performers in the 
 opus magnum of the meagre soup. Leeks, onions, 
 and celery, vary the taste ; and sorrel adds to it a 
 most wholesome acidity, when properly subduedby the 
 neutralizing mildness of milk and eggs. The French 
 have besides : Potage a la reine, a l’.Ecossaie, a la 
 Xavier, au blond de veau, a la Faubonne, a la Brunoy, 
 a la proven 9 ale, a la jardiniere, au hameau, a la Conde, 
 a la crossy, a la Necker, a la julienne, k la chifonade, 
 a l’oeil de perdrix, au coulis d’ecrevisses, au lait 
 d’amandes, &c. &c. &c. all of which may be exceed¬ 
 ingly palatable and wholesome, but their names are 
 most obstinately untranslateable into any other lan¬ 
 guage. 
 
 y. 9. Testudo , Turtle. This splendid and deli¬ 
 cate gift, sent from the transatlantic Nereids to the 
 Gastronomers of the old world, could not be known 
 to the ancients ; and we regret that the pens of Mar¬ 
 tial, Juvenal, and Horace, had not to describe the 
 three-fold quality found in the flesh of this enormous 
 reptile, and amphibious animal. How harmoniously 
 callipash and callipce , tasting accidently so much of 
 Grecian origin, might have begun Hexameter, or ended 
 Iambic verses! For instance: 
 
 Callipash hinc gustum languentem provocat ; inde 
 Novum ministrat appetitum Callipee. 
 
 and it seems a great pity that the Tortoise, the 
 
30 
 
 shell of which was adapted to the lyre by Mer¬ 
 cury, had not the gratification to accompany the 
 dithyrambic odes composed, as they would have 
 been, in enthusiastic praise of her testaceous sister, 
 the Turtle. Some travellers mention the turtle as 
 an inhabitant of the East Indian seas ; but the nau¬ 
 tical knowledge of the Greeks and Romans was so 
 very confined, that, were this assertion positively 
 true, they could not have obtained a sufficient ac¬ 
 quaintance with this excellent food. However, it 
 never appeared upon their tables. 
 
 V. 12. Mendax vitulina. Mock-turtle soup. Many 
 gourmets , or gastrologers, have preferred the copy to 
 the original. De gustibusnon est disputandum ; and we 
 confess that, when done as it ought to be, the mock- 
 turtle is exceedingly interesting. A calf’s head is the 
 principal ground of this metamorphosis, and the Pen¬ 
 tameter, in the poem, alludes to the mystery, which 
 books upon cookery will fully explain. French Gas¬ 
 tronomers agree in avowing that turtle-soup, mock- 
 turtle, and all messes thereunto belonging, originate 
 with the English. 
 
 V. 13 & 14. Bubula, sine condimento—Biibula con- 
 dita —Boiled beef, with or without sauce. The prin¬ 
 cipal basis of all pottages, excepting the meagre ones, 
 being the juice extracted from beef, the next dish 
 on the removal of the soup ought to be the boiled beef, 
 or £C Bouilli.” It appears generally strewed with 
 small sprigs of parsley, or surrounded by an elegant 
 wreath of those vegetables, which have undergone the 
 operation of boiling in the same vessel with the meat. 
 
31 
 
 However, a little of the broth with pepper and salt, 
 and other exhilarating and palatable ingredients assists 
 sometimes the too justly reprobated dryness of the 
 dish, which then assumes the higher appellation 
 of u bouilli a la sauce ”—beef with gravy. u La 
 piece de bceuf,” says a French Gastrographer, the 
 “ Bouilli,” or boiled beef, is the constant and indis¬ 
 pensable centre of all dinners in this sublunary 
 world, u dans ce bas monde,” and perhaps one of 
 the most difficult dishes to carve properly and ele¬ 
 gantly. 
 
 The region of the thigh, the great muscle from 
 the rump to the leg, which the French call “ Cimier,” 
 the buttock of beef, is invariably reckoned the fittest 
 and best part of the animal to yield a strong and luscious 
 broth. 
 
 It is reported that Prometheus was the first who 
 killed a bullock, Ceres a pig, and Bacchus a goat, for 
 the use of the table. It is obvious that pigs by turn¬ 
 ing up the new-sown fields for the sake of the grain ; 
 and goats browzing the tender sprouts of the vine- 
 tree, were respectively inimical to Ceres and Bac¬ 
 chus. — As for the killing of the first bullock by 
 Prometheus, we leave to other commentators to ex¬ 
 plain. 
 
 V. 16. Verubus. Spits were used very anci¬ 
 ently in all parts of the world, and perhaps before 
 the plain practice of hanging the meat to a string 
 before the fire. Ere the iron-age had taught men 
 the use of metals, these roasting instruments were 
 made of wood; and, as we find it in Virgil, the 
 
32 
 
 slender blanches of the hazel-tree were particularly 
 chosen. Geo. ii. 396. 
 
 - Stabit sacer hircus ad aram 
 
 Pinguiaque in vembus torrebimus exta colurnis. 
 
 The altar let the guilty goat approach. 
 
 And roast his fat limbs on the hazel broach. 
 
 Why the hazel twig should have been preferred to 
 others for making roasting broaches or spits, is not ea¬ 
 sily accounted for. There is, however, an old custom 
 on the continent which, though rather superstitious, 
 seems to have originated in the circumstance of using 
 hazel sticks for the same purpose. On the eve of 
 Epiphany, called here Twelfth-Night, a few larks 
 are spitted upon a fresh-cut twig of hazel, and placed 
 before a good fire ; after a few minutes expectation, 
 the whole begins to turn without help, and as if by a 
 spontaneous motion. The staring company, in amaze¬ 
 ment and rapture, cry miracle ! and remain per¬ 
 suaded that this cannot be done but by supernatural 
 agency or magic. The fact is, that the sap contained 
 in the veins of the twig (which are probably set in a 
 spiral line round the centre) being successively at¬ 
 tracted by the fire, causes a sort of rotation.—Will 
 any other wood do the same? This is a question 
 which we cannot take upon ourselves to answer. The 
 superstitious notion consists in supposing that this 
 event will not happen but on a certain festival-day, 
 and to that notion we are far from yielding any sort of 
 belief. 
 
 Tergova obesu bovis. “ Filet de bceuf,” sirloin. 
 
33 
 
 This was not'every day on the “carte,” or bill of 
 fare, in London, being one of those dishes which the 
 French emigrants did not particularly relish; and 
 indeed in hotels and public eating-houses, “ tables 
 d’hote,” &c. unless it proves of a tender quality and 
 well roasted, it hardly can remind the Gallic palate 
 of the “ aloyau,” or “ filet de boeuf.” This last is 
 often steeped in vinegar (marine), and is brought on 
 the table with strong gravy, larded and strewed with 
 pickled cucumbers—a refinement which English cook¬ 
 ery and taste have eutirely laid aside, or never tried. 
 
 The word Sirloin , which is supposed to have ori¬ 
 ginated in the frolic of one of our kings, who, in 
 a fit of overflowing good-humour, knighted a loin of 
 beef, only means sur-loin —the part above ( sur ) the 
 loins. 
 
 We are happy to find that it was not on account 
 of the solidity, wholesomeness, delicacy, and other 
 excellent qualities of his flesh, that the ox was wor¬ 
 shipped on the banks of the Nile and in the gorgeous 
 temples of Memphis; for, although professedly friends 
 to Gastronomy, moderated by a decided aversion to 
 any thing like sensuality, we are of opinion that man 
 is less fit to feed upon carnal, than vegetable, sub¬ 
 stances. The noble horse, fierce and unsubdued, was 
 still roaming, with all the roughness and intractability 
 of original freedom, in his native groves, when al¬ 
 ready domesticated, the honest steer had willingly 
 lent the strength of his powerful shoulders to the 
 laborious strife of the plough. This had not only 
 raised altars to him under the name of Apis, but 
 
 F 
 
34 
 
 even placed him among the first constellations of 
 the Zodiac, above the watchful eyes of the Chal¬ 
 deans. In the reign of Erichtonius, fourth king 
 of Athens, Diomus was offering to Jupiter the first 
 fruits of the earth. Whilst the priests were busied apart 
 in preparing some accessaries to the solemnity, an 
 ox, passing by, browsed off all that had been 
 gathered on the altar for the sacrifice. Diomus, 
 in his disappointment and passion, slew him on 
 the spot. The gods, instead of countenancing his 
 religious zeal, sent forth immediately all the hor¬ 
 rors of a pestilence upon the Athenians, which did 
 not cease until they had instituted a festival called 
 BovQoiiiz <( the Death of the Ox.” (Nonius de 
 re ciburia.) Porphyrius traces the custom of eating 
 meat to the age of Pygmalion, king of Tyre in Phoe¬ 
 nicia. Had not the companions of Ulysses killed 
 the beeves consecrated to Apollo (Odyss. B. 1.) the 
 toils of the king of Ithaca would not have taken 
 place, and Homer could not have written the Odyssey. 
 Although the Jews were allowed to eat the flesh of 
 the immolated beasts, (Deut. 12, 26, Exod. 18.) 
 what has been mentioned above tends to prove that 
 man, in the Golden Age, had not yet found courage 
 and appetite enough to eat the flesh of an innocent 
 animal. But soon after, this cruelty extended to 
 nearly all quadrupeds, except those who were car¬ 
 nivorous ; and Maecenas himself, the elegant, the 
 refined patron of Horace and prime minister of Au¬ 
 gustus, used, says Galenus, to have young asses served 
 upon his table when he treated his friends. Dogs even 
 
A 
 
 35 
 
 did not escape, and according to Pliny, Book 29, ch. 4, 
 on the consecration of their pontiffs, the Romans de¬ 
 lighted in the flavour of young and well-fattened pup¬ 
 pies. This strange practice subsists still in China and 
 among the Esquimaux. Plump and well-roasted bats, 
 laid upon a bed of olives, are eaten in the Levant as 
 a dainty; and Scaliger asserts that their flesh is 
 sweeter and more delicate than the breast of a chicken. 
 Frenchmen say the same of frogs. Hedgehogs were 
 fricasseed in Greece as well as Hamster rats in Bran- 
 denbourg ; and the Laplanders feed on rein-deer and 
 squirrels. ic Chacun a son gout.” But to return : we are 
 told that modern Greeks, in the island of Cyprus, still 
 abstain from eating beef out of respect for the agri¬ 
 cultural usefulness of the ox. Pliny speaks of a citizen 
 banished by the people for having killed an ox in order 
 to feed on his flesh. Aristotle and Pliny relate that 
 Pyrrhus had considerably improved the bovine race, 
 by several edicts he had issued for that purpose ; and 
 particularly by forbidding that cows should breed 
 under four years of age. The reader will forgive 
 these particulars on account of the great assistance 
 which the ox and his family afford to Gastronomical 
 enjoyments. 
 
 V. 17. Gallinam fulcit oryza. u Poularde au riz.” 
 Pullet and rice. It frequently happens that what is 
 brought on the table at public places, for a delicate 
 and well-fattened pullet, turns out to be some adult 
 prince of the dunghill, who by the magic wand of 
 the cook, becomes in appearance what the Bill of 
 Fare had fictitiously described. But the gourmet’s 
 
36 
 
 tooth soon detects the fraud, and his palate grieves 
 at the disappointment. This dish, with the exception 
 of the garum, (Pliny, 31, 8.) is notunlike the Turkish 
 pilau, and when genuine in all its parts, generally proves 
 tasteful and wholesome ; so much so, that physicians 
 allow it to their patients in the primo limine of con¬ 
 valescence, and accoucheurs to the ladies in the straw, 
 when they fancy an appetite. The Romans were so 
 desperately fond of fattened hens, (Poulardes, Fr.) 
 that the good consul Caius Fannius, fearful lest the 
 breed should materially suffer from this voracious 
 practice, caused a law to pass the Senate in order to 
 prevent any fatal consequence. Gastronomy frowned 
 at the Senatus-consultum; but capons, properly edu¬ 
 cated, being substituted in the coop for their emanci¬ 
 pated sisters, hunger smiled, anger subsided, and 
 all was right again. The Syrians of old used to 
 worship hens on account of their fecundity, and 
 the exquisite taste of their eggs, which, at Athens 
 and Rome were carried, with pompous show, in the 
 great festivals of Ceres. (Livy.) 
 
 It has been remarked with a sort of superstitious 
 wonder, that some hens have received from nature 
 the masculine talent of crowing ; and, in general, 
 such an anomaly is punished with death in the farm¬ 
 house or cottage where this preposterous uttering is 
 heard. And indeed there is a French proverb which 
 says: 
 
 Poule qui chante, pr6tre qui danse. 
 
 Femme qui parle latin, 
 
 N’arrivent jamais a belle fin. 
 
37 
 
 A crowing hen, a dancing priest, a woman who speaks 
 Latin, never come to a good end. 
 
 The abstinence practised by the hen during incu¬ 
 bation, is much above what Christians and Mahometans 
 can boast concerning their Lent and Ramadan; and 
 Mendoza pretends to have seen a hen, who, for ninety 
 days, never opened her beak to take food. 
 
 The digestive powers of the hen have been most 
 horridly tried by Spallanzani, who ought to have been 
 put under the lex talionis. He ascertained that this 
 poor creature could not indeed digest a musket-ball, 
 larded all round with needles and lancets, but had 
 strength enough to blunt the edges of these destructive 
 instruments. This leaves far behind all that has 
 been said of the ostrich ; but have we not heard 
 lately of several clasp-knives found in a fair way of 
 digestion in the stomach of a madman ? 
 
 V. 18. Vir mulierque fuit. The culinary trans¬ 
 formation of a cock into a pullet, brings naturally 
 enough to the mind the unexplainable story of Ti- 
 resias, who having passed from the one sex to the 
 other, was on that account called upon to settle a ridi¬ 
 culous dispute between two of the still more ridiculous 
 deities of the heathens. (Ovid, Met. 3, Fab. 4.) 
 Having struck two entwined serpents with his stick, 
 he becomes a woman. Seven years after, he meets 
 the same loving couple, strikes them again, and 
 jumps back into his former sex. Commentators on 
 the rack have confessed that they could not see any 
 religious, moral, or physical meaning in the fable 
 Alchymists, dreaming of the wonder-working stona 
 
38 
 
 found silver transformed into gold, concealed behind 
 the veil of this curious allegory; but they found also 
 that the soothsayer was struck s/one-blind as a reward 
 for his trouble in meddling between married folks— 
 and that would not do. We have treasured up some 
 very deep researches upon the matter, but dare not 
 indulge too freely and publicly in them, lest we should 
 appear nonsensical a few years before the allotted 
 time, and spontaneously anticipate the unavoidable 
 period of downright dotage and complete doodledom. 
 
 V. 19. Tarpeius ales. t( Oie rotie.” Roast goose. 
 The famous guardians of the Capitol, who gave the 
 alarm from the Tarpeian rock to the sleeping Ro¬ 
 man centinels, when the Gauls were on the point 
 of scaling the walls of the city, have been i( honour¬ 
 ably 'mentioned,” by ancient writers ; and Virgil, 
 with his usual elegance, places one of them on the 
 shield of his hero. jEn. viii. 
 
 - Auratis volitans argenteus anser, 
 
 Porticilms, Gallos in limine adesse canelat. 
 
 The silver goose, before the shining gate 
 There flew, and by her cackle sav’d the state. 
 
 Dryden left out the beautiful opposition between 
 auratis and argenteus , by which the Latin poet 
 intended to shew that the artist had chased the bird 
 in silver upon a gold ground representing the Ca¬ 
 pitol. 
 
 Geese are not in general of such famous repute in 
 France as they are here, and seldom make their ap¬ 
 pearance upon the tables of the Parisian epicures. 
 
39 
 
 The flesh, they condemn as coarse and unwholesome ; 
 and the apple-sauce, when mentioned, never fails to 
 elicit flashes of astonishment subsiding into peals of 
 laughter. But the liver and thighs of geese, learnedly 
 made into pies, and properly truffled , <£ pates de 
 foies gras,” are reckoned a most delicate article; yet 
 they have killed nearly as many Gastronomers as the 
 small-pox and scarlet fever have destroyed children. 
 The department of Perigord, with Toulouse and Bai- 
 onne, used, notwithstanding, to cook annually for the 
 rest of the world about 120,000 of these lethiferous pies. 
 Were we to believe what is reported of the manner 
 of fattening this devoted bird, the heart would feel 
 a pain, which communicated to its neighbour the sto¬ 
 mach, would certainly damp its courage. Large droves 
 of geese were anciently led from Picardy to Italy, 
 waddling over the Alps, and constantly stooping, ac¬ 
 cording to their prudent custom, under the lofty tri¬ 
 umphal arches under which they happen to pass in 
 their way. Yet geese are not so stupid as they are ge¬ 
 nerally supposed to be. The famous chymist, Lemery, 
 saw a goose turning the spit on which a turkey was 
 roasting ; unconscious, we hope, that some friend 
 would soon accept the office for her. a Alas! we are 
 all turnspits in this world; ” adds the Gastrographer 
 who relates the fact, l( and, when we roast a friend, 
 let us be aware that many stand ready to return the 
 compliment.” 
 
 The name of this bird in Greek is ypn, pronounced 
 cane, from which, by a misapplication, the mallard 
 and duck are called canard , and cane in French. 
 
40 
 
 Were they the originals, and the goose but a magnified 
 copy ? 
 
 The punstical alliteration of impavidos and avidos 
 Gallos is recommended to the indulgence of the reader, 
 who must not forget that this short Latin poem is far 
 from being serious, or made of serious elements. 
 
 V. 21. IS apis circumseptus anas. “ Canard aux 
 navets.” Duck with turnips. The word turnip or 
 turnep evidently comes from tornatus napus , and seems 
 to identify the globular shape of that well-known 
 root. Turnips in France and other countries have 
 the spindle form of the parsnip, . pustinaca napus. 
 Napus alias Rapus is translated, in old English, na- 
 vezv, navow , (Fr. navet. provincially navot) as if 
 from naphus. The numerous branches of the napi, 
 naphi, rapi , and raphani family are so interwoven in 
 horticultural pedigrees, that Pliny seriously asserts, 
 that they change often from one to another— utriusque 
 semen in alterum mutatur. 
 
 This dish is excellent when well prepared. The 
 duck is, at first, scorched in hot melted butter, as 
 well as the turnips. These being laid aside for the 
 space of about half an hour, the duck is allowed to 
 stew gently, in solitary plight, till being sufficiently 
 concocted, he admits again the waiting vegetables 
 into his company. A few cubic bits of bacon, a sprig 
 of thyme, a leaf of laurel (Daphne), will enhance 
 considerably the flavour of the dish. 
 
 The duck was known to the ancients under the 
 names of N»)<T(T«, Gr. Anas , Lat. but does not seem 
 to have been much noticed. However duck’s eggs 
 
41 
 
 were and are still, reckoned more delicate, and when 
 used in pastry, lighter than any other eggs. 
 
 Y. 22. Cepula quam sepit. The alliteration in the pen¬ 
 tameter of this distich was purposely affected, it seems, 
 by the author, from a recollection of, or in allusion 
 to, a sort of riddle well known among the Latinists : 
 Vidi scppe sepem edentem in sepe cepam ; “ I have 
 often seen a snake eating an onion in a hedge.” 
 44 Canard aux ognons;” a duck is dressed with 
 onions in the same manner as with turnips. 
 
 Onions are supposed to have been originally brought 
 from Egypt, where they must have possessed a most 
 bewitching taste since the Israelites would fain have 
 returned to bondage for the sake of enjoying them 
 again. Alexander the Great sent them to Greece, 
 and from thence they became common on the whole 
 continent. It is remarkable that the particles emana¬ 
 ting from this bulbous root are so volatile and so 
 keen, that they instantly corrode the external surface 
 of the eyes, and draw tears ; and it is more curious 
 still, that if, when peeling an onion, the cook wishes 
 to be spared this lachrymatory affection, a small 
 piece of bread placed at the end of the operating 
 knife, will absorb the effluvia and prevent the dis¬ 
 agreeable effect. 
 
 Y. 23. Vitulina cum rumice. 44 Fricandeau a 
 l’ozeille.” Stewed veal and sorrel. This is one of 
 the best among the 44 entrees,” or substantial ele¬ 
 ments of the first course of a dinner. A well-chosen 
 piece of veal, weighing under three pounds and with¬ 
 out bones, is stewed gently on an even fire for several 
 
 G 
 
42 
 
 hours, in the native strength of its own juice and 
 gravy. The learnedly directed needle had been busily 
 employed to lard the subject before it was confined; 
 and when properly done, the meat is placed upon a 
 bed of sorrel, subdued by gentle boiling in water, 
 and then blended with the gravy and juice of 
 the veal. Sorrel is a species of the lapalhum , or 
 dock ; and, possessing naturally strong acids in the 
 composition of its leaves and stalks, cleans the teeth 
 by friction. The word fricando, gerund of fricare, 
 to rub, is not adduced here as the origin of, but as a 
 jocose allusion to, the name of this pleasing dish. 
 There exists no mediocrity in a fricandeau; it must be 
 either very good or very bad— corruptio optimipessima. 
 
 V. 25. Confrixus Gallus. ft Fricassee de poulet.” 
 Fricasseed chicken. A tender fowl cut in pieces 
 and boiled with a little fresh butter, and enough of 
 water to cover it in the casserole,” on a gentle 
 furnace, requires the help of a few onions, a nosegay 
 of parsley, bottoms of artichokes, and other accom¬ 
 paniments. When done, the yolks of a couple of 
 eggs well diluted in some of the liquid from the stew- 
 pan, are mixed with it. This is one of the most inte¬ 
 resting dishes which the Frenchcuisine bourgeoise ” 
 can boast. 
 
 Gallus Jit pullus in olid. We have seen above the 
 transformation of a cock into a pullet; here the au¬ 
 thor alludes to the equally curious metamorphosis of 
 old chanticleer served up under the title of a tender 
 and young fowl. Such wonders the cauldrons and 
 spells of clever cooks can achieve in the regions below ! 
 
4B 
 
 In the description of a dinner, Sat. Ill, Boileau, 
 speaking of the same substitution, says : 
 
 Un coq y paroissoit en pompeux equipage, 
 
 Qui , changeant sur ce plat el d’etat el de norn. 
 
 Par lous les convies s’esl appelli chapon. 
 
 There an old cock most pompously prepared. 
 
 By all the guests a capon was declared. 
 
 V. 26. Medceam JEsonem sic renovasse ferunt. 
 Mythology asserts that thus, and exactly by the same 
 process, Medea, who was a sworn or licensed witch 
 in her time, restored to youth iEson, the decrepit 
 father of Jason, her paramour; and that, being en¬ 
 treated by the daughters of Pelias, iEson’s brother, 
 to perform the same reviving ceremony upon him, she 
 advised these simpletons to scotch their dear parent 
 into cutlets and chops, and to make a comfortable 
 stew. But the charm did not work, and by this con- 
 sobrinal trick the princess of Colchos got rid of Ja¬ 
 son’s uncle, and of all the rest of the collateral branch 
 of the family. Plautus does not appear to have held 
 as a received opinion that poor Pelias was boiled to 
 mummy, but only simmered to youthful vigour, like 
 old fowls in the a casserole,” since he says, through 
 the interlocution of the same cook, loc. cit. 
 
 SorMlione faciarn te hodii mra. 
 
 Item til MediCa Peliam concoxil senem, 
 
 Quem medicamenlo et suis venenis dicilur 
 Fecisse rurshs ex sene adolesctnlulum. 
 
 In venom-juices, and wiih noxious weed. 
 
 Old Pelias, by Medea fricasseed. 
 
 To youthful vigour sprung ; 
 
44 
 
 Thus, from an old and ugly wicked wight. 
 
 This day, my skill in cook’ry always right. 
 
 Again will make thee young. 
 
 Our opinion is that the comic writer introduced the 
 mistake for the very purpose of showing the igno¬ 
 rance of the would-be-learned cook. 
 
 V. 27. Cincinno similis costula. u Cotelettes de 
 veau en papillotes.” Veal cutlets done in paper. 
 This delicate part of the animal, lightly sprinkled 
 with crumbs or raspings of bread, minced parsley, 
 pepper and salt, is w rapped in buttered paper pre¬ 
 vious to its being devoted to the ordeal of the gridiron 
 on a good and clear fire. 
 
 Pane , apio, chart a ^ amicta. Pants. e( Pain.” 
 Bread is of a very ancient origin; the Hebrew 
 called it lehem , the Greek Ǥros ; and it appears that 
 the Gauls and Celts gave it the name of bar. The 
 Greeks, having been taught the art of cultivating 
 wheat and of making bread, were generally as¬ 
 sailed on the confines of their dominions by those 
 people, who used to call bar, bar —bread, bread ; 
 hence the Greek barbaros , B a.pQotpos. The word 
 barley attaches itself to this hypothesis, since barley- 
 bread was known at the same time with or even before 
 wheaten bread. Some authors of respectability pre¬ 
 tend that wheat originated in Egypt, and that the 
 Phocean colony brought it to Marseilles. The Sa¬ 
 racens used it before the crusades, but it was that in¬ 
 ferior species named buckwheat, which is still 
 called in French, sarrasin. There was a particular 
 sort of bread made to be eaten with oysters; and 
 
45 
 
 such rolls as we butter for breakfast were invented 
 by the Parthians, and called consequently panis Par¬ 
 titions. (Pliny.) 
 
 Apium. Parsley. “ Persil,” from petroselinum. 
 This plant, Gr. ae\i vov, was known and in great 
 repute in the time of Homer, since he adorns with 
 it and the violet the precincts of Calypso’s ar¬ 
 bour in his beautiful description, Odyss. Book V. 
 v. 73. —t ou asXivOu QrtXeOv. 
 
 In verdant meads, and thriving all around, 
 
 Sweet violets and parsley deck the ground. 
 
 The elegantly indented leaves of this vegetable 
 adorned, in ancient architecture, the Corinthian ca¬ 
 pital as well as those of the Acanthus ; and we are 
 told that the Carthaginians, having found it in the 
 delightful vales of Sardinia, brought it to the Phocean 
 gardens of the Marseillese. If after having bruised 
 some sprigs of parsley in your hands, you attempt 
 to rinse your glasses, they will generally snap and 
 suddenly break. 
 
 Charta. 11 Papier.” Paper. Hence u papillotte,” 
 which generally applies to the small paper in which 
 the hair is confined to make it curl. And indeed 
 these cutlets, (from to cut in English, and from 
 cdtelelte, a small rib, in French) when brought on the 
 table with their scorched wrappers, bear a very strong 
 resemblance to the papillotes , which have of late 
 resumed their station on the forehead, and remind us 
 of one of the scenes in the “ Marriage 4 la mode,” 
 by the immortal Hogarth. 
 
46 
 
 V. 29 and 30. Vento levior similisque volanti Ar- 
 tocrea. i( Vole au vent.” A raised pye, with a fo¬ 
 liated and light crust, containing chicken fricasseed, 
 veal, sweetbread, or any other delicate meat, ge¬ 
 nerally accompanied by bottoms of artichokes, mush¬ 
 rooms, maroons, &c. On meagre days, roes of carp, 
 crawfishes, or eels, are subsituted for meat. 
 
 V. 31. Vituli jecur. a Foie de veau.” Calf’s 
 liver. When this article, properly larded, has been 
 allowed to stew gently in its own juice, with some 
 necessary ingredients, as salt, pepper, cloves, and a 
 sufficient supply of fresh butter, which ought to have 
 been previously burnt in the pan with flour, this dish 
 is far from being despicable, though hardly known in 
 the ec cuisine Anglaise.” The allusion in the poem 
 relates to Prometheus, whose ever-renascent liver was 
 the prey of vultures, the executioners of divine ven¬ 
 geance upon this intrepid mortal, who had stolen from 
 heaven a spark of the elemental fire. Hor. B. 1. 
 Od. 3. 
 
 V. 34. Ad solitum coda bovilla modum. u Boeuf 
 a la mode.” A-la-mode beef. It would be very er¬ 
 roneous to suppose that this bears any resemblance 
 to what some people find in the neighbourhood of the 
 London theatres. Stringy muscles of legs of beef, 
 the offals of the shambles, stewed down to hempy 
 pap, with allspice, whole pepper, and other high sea¬ 
 soning stuff, constitute what the hungry haunters of the 
 pit, and more hungry tenants of the galleries, swallow 
 without mastication, at those shops anciently called 
 the Ci Thirteen Cantons,” in remembrance of the ori- 
 
47 
 
 ginal inventors of the dainty, who undoubtedly were 
 indigenous cooks from Switzerland. The real u bceuf 
 4 la mode’’ consists of a selected part of a particular 
 muscle (the buttock, we should suppose) larded 
 throughout with fresh and well-flavoured bacon. It is 
 allowed to muse gently for several hours, inaccessible 
 to the ambient air, and on the even and persevering 
 heat of charcoal in the furnace or stove. After having 
 lulled itself in its own exudations and the dissolution 
 of its auxiliaries, it appears on the table with a pow¬ 
 erful claim to the approbation of the Amphitryon and 
 his guests. It is next to the Italian u stuffato,” and 
 nearly synonymous with beef properly stewed. 
 
 V. 35. Juvencorum palatos. C( Palais de bceuf.” 
 Ox palate. According to the opinion of Gastrologers, 
 nothing more delicate, softer, and better flavoured 
 than this dish, can ever leap over the threshold of 
 our masticating organs. 
 
 V. 36. Colchica Jlamma. Allusion to Medea, the 
 above mentioned high-bred sorceress of Colchos, who 
 taught her lover Jason, captain of the ship Argo, to 
 conquer the spit-fire bulls to whom the custody of 
 the golden fleece was entrusted. (Seneca’s tragedy. 
 Ovid Met. B. vii. and Cicero, N. D.) Our in¬ 
 nocent oxen are not armed, says the author, with 
 dreadful emanations of flames ; they feed peacefully 
 on the margin of our streams, and are perfectly free 
 from the magic tricks of the witch of Thessaly. 
 
 V. 40. Pancreas. ii Ris de veau ” Sweetbread. 
 Pancreas means all-flesh.” Indeed there is no 
 bone in sweetbreads, but when they are not well- 
 
48 
 
 chosen, parts of the vena porta , and tough teguments 
 of arteries, make the teeth of the Gastronomer recoil 
 in an awkward attitude. Nothing, says the poet, is 
 sweeter and more agreeable to the palate than this 
 glandulous substance ; and the cook, when he knows 
 how to avail himself of its qualities, will introduce 
 it with success in many learned dishes, (e mets sa¬ 
 vants.” We speak of the calf’s sweet bread; the 
 ancients do not mention it as a food of any repute on 
 their tables. That of a hog is called in Latin animellae ; 
 and, chopped with beaten eggs, was one of the compo¬ 
 nent phrts of an omelette , to which it gave a name. 
 
 V. 41. Vervecis costula. “ Cbtelettes de niouton.” 
 Mutton chops. It is rather surprising that the word 
 cutlet should have been omitted by Johnson in his 
 dictionary. The real mutton t£ cotelettes,” cutlets, 
 or chops, are, or ought to be, small ribs with part 
 of the flesh adhering to them, as they run down from 
 the neck to the hind part of the animal; but by ex¬ 
 tension of sense, or license of expression, the word 
 applies indiscriminately to any small parts cut off where 
 the bone and meat are closely united. They are here 
 plainly broiled, toasted, or fried like veal; but 
 treated with much more ceremony in France. Steeped 
 in sweet oil. powdered with pepper and salt, crumbs 
 or raspings of bread, and minced parsley, they pre¬ 
 sent themselves to the Gastronomer’s palate with a 
 more enticing taste than they naturally possess. 
 Dressing , which goes so far at the toilette, is of no 
 less importance in the subterraneous mysteries of 
 the kitchen. 
 
49 
 
 The price mentioned, uno triente , a groat, for a 
 plain mutton chop, may not be now the same as 
 when the poem was originally composed. Triens 
 Stands for the third part of the Roman As. Juvenal 
 Sat. iii. 267. gives us to understand that the coin 
 so called in his time was of little value, just the 
 fare of the ferryman Charon to convey a soul across 
 the Styx ; and that it was put in the mouth of the 
 dead. 
 
 Infelix nec halet quem porrigat ore trientem. 
 
 He has not, poor devil, a farthing to give him. 
 
 The consumption of sheep and lambs in England 
 is astonishing. In London only, it amounts, upon 
 an average, to the number of about twelve hundred 
 thousand heads per annum. 
 
 V. 43. Si cerebrum cupias. “ Cervelles.” Brains. 
 It is hardly possible to guess how the culinary art 
 could treat matters so well as to make this soft pappy 
 substance in any sort of way palatable. True, and 
 practicably true it is, however, that many customers 
 used to call for, and were mightily pleased with, this 
 dish. It was sometimes stewed with fine herbs; some¬ 
 times dipt in batter and fried, then served up upon a 
 full stratum of crisply fried parsley. Of all brains, that 
 of a young rabbit is declared the most delicate. 
 
 Minutal ovincc carnis. u Hachis de Mouton.” 
 Minced Mutton. This dish was known to the Ro¬ 
 mans. Juvenal, Sat. 14—127. The best part of 
 the animal to be minced is the leg, the day after it 
 has been roasted ; a common practice in private 
 French houses, where they do not hash mutton 
 
 H 
 
but veal; and do not mince veal but mutton ; yet 
 they call minced meat u Hachis.” 
 
 Y. 45. Ovis lingua. u Langues de Mouton.” Sheep’s 
 tongues. They are generally accompanied with 
 stewed sorrel, or carrots. The Latin name of the 
 last, Pastinaca , being on account of its quantity re¬ 
 fused admission into the Hexameter or Pentameter 
 line, is alluded to in the enigmatical turn of the se¬ 
 cond part of the distich. 
 
 V. 47. Vitulina subalbicat. u Blanquette de 
 veau.” Hashed veal. The French word u blanquette” 
 originates in the pleasingly white (blanc) appear¬ 
 ance of this mess. The meat ought to have been 
 roasted first; then it is consigned to the pan with a 
 small quantity of fresh butter, then water, then 
 cream or milk, then chopped parsley strewed over 
 the whole. Onions are admitted, and sweet-breads 
 mostly welcome. 
 
 V. 49, 50. Cervix Meleagrcei apri. (i Ilure de 
 sanglier.” Wild boar’s head. This famous and 
 savoury specimen of the art of cookery, is here 
 negatively mentioned. But, instead of it, we may 
 have that of a home-bred hog, from Hampshire, and 
 particularly from the part of that county called the 
 New Forest. Juvenal in his description of a feast. 
 Sat. v. has the following lines : 
 
 Anseris ante ipsum magnijecur, anseribus par 
 Allilis, el flavi dignui Jerro Meleagri 
 Fumat aper. 
 
 The liver of a large goose, a capon equally as big, and 
 a wild boar worthy of having been slain by the sword of 
 Meleager, smoked before the master of the entertainment. 
 
51 
 
 Commentators are of opinion that this animal was 
 roasted barbecue, (l de la barbe a la queue,” from 
 beard to tail, as we etymologize it, consequently 
 entire. It must be observed that we find also in this 
 passage that the liver of a fat goose was already es¬ 
 teemed a great dainty at Rome. 
 
 Y. 51. Nunquid amas sapidam pernam. iC Jam- 
 bon.” Ham. The custom of fumigating hams is of a 
 very ancient date, and was well known to the Romans. 
 Horace mentions it, Sat. ii. 2.—117. 
 
 - Fumoscc cum pede pernce . 
 
 Several places on the continent are famous for 
 the delicacy and flavour of their hams ; Westpha¬ 
 lia, however, is at the head of the list. The cooking 
 of a ham requires all the science and care of the 
 cook. Tasteful vegetables, sweetly perfumed herbs, 
 spice and wine, are then in constant requisition : 
 but the purpura , the red tint, is produced by the 
 mixed operation of nitre and salt. 
 
 Y. 53, 54. Condita sale, et sine sale sus. ee Petit 
 sale,” and u Pore frais.” Pickled pork, and roast pork. 
 Pickled pork here bears very little resemblance to what 
 is called “ Petit sale” in France, where porkmen ge¬ 
 nerally cook it in their own houses. From this circum¬ 
 stance, viz. that of selling ready cooked meat, they are 
 called “ chaircuitiers.” Cabbage is, by its mildness, a 
 neutralizing accompaniment to pickled pork; but 
 sweet sauce with roast pork appears to have been re¬ 
 tained since the residence of the Romans in this Is¬ 
 land. The Gauls substituted sharp seasonings, as garlic, 
 
52 
 
 shalots, &c. and it is a true observation that, among 
 the innumerable quantity of meat-dishes, which a 
 French cook can dress and serve up, not a drachm of 
 sugar enters in any one of them. 
 
 V. 56. Brassica tucetis comes. u Hoche-pot au sau- 
 cissons.” Sausages and cabbage. The compound 
 word u hoche-pot” originates in the reiterated 
 shaking of the pan by the cook’s hand, lest the con¬ 
 tents should stick or catch by the too great heat of 
 the stove. Persius Sat. 2—43, seems to be of 
 opinion that sausages, tuceta , are not a wholesome food: 
 for he says : 
 
 Poscis open nervis, corpusque fidele senectce ; 
 
 Eslo, age, sed grandes patina ;, lucetaque crassa 
 Annuere his superas vetuere, Jovemque moi antur. 
 
 You pray for strength of nerves, and body fit 
 Boldly to meet the mis’ries of old age; 
 
 ’Tis well, pray on : but mind, your cursed rage 
 For great high-season’d cates may still defeat 
 The yielding kindness of the powers above. 
 
 And chains of sausage bind the bounteous hand of Jove. 
 
 V. 57. Assaiurne caro vitulina. (< Longe de 
 veau.” Loin of veal. This part is generally se¬ 
 lected for roasting. But it is not often found at 
 common eating-houses either here or at Paris, as it 
 is hinted by the answer of the waiter in the poem, 
 who proposes roast mutton instead of it. 
 
 V. 58. Tergus et urmus ovis. “ Mouton roti.” 
 Roast mutton. The shoulder is often laid upon a 
 bed of French beans, (haricots blancs) or of endive. 
 These vegetables are first boiled, and then placed in 
 
♦ • 
 
 53 
 
 the dripping pan under the meat, about a quarter of 
 an hour before it is thoroughly done, in order to 
 receive the gravy distilling from it. 
 
 Y. 60. Cichorea , “ chicoree,” succory.—Lat. in- 
 tybus erraticus. Endive. Horace says : 
 
 — ■■ " - me pascunt olives, 
 
 Me cichorea, levesque malvce. 
 
 li Sweet olives, endive, and mallows,” do not seem 
 well calculated to inspire the muse ; and surely 
 generous wine must have animated a repast composed 
 of mere garden-stuff. Boileau was of that opinion, 
 for he said: 
 
 “ Horace a bu son soul quand il voit les Menades.” 
 
 Horace has drunk his fill when he sees the Msenades. 
 
 A mild bitterness, natural to this plant ( Amaris in- 
 tyba fibris. Virg. Geo. 1.—120.) acts as a detersive 
 in the stomach and bowels. The light and soft mal¬ 
 lows have long deserted the kitchen. 
 
 V. 61. Unguibus pedibusque suis Sus. £< Pieds de 
 cochon.” Pettitoes. The punstical association of 
 sus and suis , alludes also to a sort of Latin enigma 
 known at school, Vidi murem currentem non pedibus 
 suis. (i I saw a rat running not upon his own feet.” 
 But suis being taken as the genitive of sus , a pig; 
 the sense is, “ running not with pig’s feet.” 
 
 V. 62. Botellus adest. “ Boudin noir.” Black 
 pudding. This sort of pudding, made with pig’s 
 blood, onions, grit, herbs, &c. is mentioned in 
 Apidus 2, 5. and by Seneca —Ep. 6. Some un¬ 
 daunted knights of the etymological order, have long 
 
54 
 
 fought to prove that the French u boudin and the 
 English ii pudding,” descended from Botulus ; but 
 few have followed their banners, although the Botulists 
 were not deficient in skill to establish their thesis. 
 They were tight warriors and could show blood 
 enough; but it turned out to be a drawn battle, et 
 adhuc sub judice Its est. 
 
 Y. 63. Tostos renes, caudasque bidentum. “ Rog- 
 nons et queues de mouton.” Kidneys and sheep’s tails. 
 Broiled with proper seasoning, or tossed up in the 
 frying pan with butter and onions, kidneys become 
 palatable. As for sheep’s tails, they ought to be 
 dressed with a great deal of care, in order to prevent 
 the fat, with which they are generally loaded, proving 
 noxious to the stomach; they are generally accom¬ 
 panied with pease pudding, or with a puree de len- 
 lilles,” in French cookery. 
 
 V. 64. Furtci bovina. “ Queues de boeufs.” 
 Bullocks tails. Although the great quantity of bones 
 which these contain, renders the eating rather tedious, 
 yet the meat lodged in the apophyses and cavities of 
 the caudal vertebra , is extremely sweet and nourishing. 
 Stewed with onions, carrots, turnips, &c. and small 
 cuts of bacon, they become interesting. 
 
 The allusion to the history of Cacus is obvious— 
 This noted thief, son of Vulcan, had taken his 
 abode on Mount Aventine. Hercules returning from 
 Spain, had rested himself in the vale at the foot of 
 the hill, with a drove of cattle he had led from thence. 
 Cacus, to defeat the search of the owner, drew several of 
 them backwards by the tail into his cavern ; but at the 
 
O) 
 
 lowing of one of those he had drawn to his den, the 
 remaining beasts began to answer; the wily scheme 
 was discovered, and Hercules, having dragged this 
 monster out of his hold by the feet, killed him 
 with his club.—Livy 1. 7.—Virg. JEn. 8. 200. 
 
 V. 68. Bubula hesterna. “ Bouilli froid.” Cold 
 boiled beef, with oil and vinegar, pepper and salt, 
 parsley and mustard, is not to be despised, and proves 
 a substantial luncheon. 
 
 V. 69. Phasiano de fiumine avis. u Faisan.” 
 Pheasant. (This and the following articles down to 
 the fishes, being seldom upon the Bill of Fare, 
 are introduced negatively and by mere opposi¬ 
 tion.) The beauty of this bird when alive, the fla¬ 
 vour and quality of his flesh when properly dressed, 
 are too well known to claim a long description in this 
 note. Gastronomers who have any sort of aversion 
 to a peculiar taste in game properly kept, had better 
 abstain from this bird — since it is w orse than a 
 common fowl, if not waited for till it acquires the 
 “ fumet” it ought to have. Whole republics of mag¬ 
 gots have often been found rioting under the wings of 
 pheasants ; but being radically dispersed, and the birds 
 properly washed with vinegar, every thing went right, 
 and every guest, unconscious of the culinary ablutions, 
 enjoyed the excellent flavour of the Phasian birds. 
 
 V. 72. Tetrax or Tetras. “ Cocq de bruyere.” 
 Heath-cock, is the real name of the moor-cock and 
 the rest of the black game so well known in the hy¬ 
 perborean parts of Great Britain. Several naturalists 
 of easy credulity have believed and propagated as 
 
probable, if not indisputable, that the great Tetrao, 
 or Tetras, the monarch of the wood, perched on the 
 branch of a tree, calls to him his wandering hens; 
 and that, after haring dropped some mysterious liquid 
 from his beak, he sends them away, properly fit to 
 propagate his royal breed. This bird is also called 
 Gor-cock, red or black game. The following lines 
 allude to the fable hinted in the poem : 
 
 Where smooth, unruffled by the northern blast. 
 
 The crystal lakes, in Alpine rocks enshrin’d. 
 
 Reflect the verdant scene, and gently bathe 
 With silver waves around, the grass-grown feet 
 Of woody hills; there to his cackling dames. 
 
 On blooming heaths and secret lawns dispers’d. 
 
 The Gor-cock calls,the sultan of the grove— 
 
 On eager wings they fly- 
 
 V. 73. Perclix. u Perdrix.” Partridge. The 
 breast of this bird, being very plump and fleshy, is 
 generally preferred to any other part. We have read, 
 but can hardly believe, that in some of the islands of 
 the Archipelago, partridges are seen in droves, led 
 by a boy like a flock of sheep or a bevy of fat geese. 
 
 V. 74. Lepus. “ Lievre.” Hare. This animal 
 was highly esteemed by the Roman epicures ; and 
 Martial, who seems to have been a good Gastrologer, 
 speaks of it in the following Lemma: 
 
 Inter aves furdu r, si quis ne iudice certel, 
 
 Inter quadrupedes giuria prima lepus. 
 
 Of all the birds, the thrush 1 deem the best ; 
 
 ’Mong quadrupeds, the hare beats all the rest. 
 
57 
 
 The manner of dressing a hare is either roasting or 
 jugging it. Roasted, well larded with small slices of 
 bacon, and basted with a sprig of thyme, it proves 
 excellent when the animal is in a proper state. Jugged, 
 that is stewed with onions, carrots, chestnuts, pars¬ 
 ley, and dice of bacon, it also pleases the most 
 learned palates. This is called in French <e civet de 
 lievre,” a common dish in the a cuisine bourgeoise.” 
 In Horace’s time, the shoulders of a female hare were 
 looked upon as the best parts of the whole : 
 
 Fcecundi leporis sapiens seciabitur armos.— Sat. 2. 
 
 The following lines are elegantly descriptive of what 
 this timid and innocent animal must feel when hunted 
 in the plain : 
 
 -And who can tell what pangs. 
 
 What dreadful aches, her throbbing bosom tear. 
 
 When at her heels the yelping pack of hounds. 
 
 Thro’ brakes, thro’ hedges, open lawns, and dales. 
 Presses on her th’ insequent death ? She runs. 
 
 She flies, and leaps, and bounces, to deceive 
 The scent-inhaling foes, who urge the chace. 
 
 And toil to catch a booty not their own. 
 
 The dales, the lawns, she crosses back in vain. 
 
 Till fainting—breathless—spent, at last she drops 
 On some fresh verdant turf or thymy bank. 
 
 Once the gay scene of her nocturnal sports. 
 
 By the words <£ a booty not their own,” the author 
 alludes to this Latin line, Sic vos non vobis curritis 
 area canes ; the only one which was ever added 
 to the well-known Sic vos non vobis , filled up by 
 Virgil. 
 
 I 
 
V. 75. Cotumix. (( Caille.” Quail. The Athe¬ 
 nians used to keep these birds merely for the sport of 
 fighting with each other, as game-cocks do, but never 
 ate the flesh. It was that wild fowl which God con¬ 
 descended to send to the chosen people as a suste¬ 
 nance in the desert. This fact is alluded to in the dis¬ 
 tich. Quails are generally roasted, surrounded with 
 a slice of bacon and a vine-leaf. When free from a 
 fishy taste, they prove very delicate. Lucretius men¬ 
 tions that hellebore, veratrum , a strong poison toman, 
 fattens goats and quails. 
 
 V. 78. Turdus. “ Grive.” Thrush. Though 
 one of the most agreeable choristers of the vernal 
 grove, this bird appears also, with the vine-leaf, be¬ 
 fore the fire. It was a great dainty on the Athenian 
 board. Homer, says Athenaeus, wrote a poem on the 
 thrush, but it is lost. Agrippina had taught one 
 to speak as well as a parrot or a magpie. The Ro¬ 
 mans kept thousands of them in most beautiful aviaries, 
 surrounded with green boughs, where they fed upon 
 the berries of laurel, myrtle, ivy, and other shrubs, 
 on the brink of purling rills, winding gently in irri- 
 guous mazes within the precincts of their captivity. 
 Their flesh possesses a great deal of delicacy, when 
 they are not too fat. 
 
 V. 79. Palumbes . u Pigeon-ramier.” Wood- 
 pigeon. This bird was not one of those dishes which 
 made up the Bill of Fare in the neighbourhood of 
 Leicester-fields. Common pigeons were sometimes 
 offered to the customers under the denomination of 
 pigeons 44 en compote,” stewed pigeons; and 44 a la 
 
59 
 
 crapaudine.” Dished up in this way with mushrooms 
 and taragon vinegar, they eat delightfully; and their 
 shape, in that plight, being not unlike that of a 
 toad (Fr. crapaud), gave rise to the name. Pigeons 
 were astonishingly numerous in France before the 
 Revolution; and the Society of Agriculture de¬ 
 clared that they yielded 4,200,000 pounds weight 
 of flesh annually. They were of course extremely 
 cheap. 
 
 V. 85. Meleagrides. ic Dindons.” Turkeys. Na¬ 
 turalists are at variance upon the origin of this bird. 
 Some pretend that it was not known before the dis¬ 
 covery of America, and that the first which appeared 
 on a table in France was eaten at the nuptials of 
 Charles IX. in 1570. Henry VIII. had some of them 
 brought to England in 1525, and they are supposed 
 to be indigenous to Canada and the adjacent countries, 
 where they are found sometimes weighing upwards 
 of fifty pounds. Credat Judaeus Apella. However, 
 we must allow that the Norfolk breed does not fall 
 considerably short of that weight. On the other 
 hand, it is said that Meleager, a king of Macedonia, 
 brought them from India into Greece, at a very 
 early period; and that, out of gratitude for such an 
 acquisition, the Athenian Gastronomers called the 
 bird Meleagris. Mythology contends that they were 
 so named from the Caledonian hero above mentioned, 
 after whose death his woe-begone sisters were trans¬ 
 formed into these birds of mournful appearance. But 
 there is still a doubt whether the Meleagris of Aristotle, 
 of Clytus, of Calixenes, of Ptolemy, and other authors 
 
60 
 
 of ancient times, was not the bird now known under 
 the name of Guinea-hen. Ovid certainly says, 
 B. viii. of the Metamorphoses, that Meleager’s sisters 
 were turned into birds, but mentions nothing else, 
 except that, having acquired horny beaks and exten¬ 
 sive wings, they were sent adrift to find their way 
 through the vacant air. The idea that the Jesuits 
 brought them into notice is erroneous. They were 
 known in Europe long before the institution of Loy¬ 
 ola’s order. Why the French should call them 
 i( alouettes de savetier,” cobbler’s larks, cannot easily 
 be accounted for. This bird is so stupid, or timo¬ 
 rous, that if you balance a bit of straw on his head, 
 or draw a line with chalk on the ground from 
 his beak, he fancies himself so loaded or so bound, 
 that he will remain in the same position till hunger 
 forces him to move. We made the experiment. 
 
 This bird is either roasted or boiled ; and, when of 
 a good breed, possesses a flavour between the pheasant 
 and the chicken. Turkey i( it la daube,” means the 
 bird confined in a “ terrine’’with truffles, maroons, 
 &c. &c. and so baked in the oven that it may keep. 
 It is eaten cold, and offers an elegant and substantial 
 relish for the luncheon of a Gastronomer. 
 
 V. 86. Tuberibus. Truffles are of a most myste¬ 
 rious origin ; they grow under ground, and show 
 no sign of external vegetation ; so that the 
 ancients doubted whether they did not propagate by 
 juxta-position like minerals, Pliny, xix. 2. and this 
 opinion was countenanced by the report that Caius 
 Licinius, pretor in Spain, biting a truffle, had broken 
 
G1 
 
 one of his teeth against a Roman denier, around 
 which the truffle had accidentally grown. However 
 Martial says: 
 
 Rumpimus altricem lenero de vertice lerram 
 Tubera ; boletis poma secunda sumus. 
 
 Next in taste to the best of mushrooms, we break the 
 fostering ground with our tender head. 
 
 The fact is that no vegetable grows above their sub¬ 
 terraneous cradle. A few crevices in the tophus , or 
 sandy ground, are the only indications; and, through 
 them, the perfume of the truffle betrays the secret to 
 dogs and pigs, trained for the purpose of truffle-hunt¬ 
 ing. From their situation subter toplio, the Italians 
 made the abbreviation tertvffo , tertuffalo, hence truffle 
 English, l( truffe” French. Pliny and other authors 
 assert, that when thunderstorms and showers are 
 frequent in Autumn, truffles thrive better than at 
 any other time. 
 
 V. 88. Rusticula. “ Becasse.” Woodcock. The 
 thigh of this bird is upon a level, as to delicacy, 
 with the breast of the partridge. According to the 
 refined taste of Gastronomers, woodcocks ought not 
 to be gutted, and are roasted over a toast of bread, 
 which receives and imbibes what ever falls from above. 
 As they live by mere suction, their intestines cannot 
 be more nauseous than the internal parts of a lobster, 
 or a crawfish. 
 
 V. 89. Scolopax. “ Becassine.” Snipe. This 
 diminutive of the preceding one is treated in the 
 same culinary way. The beak of the snipe is com- 
 
62 
 
 paratively longer than that of the woodcock ; and the 
 word scolopax is indifferently applied to either. 
 
 V. 91 Cervus , clamave. u Cerf ou daim.” Stag or 
 deer. In public eating-houses, these are not to be ex¬ 
 pected. At some coffee-houses in London, a haunch 
 of venison is sometimes announced with great pomp, 
 and on such occasions a bill is stuck up at the win¬ 
 dow in conspicuous type. 
 
 Y. 93. Cuniculus. u Lapin.” Rabbit. The tame 
 rabbit sometimes, but seldom the wild one, makes it ap¬ 
 pearance on the table d’hote. £ ‘ Gibblotte de lapin” is a 
 good dish in the French * c Cuisine bourgeoise.”—The 
 animal is cut in pieces, and tossed up in the pan with ba¬ 
 con, carrots, turnips, and other ingredients; and, when 
 made palatable, does honour and credit to the cook. 
 
 V. 95. Carnalia fercula. Meat-dishes. Thus 
 far the poet has been describing what may be eaten 
 when the rules of the Roman Catholic church do 
 not proscribe the use of flesh. But, on meagre 
 days, the case is quite different; fish, vegetables, 
 eggs and the like, are the dramatis personce of this 
 representation on the still festive board; and by the 
 ingenuity of Dame Cookery, a meagre dinner proves 
 often as interesting, and generally as wholesome as 
 any other sumptuous entertainment, for which flesh, 
 fowl, and fish, have been put into immediate attendance 
 and lawful requisition. 
 
 Vitellius, the gastrophile emperor,was treated by his 
 brother with a dinner, consisting of 2,000 dishes of 
 fish, and 7,000 of poultry; surely this is not doing 
 things by halves. 
 
G3 
 
 V. 98. Salmo. “ Saumon." Salmon. The poem 
 mentions only one way of cooking this noble fish, viz. 
 broiling : but it is commonly boiled and eaten with lob¬ 
 ster-sauce, and, when pickled, with oil and vinegar. 
 
 V. 99. Frigitur Alburnus. “ Merlan frit." Fried 
 whiting. This fish undergoes also the operation of 
 boiling; but, frying being the most common way of 
 dressing this delicate and salubrious gift of the 
 Nereids, the author contented himself with taking 
 notice of it. In France they are often broiled 
 after having been lavishly powdered with flour; a 
 circumstance which gave rise to the ludicrous appel¬ 
 lation of te Merlan" for a hair-dresser. The Latin 
 alburnus , from albus , white,” corresponds with the 
 English name. The French u Merlan” exceeds the 
 extension of our ken in etymology, unless the fish is 
 so called by antiphrasis, from merle a black bird, as 
 lucus a non lucendo. If this be the case, the joke 
 originated with the Romans, who called a mearl or 
 black bird, merula, and by the same name designated 
 this white fish. 
 
 V. 99. Butyro squatina nigrat. “ Raie au beurre 
 noir.” Skate with burnt butter. The dish mentioned 
 here means skate boiled first, and afterwards per¬ 
 fused with butter burnt in the frying pan, to which 
 sprigs of parsley are added ; this being done, vinegar 
 is thrown into the pan with salt, and also poured upon 
 the fish. When very fresh, it is generally eaten with 
 plain melted butter and capers. The skate had long 
 been neglected in this country, but came of late so 
 much in vogue, that what sold for a groat thirty years 
 
64 
 
 ago, now fetches five or six shillings. The Latin word 
 squatina seems to issue from the monosyllable squat , 
 which descended into the English language from some 
 original tongue anterior to Latin ; for squatina is a de¬ 
 rivative of squat. Skate is a corruption of squatina. 
 The natural position of this and similar fishes at the 
 bottom of the sea, w here \y\ngflat and squat they pa¬ 
 tiently wait for their prey in the oose which they stir, 
 with the shaking of their wing-like flanks, originated 
 the denomination. 
 
 100. Capito , asellus. Codfish, fresh and salt, 
 (C morue fraiche ; morue salee.” The names of capito , 
 and asellus a young ass, given to this excellent fish, 
 allude to the notorious bigness of his head. The pro¬ 
 lific powers, granted by Providence to this inmate of 
 the sea, is wonderful, and seems to indicate the whole¬ 
 someness of his flesh offered to man as a palatable and 
 innocuous food. The spawn of a large codfish con¬ 
 tains between three and four millions of eggs. 
 
 V. 101. Passer. (( Plie.” Plaice is common on 
 the coast of Holland, and not unlike the turbot in 
 shape, but of a much inferior flavour. The back is 
 speckled with yellow round spots upon a brown- 
 green ground, and the head much more acute than 
 that of the turbot. The plaice was known to the 
 ancients ; but commentators have questioned whe¬ 
 ther its name does not mean also the flounder , 
 which approaches it in shape as well as in taste. 
 Columella, 8, 16, mentions it with the turbot and 
 the sole. Limosa regio planum educat piscem ve- 
 lut soleam, rhombum , passerem ; u The oozy parts 
 
breed flat fishes, as soles, turbots, and plaice.” 
 Why the Romans should have called this fish paster , 
 which the bird sparrow claims for its etymon, we 
 cannot tell. 
 
 V. 102. Scomber. ii Maquereau.” Mackerel. The 
 allusion expressed in the poem by pudens infami no- 
 mine , i( ashamed of its infamous name,” points to the 
 name of the fish given in France to what is meant in 
 English by a pimp. It is commonly said that no man 
 ever saw this fish alive out of the water ; indeed, as 
 soon as he leaves his native element, he dies. 
 
 Mackerel was allowed to be cried through the 
 streets of London on Sundays for the first time in the 
 year 1698. 
 
 The best way of eating mackerel is to broil it in 
 buttered paper upon the gridiron ; and, when properly 
 done, to put fresh butter in the inside, with chopped 
 parsley, pepper, and salt, which melts and adds an 
 exceedingly good flavour to the fish. This dressing 
 is called <e a la maitre d’hotel.” 
 
 V. 103, 105. llalec. “ Hareng.” Herring. 
 This fish is eaten either fresh, pickled, or fumi¬ 
 gated. The last is called in French Hareng sore, red 
 herring, the word sore , or saure meaning in old 
 French, reddish, of a tint between yellow and red, 
 sorre/-colour. In this state the fish is often laid upon 
 a <c puree de pois,” a sort of pease-pudding, after it 
 has been gently broiled. Pickled herrings are eaten 
 as they are taken from the tub, with oil and vinegar, 
 pepper and mustard; in French, hareng pec , from 
 pickled. Fresh herrings are commonly broiled and 
 
 K 
 
66 
 
 generally dished up with melted butter and plenty 
 of mustard in it. 
 
 Sinapi. This small seed, which is of so com¬ 
 mon a use with us, was also in great repute among 
 ancient cooks ; and its pungent acidity is elegant¬ 
 ly recorded by Columella, 10,123. Fletum factura 
 sinapi; the tear-eliciting mustard. Plautus calls 
 it scelerata sinapis , on account of its biting sharp¬ 
 ness. 
 
 The etymology of mustard ought to be recorded 
 here. In 1382, Philip the bold, Duke of Burgundy, 
 going to march against his revolted neighbours, and Di¬ 
 jon having furnished for that expedition its quantum of 
 1,000 armed men, the duke, in kind acknowledgment, 
 granted to the town, among other privileges the permis¬ 
 sion of bearing his armorial ensigns with his motto, moult 
 me turtle , (i I long, I wish ardently.” In consequence 
 of this mark of princely condescension, the Dijonese 
 municipality ordered the arms and motto to be beau¬ 
 tifully sculptured over the principal gate of the city, 
 which was done accordingly. But time, tempus eclax , 
 and that incessant drop of water which causes the 
 destruction of the hardest stone, non vi sed scepe ca- 
 dendo , or some particular accident, having obliterated 
 the middle w ord me, the remaining ones, moult , tarde , 
 gave occasion to the name in the following manner. 
 For a long lapse of time, the merchants of Dijon have 
 been and are still great dealers in senevc, or sinapi , 
 (mustard seed,) and have a method of grinding it 
 with salt, vinegar, and other ingredients, in or¬ 
 der to preserve it and send it to all parts of the 
 
a? 
 
 world. On their «tnc»£-pots they used to paste a 
 label, ensigned with the Duke of Burgundy’s arms 
 and the motto as it accidentally remained then over 
 the gate of the city, moult-tarde; hence the name 
 which the sinapi composition has preserved to 
 this day. It might be observed that the natural pun¬ 
 gency of this little seed,expressed in Latin by mulium 
 ardet , and in old French by moult arde^ “ it burns 
 much,” might be taken as the real thema of the word. 
 But it does not appear that the Dijonese were ever 
 scholars enough as to borrow from the tongue of Ci¬ 
 cero a denomination for the object of their trade. 
 However, in latter times, an eminent mustard-manu¬ 
 facturer of that place proved himself somewhat ac¬ 
 quainted with Latin, since he wrote jocosely over his 
 shop-door, Mulium tardctl, Divio rixam; that is, Moult- 
 tarde, Dijon-noise; u Dijon-mustard.” Pliny pre¬ 
 tends that mustard is an antidote against venomous 
 mushrooms. B. xix. ch. 8. & 22. 
 
 V. 104. Musculus. c< Moule.” Muscle. In France, 
 this fish is thrown u house and tenant” into the pan. 
 Tossed up with butter, parsley, pepper, and flour/ 
 and, served up in that condition, shell, fish, and sauce, 
 all together, it is very palatable. 
 
 V. 108. Ostrea. “ Iluitre.” Oyster. The Athe¬ 
 nians held oysters in great esteem. They were not 
 common at Rome, and consequently fetched there a 
 very high price; yet Macrobius assures us, that the 
 Roman Pontiffs never missed to have them every day 
 on their tables. From the fourth century to the reign 
 of Louis XIV. they were nearly forgotten but they 
 
G8 
 
 soon came again into vogue, and from that time have 
 kept up their reputation. Gastronomers, we know, 
 can swallow three or four dozen before dinner, and 
 then sit down to eat heartily, and perhaps better 
 than if they had abstained from them. They clear the 
 stomach of accidental phlegm, increase the gastric 
 juices, and, by their natural coolness, condense the 
 air which may be fixed in the organs of digestion. 
 When good, they are wholesome, but poisonous when 
 bad. 
 
 V. 109. Locustce cauda. u Homar.” Lobster. 
 This last word is a sad distortion of the Latin Locusta , 
 a grasshopper, a locust. This crustaceous fish, which 
 when in season is delightful for the taste, purity and 
 firmness of its flesh, grows to a large size, if, concealed 
 in the rocky caverns of the deep, it can avoid the 
 rapacity of its enemies, among whom the fisherman is 
 not the least dangerous. Lobsters sometimes measure 
 two feet and upwards; but Oiaus Magnus, Hist. L. 21. 
 c. 34. and Gesner de Piscibus , L. 4. pretend that 
 in the Indian seas, and on the shores of Norway, lob¬ 
 sters have been found twelve feet long and six broad, 
 seizing mariners with their gigantic claws, and drag¬ 
 ging them along into the deep to devour them! !! 
 The French proverb says, “ a beau mentir qui vient 
 de loin.” 
 
 V. 110. Squilla , the Shrimp or Prawn, was known 
 to the ancients. The French call them either Cre- 
 vetles , as diminutive, or small u ecrevices,” craw¬ 
 fishes ; or “ chevrettes,” little goats, on account of 
 their long beards, and their leaping and skipping in 
 
69 
 
 shallow water on the sandy beach. They are an ex¬ 
 cellent relish. 
 
 V. 111. Gobio, Barbatus , Mullus. <£ Goujeon, 
 Barbeau, Mullet.” Gudgeon, Barbel, Mullet. These 
 fresh-water fishes are too well known, and too insig¬ 
 nificant, to require a description. The Perch and the 
 Tench will be allowed to glide along the silver stream, 
 and shall not be fished up to swell our notes. 
 
 V. 115. Anguilla. u Anguille.” Eel. This last 
 word seems to have been caught at the tail of the 
 Latin or French name. When well managed by a 
 clever cook, the fat and indigestive qualities of the 
 eel disappear, and the food becomes wholesome. The 
 Egyptians placed eels on a level with their gods; 
 they worshipped them, perhaps as a milder sort of ser¬ 
 pents, emblems of eternity; and priests were salaried 
 to feed the sacred ones every day with cheese and the 
 garbage of animals in ponds where they lived centu¬ 
 ries, and grew to an immense bulk. No animal is 
 more tenacious of life. It is reported that eels are 
 fond of harmonious sounds, and that fishermen in 
 the Mediterranean take with them musicians in their 
 boats, in order to allure the fish to the net. That 
 they are amphibious, and leap out of the water to 
 feed on the verdant grass of the banks, seems indis¬ 
 putable. 
 
 V. 120. Lucius. cc Brochet.” Pike. The ty¬ 
 rant, the terror, the destroyer, of the fish-pond. The 
 poet represents him dressed, as the French style it, 
 
 <£ au bleu.” Boiled in wine, with onions, carrots, 
 parsley, pepper, and salt, he is allowed to get cold ; 
 
70 
 
 anil then, laid on a napkin in stateliness, supported 
 by a tray, he takes his situation on the table. It is 
 deservedly reckoned by all Gastronomers very ex¬ 
 cellent eating. The flesh is white, firm, and tasteful, 
 and the bones (which the French, in all fishes, pro¬ 
 perly call arrtle, from t( arreter,” to stop, because 
 they stop the voracity of the eater) are, in a large 
 subject, so slender, so pliant, that they can easily be 
 put aside, or, if accidentally swallowed, do no harm. 
 Pikes grow to an astonishing size. The skeleton 
 of one which weighed 350 pounds, has long been 
 preserved at Manheim. Thrown in a pond by the 
 Emperor Barbarossa, with a brass elastic collar, he 
 was taken up in 1497, at the suprising age of 267 
 years. On the collar was engraved the following 
 inscription in Greek: 
 
 “ I am the first fish which was put into this lake by the 
 hands of the governor of the universe, Frederic II. the 5th 
 of October, 1230.” 
 
 Lacepede, (Hist, des Poissons) pretends that the 
 existence and bulk of fishes and amphibious ani¬ 
 mals, may increase to an incalculable extent. The 
 metamorphosis annexed in the poem to the article 
 of this fish, is an humble imitation of other didac¬ 
 tic poets, in order to enliven the too serious uni¬ 
 formity of a nomenclature. See Ovid’s Fasti , Rapin’s 
 Ilorti , &c. 
 
 V. 123. Mappa. “Napkin.” They were known 
 at Rome as early as the reign of Augustus : every 
 guest used to bring his own with him, but was not 
 
71 
 
 always sure to carry it back. Catullus mentions one 
 Asinius who had stolen liis; and Martial has left a 
 charming epigram upon the parasite Hermogenes, who 
 finding no napkin to steal, ran away with the table¬ 
 cloth. B. 12. 29. 
 
 Atlulerat mappam, nemo, dum furla limentur : 
 
 Mantile e mensa surpuit Hermogenes. 
 
 This rage for pilfering napkins was fatal to their use, 
 and they were given up, it seems, till the fifteenth 
 century, when the first were made at Rheims, and 
 presented to Charles VII. king of France. 
 
 V. 134. Carpio. 44 Truite.” Trout- Where a 
 running stream of clear water, checkered by the in¬ 
 terposition of impending willows or other trees, pur¬ 
 sues its course under the blaze of a summer sun ; there 
 the trout, one of the best among the Cyprine family, 
 gambols lively or swiftly darts over the shining peb¬ 
 bles at the bottom of the brook. A luscious taste, 
 between those of the salmon and the carp, distin¬ 
 guishes this delicate gift of the Naiads. When 
 dressed, its flesh is red and very delicious. The 
 Latin word carpio has been sometimes translated by 
 carp , but erroneously. (Ainsworth and others.) Trutta 
 is modern. The word carpio alludes to the mouth 
 of the fish, and has been alliterated with its original 
 carpere in the poem. 
 
 V. 135. Auratus Zeus. 44 Dorade,” or 44 Poisson 
 de St. Pierre.” John Doree, from 44 Jaune Dore,” Fr. 
 Surely the ancients must have entertained a sort of 
 religious regard for this fish, since they gave him the 
 
72 
 
 name of Jupiter, Zeus. But most likely this Latin 
 word comes from some other source. This fish con¬ 
 tends with the haddock for the honour of bearing the 
 marks of St. Peter’s fingers on his shoulders; and 
 some legendary writers, considering his wrinkled and 
 depressed shape, assert that he certainly was trod 
 upon by the gigantic foot of St. Christopher, who 
 used to ford an arm of the sea with passengers on his 
 back: a fact which was recorded in hymns an¬ 
 ciently sung on his festival-day, and in which the 
 following naif, and yet preposterous, passage is found : 
 
 Quando transivit jluvium. 
 
 Non tetigit unda culum. 
 
 And when he cross’d the foaming sea. 
 
 The water did not reach his knee. 
 
 The partiality of Quin for this fish is well known ; 
 and no one can refuse to John the palm of delicacy 
 among the fishes, and indeed above the turbot himself. 
 
 V. 136. Rhombus. <£ Turbot.” Turbot. This 
 fish was known to the Athenians, and has been ever 
 since a worthy object of Gastronomical worship. 
 Some Ichthyographers relate that turbots have grown 
 to the extent of five cubits in length. Such must 
 have been the sea-monster, Spatium admirabilc 
 Rliombi , brought to Domitian and of which Juvenal 
 says, Sat. iv. 
 
 Sed deerat pisci pallnct mensura. Vocanlur 
 Ergo in concilium proceres. 
 
 No vessel they find fit to hold such a fish. 
 
 And the senate’s convok’d to decree a new dish. 
 
73 
 
 Turbots, were anciently caught in the Euxine and 
 Adriatic seas, and thrive on the shores of Devonshire 
 as well as, and perhaps better than, any where else. 
 
 V. 137. Elops. i( Esturgeon.” Sturgeon. The 
 five rows of large bony tubercles which rise on the 
 sides of this pentagonal fish, are alluded to in the 
 poem by the epithet hirtus. His flesh, properly 
 pickled, is reckoned a delicacy. Gatis, queen of 
 Syria, was so excessively fond of sturgeon that she 
 enacted a law, prohibiting the sale and purchase of 
 this or any other fish, but after her refusal and 
 with her special permission. (Athenseus, B. 3. 
 ch. 4.) It is said also that the sturgeon was ex¬ 
 clusively reserved for the table of Henry I. of Eng¬ 
 land; that his successor, king Stephen, in 1138, mi¬ 
 tigated this law; but that after his death it was en¬ 
 forced again. The Parisian C( poissardes ” used an¬ 
 nually to present the king with an enormous sturgeon; 
 the portraits of the finest of them were preserved as 
 great curiosities. Pallas relates that in the Caspian 
 sea, sturgeons grow to the almost incredible size of 
 forty feet in length, and weigh upwards of two thou¬ 
 sand pounds!— Acipenser , and sturio , are other 
 names for the same fish. 
 
 V. 140. Muria condit jecur. The liver, spawn, 
 and other internal parts, of the sturgeon, are pickled 
 by the Russians and sold under the name of caviare. 
 This kind of fish-sauce was known to the Romans, 
 and called garum , see Pliny, 31. 1. and is one of 
 the indispensable seasonings for the Turkish pilau. 
 
 V. 142. Cyprimis. a Carpe.’' Carp. This ex- 
 
 1 , 
 
74 
 
 cellent fish was brought into England in 1514, and 
 into Denmark in 1560. Carps are kept and fattened 
 in Holland throughout winter on a bed of damp moss, 
 in a cellar, and fed with bread and milk. They are 
 known to have grown to the extraordinary weight of 
 sixty pounds. The tongue of this fish is reckoned 
 the most delicate part of the whole ; and a Mr. Ver- 
 delet de Bourbonne is said to have been so fond of 
 it, that he bought once 3000 carps, for the mere 
 sake of their tongues which were brought well-sea¬ 
 soned and learnedly-dressed to his table in one dish. 
 (Cours Gastronomique.) Chantilly and Fontaine¬ 
 bleau can vouch for the longevity, tameness, and 
 bristliness, of carps. This fish, be-drop’d with 
 gold,” (Pope) is mentioned by Pliny and others 
 under the name of Cyprinus. The mythological 
 passage in the poem gives a fabulous etymology 
 in the absence of any other. 
 
 V. 153. Fabce. (i Feves.” Beans; especially 
 {£ Windsor beans,” as they are vulgarly called. This 
 pulse, or legumen , is generally dished up in foreign 
 countries without the outer coat, and, in that undress, 
 proves a most delicate food. Why Pythagoras should 
 have forbidden the use of beans to his disciples, has 
 been a mighty subject for the ingenuity of commen¬ 
 tators. Some have asserted that it was on account of 
 their causing flatulency; others because they were 
 sacred to Isis and Osiris, Egyptian deities of whom 
 the Samian sage had heard and believed much from 
 the priests of Memphis. Some take the prohibition 
 allegorically, and hold that to abstain from them, only 
 
75 
 
 meant to keep aloof from public assemblies where 
 suffrages were given by casts of beans. There is 
 now-a-days a belief among the vulgar that when beans 
 are in blossom mad people become intractable, and 
 wise men nearly mad. In fact, Pythagoras’s motive 
 for that prohibition, if he had any motive at all, is 
 still enveloped in obscurity. Horace, Sat. 11, 6, 
 styles the bean akin to Pythagoras, Faba Pytha- 
 gorce cognata , as if the promulgator of the metem- 
 psychosical system had been afraid lest in eating beans 
 he should have devoured some of his departed re¬ 
 lations. 
 
 The classical reader knows that most of the ancient 
 Roman families derived their names from agricultural 
 or horticultural pursuits. Faba, beans, named the 
 great house of the Fabii. Pisum, pease, that of the 
 Pisones. Cicer, chick-pease, which the French call 
 cc pois chiche,” gave a surname to the orator Tully. 
 Lentes, lentils, to Lentulus. Tuber , a truffle, to 
 Tubero. Cepa, or cape , an onion, to the Capiones. 
 Vitellius is diminished from vitulus , a calf. Horten - 
 sius, from hortus, garden. The Porcii to whom the 
 surname of Cato belonged, were feeders of pigs. 
 Ferres is reminded by Tully that his name means 
 a boar. The Furii , came from furfur, bran ; 
 and the illustrious family of the Cornelii numbered 
 probably among their ancestors wealthy possessors of 
 horned cattle. 
 
 There is a very ancient and singular custom in 
 several parts of the continent, of which we have 
 here but a mere memento. It is connected with 
 
76 
 
 the above-mentioned sacredness of the bean, takes 
 place on the eve of Epiphany, and is performed in 
 the following manner. A cake, made of flour, butter, 
 and eggs, and of a size proportionable to the number of 
 the guests, is brought in and divided into as many 
 shares as w convives ” are going to sit down to supper. 
 These pieces, one of which conceals a bean lodged 
 in the outer part of the cake, are tossed up in a nap¬ 
 kin. The youngest person in the company, comes 
 forward, and having said grace, takes hold of 
 a slice without looking at it, and then addresses the 
 master of the house by these words : “ Fabae Do- 
 mine (lord of the bean), who is this for ? ” An answer 
 is given, and when all the shares are drawn, the 
 guest who finds the bean in his or her possession is 
 declared king or queen of the feast, anti becomes 
 possessed of all the rights belonging to the Architricli- 
 nus or Amphitryo for the night. When either drinks, 
 if any one in the company misses to say aloud, (< the 
 king’’ or u the queen drinks,” a fine is lawfully ex¬ 
 acted, which consists in a pledge deposited in the 
 hands of some one, to be redeemed after supper by a 
 kiss or a song. This sort of amusement was well 
 known at Rome, with this difference, that the king of 
 the feast was not chosen by means of a bean, but by 
 the cast of small bones called tali. They are the 
 ankle-bones of sheep, which school-boys in France 
 still use for a game called u osselets;” having been 
 previously smoothed upon a stone, and reduced to 
 four sides. The tesserce , dice, have six. Horace 
 says, Car. B. 1. Od. 4. 
 
77 
 
 Domus exilis Plutonia, qub simul mearis 
 Nec regna vini sortiere tails. 
 
 But when you sink to Pluto’s hall. 
 
 No little rattling bones shall fall 
 To chuse you Monarch of the wine. 
 
 V. 154. Samius senex. Pythagoras divulged in 
 Magna Graecia what he had learned in his travels 
 through Egypt and India; the amount of which is 
 not of a very considerable value. However, the best 
 thing he ever taught his disciples was the difficult art 
 of being silent, or of never speaking but to the pur¬ 
 pose. 
 
 V. 155. Phaselus. “ Haricot blanc.” French 
 beans. This pulse is eaten at two different periods. In 
 summer, with the enwrapping pod which is still green 
 and tender. In autumn and winter, when the beau, 
 in full maturity, is taken out of, and boiled without, 
 the pod. This envelope , on account of its navicular 
 shape, gave its name to a kind of skiff used in the 
 Mediterranean, and especially about the mouths of the 
 Nile. Virg. Geo. 4. 289. This pulse is called in ancient 
 English authors, “ beans of Rome,” a mistranslation 
 of 4< feves de Rame, ” from ramus , the twig or pole 
 around which the plant loves to climb; and ii Welsh 
 beans,” as if “ Gallic beans.” Fasels, is still used in 
 some parts of Great Britain. The pentameter alludes to 
 their being impregnated with a great quantity of fixed 
 air, and therefore not always very wholesome, unless 
 the stomach is prepared to counteract their iEolian 
 powers by an adequate quantity of absorbent juices 
 
78 
 
 in the digestive organs. This legumen is supposed to 
 have been originally a native of India, and propagated 
 in Greece after the visit of Alexander to the banks of 
 the Ganges. 
 
 V. 157. Asparagus. a Asperge.” Asparagus and 
 sperage, or sparrowgrass, and, for brevity’s sake, 
 grass. This vegetable possesses great volatility of 
 parts and peculiar diuretic powers. The name is 
 of Greek origin and alludes to its sprouting entirely 
 naked from the ground; that is, without cotyledons 
 or leaves. 
 
 It reminds us of a curious trick which a wag 
 played once upon a countryman, who had no know¬ 
 ledge whatsoever of the existence of such a production 
 as asparagus. They were travelling together, and 
 arrived, on a Friday, at an inn in a small town near 
 Arras, in France, intending to sup and sleep there 
 The wag asked the landlord what he had to give 
 them ? There was nothing in the house but plenty of 
 asparagus and eggs. u Well then let us have first an 
 omelet, and whilst we are eating it, boil us some of 
 your best asparagus.”—It was done accordingly : the 
 omelet was served up in a few minutes.— a If I cut 
 it in two,” said the knowing one, i( you will draw 
 your share to your plate, and I the other half to mine.” 
 The countryman bowed assent, the omelet Avas divided 
 and declared exceedingly good. Then comes the as¬ 
 paragus : “ I do not remember to have ever seen these 
 sort of things before,” said the countryman, “ how 
 curious they look—are they peculiar to this part of 
 the world ? ”—Without answering this preliminary 
 
79 
 
 question, u We will do,” said the wag, as we did 
 before ; ” and he severed the whole bunch in two. By 
 an unperceived wirling of the dish, the white part 
 became the lot of the peasant, who, beginning to 
 tear and chew and masticate to no purpose, declared 
 with a solemn oath, that as this was the first, it should 
 be also the last time he would attempt to make a meal 
 of asparagus.—The wag, of course, enjoyed the 
 whole of the verdant and tender heads of the vege¬ 
 table. 
 
 Asparagus is of so tender a contexture, that a very 
 few minutes of boiling render it perfectly eatable, par¬ 
 ticularly when just cut down, and brought from the 
 garden. To express that a thing was to be done 
 quickly, the Romans used this saying: Velocius 
 qudm aspuragi coquuntur ; Quicker than asparagus 
 is boiled.—(Suetonius, Aug. Caes.)—Juvenal, Sat. 
 V. 82. mentions an immense lobster brought on 
 the table, surrounded with this vegetable, septa 
 asparagis. By a passage, Sat. xi. 69. of the same au¬ 
 thor, it appears also that it was sometimes gathered 
 wild on the mountains, montani asparagi, by farmers’ 
 wives who laid down their spindles to go and cull 
 it just in lime— posito quos legit villica fuso. 
 
 V. 158. Cinuram. u Artichaud.” Artichoke. 
 This is really a thistle, which, by cultivation it seems, 
 has obtained esculent qualities of the first rate. The 
 bottom of a good artichoke is, perhaps, one of the 
 best substances which the kitchen garden can offer 
 to the table of its master.—Columella (B. 10. 
 235.) gives an elegantly poetical description of this 
 
80 
 
 useful plant. The culinary art possessed itself of 
 this valuable article, and admits it either fresh or 
 preserved in fricassees, ragouts, pies, &c. with emi¬ 
 nent success. The fruit, if we may call it so, grows 
 at the top of the stem. Each branch has also its own 
 fruit, but being secondary, it is smaller. Eaten 
 raw at breakfast in foreign countries with pepper and 
 salt, under the name of i( artichauds a la poivrade,” 
 it gives an uncommon relish to a glass of “ cham¬ 
 pagne,” and exhilarates the mind for the rest of the 
 day. This regimen, we are convinced, would not 
 prove wholesome in this latitude. It appears that the 
 French were indebted to the Venetians for this ex¬ 
 cellent vegetable in the year 1473. Theophrastus 
 knew and described it under the name of carduus es- 
 culentus , the esculent thistle. It is of a heating na¬ 
 ture, as appears by the name, which may be resolved 
 into artus, limbs, and culidus , warm, as if warming 
 the limbs of the body. The cultivation of it origi¬ 
 nated in Cynara , an island of the Archipelago, to 
 which it probably gave, or from which it may have 
 received, its name. 
 
 V. 159. Palladius liquor. u Huile.” Oil. The 
 olive-trees were planted by the Phoceans in the fruit¬ 
 ful vales of Provence, and their product was soon 
 known to the rest of Europe. Florence, Lucca, and 
 other meridional places, are famous for the excellent 
 quality of their oil. Palladius alludes to Pallas and 
 her contest with Neptune to present the rising town of 
 Athens with an useful gift. Neptune struck the ground 
 with his, u earth-moving” trident, and up sprung a 
 
81 
 
 •war-horse. Pallas bade the earth to teem, and the 
 olive of peace rose from the ground; her present of 
 course was declared the best.— Acetum. 44 Vinaigre.” 
 Vinegar and oil are put (we cannot say mixed) toge¬ 
 ther, in several occasions. Their opposite charac¬ 
 ters do not agree on the plate; but the result of their 
 natural antipathy proves agreeable to the palate, and 
 comfortable to the stomach. 
 
 V. 160. Butyro. 44 Beurre.” Butter. This useful 
 substance is nearly a general agent in all the mysteries 
 of the kitchen. It is the ground, the digester, the 
 companion, the friend, of almost all the dishes which 
 are served up to the Amphitryo and his guests, al¬ 
 though it seems to have been hardly known 400 years 
 before the Christian era to the Greeks, who bought it 
 ready-made from the Parthians under the name of 
 44 oil of milk,” Pliny, 11. 41.; and it is described 
 by this author as a sort of foreign nostrum among the 
 Romans, which the barbarians used as food. But 
 the Jews knew it long before that period, since it is 
 mentioned under the name of chameah, pinguedo lac- 
 tis , and made a part of the feast when Abraham 
 treated the angels. Gen. xviii. 8. 
 
 When hot, asparagus and artichokes are eaten with 
 plain melted butter; when cold, with vinegar and 
 oil. Fontenelle, the French academician, had in¬ 
 vited a friend to a 44 tete a tete” dinner. Asparagus, 
 having just sprung into season, made a notable ar¬ 
 ticle among the 44 entremets.” The guest, being asked 
 what sort of sauce he should prefer, answered 
 frankly, 44 oil and vinegar.” Fontenelle did not like 
 
 M 
 
82 
 
 that way, and therefore directed the cook to dress 
 half of the bundle with melted butter for himself, 
 and the other half as his guest had desired : but 
 about the middle of the dinner the visitor was struck 
 with an apoplectic fit.—Fontenelle, undisturbed by 
 the awful event, runs to the top of the stairs and 
 bawls to the cook u tout au beurre,” the whole bundle 
 with melted butter ! Horresco referens ! 
 
 V. 173. Lentes. u Lentilles.” Lentil. This 
 pulse is little known in this country, but much used 
 on the continent. It yields a sort of il puree,” or 
 pudding, similar to that of pease ; with this difference 
 that it is of a brown dusky colour, fused ferrugine , 
 and is said to improve the quality of the milk in the 
 breasts of nurses. The Romans knew it well. Virgil, 
 Geo. 1. 228. says : 
 
 Nec Pelusiacce curam aspernalere lends. 
 
 Pelusian lentils too deserve your care. 
 
 Martial calls this legumen , or pulse, Pelusia mu~ 
 nera; from which and other authorities it appears 
 that it was conveyed to Rome from Pelusium, now 
 Damietta. Might not the word pulse, be referred, 
 by metathesis, to Pelusium ? Sheep’s tails, geese 
 and turkies’ pinions, are often served up with 
 the accompaniment of lentil-pudding, and consti¬ 
 tute a learned dish in the cuisine bourgeoise.” 
 The pentameter line alludes to the bargain be¬ 
 tween Esau and Jacob concerning the transfer 
 which the former made of his birthright to his bro¬ 
 ther. Gen. xxv. 34. Was this pulse conveyed from 
 
83 
 
 Judea to Egypt by the family of Jacob, and from 
 that time cultivated there ? Nothing is more prob¬ 
 able, and the sons of Israel obtained it perhaps from 
 India. 
 
 V. 175. Spinacece. u Epinards." Spinach. This olus 
 is so named on account of the shape of its leaf, which 
 resembles a thorn, spina , or rather the head of an ar¬ 
 row or spear: the name is of modern latinity. No 
 dish of that kind of herbs is more palatable than 
 this, when, fried with as much fresh butter as it 
 can absorb, with chopped onion, pepper, salt, and 
 nutmeg, the spinach makes its appearance on the 
 table. Lozenge-pieces of fried bread will bastion 
 the dish, contrasting most elegantly with their yellow 
 hue the deep green of the spinach. This warm and 
 pleasing herb came to England from Holland, and w as 
 not introduced in French dishes sooner than about two 
 centuries and a half ago. 
 
 Salaria. “Celery.” Salary (Ainsworth) or ce¬ 
 lery, from cella, Lat. Apium cellare. This plant is 
 bleached in long cells, or furrows, opened in the gar¬ 
 den, and is reckoned of a very warm temper. It is a 
 branch of the Apium family, and of great use in 
 soups and sallads. 
 
 V. 176. Bela. “ Bete." Beet. The red beet-root, 
 the most ancient cultivation of which is traced 
 to Bohemia, stands here alluded to, as it plainly ap¬ 
 pears, by the incidental addition of gaudens Tyrio 
 murice, the Tyrian purple dye, so famous among the 
 ancients. This root is never served with sallad on the 
 continent, without having been previously boiled or 
 
84 
 
 baked under hot ashes or in an oven. Indeed, when 
 raw, it is so tough and tasteless that it requires all 
 the strength of mastication ; but, after having passed 
 through the ordeal of fire, it becomes mellow, of a 
 pleasing taste, and so sweet, that Napoleon, when 
 he refused admission to colonial products into 
 France, expected to extract out of this plant enough 
 of sugar to supply his then extensive dominions. He 
 was disappointed. This fact has been well ridiculed 
 in one of the caricatures of the time, representing 
 the little king of Rome on the lap of his nurse, nibbling 
 at a large beet-root, with this motto — u Mangez, 
 mangez, mon roi, votre papa dit que c’est du 
 sucre: ” Eat, eat on, my king, your papa says it 
 is sugar. 
 
 Y. 177. Solanutn. (i Pommes de terre.” Po¬ 
 tatoes. As our poet properly remarks, this excellent 
 farinaceous food, unknown to the ancients, was 
 found in America. It certainly belongs to the Sola- 
 num family; but by some curious and inexplicable 
 accident, whilst the other branches throve in Europe, 
 Asia, and Africa, their relation was for many cen¬ 
 turies propagated in an unknown part of the globe. 
 Sir Walter Raleigh found them in Virginia, and 
 brought them to the British isles. Queen Elizabeth 
 had them on her table, says a Gastrographer, when 
 the pleasing news of the destruction of the famous 
 Armada was brought to her. They were first ea¬ 
 gerly cultivated in Ireland, where they met with a 
 congenial soil, and soon spread over the rest of the 
 old continent. 
 
85 
 
 V. 183. Ova. “ CEnfs.” Eggs. To have en¬ 
 tered into a complete enumeration of all the ways in 
 which eggs may be dressed for the table, would have 
 been as difficult a task for the author as it would have 
 proved tedious to the reader. A few are mentioned 
 in the poem; Poached eggs, (t ceufs poches.” Eggs 
 with sorrel, “ ceufs a l’ozeille; ” that is when poached 
 or hard-boiled eggs are laid upon a stratum of sorrel. 
 Eggs with onions, u ceufs a la tripe hard-boiled eggs 
 tossed up in the pan with onions. ii CEufs a lachico- 
 reehard-boiled eggs laid on boiled endive. (( Ome¬ 
 lette aux fines herbes; ” an omelet with onion, parsley, 
 &c. This last mentioned manner of dressing eggs is 
 the quickest, and generally the best. The eggs are 
 broken into a basin: beaten well with a fork or 
 spoon, whilst fresh butter melts in the frying-pan. 
 A little chopped parsley and onion, pepper and salt, 
 are added to them, and the whole thrown into the 
 butter. The art consists in gathering quickly all the 
 ridges and swells of the eggs towards the centre; and 
 in about one minute and a half, on a brisk fire, the 
 work is done. The omelet is doubled over on the 
 dish, and served up immediately. The etymology of 
 the word, as observed before, arises from a Latin 
 vocable of no great standard, animellce, the sweet¬ 
 bread in a hog. Desbarreaux, the French poet, is 
 said to have been converted to a sense of religion by 
 an omelet. (C. G.) However, when we consider 
 that the very small quantity of elemental air concealed 
 under the blunt end of the egg, being dilated by the 
 heat of incubation, forces the whole of the contents 
 
88 
 
 into organization, motion, and life, we cannot help 
 44 musing/’ in awful silence, 44 the praise ” of God 
 in the w orks of nature. 
 
 Sometimes eggs are positively roasted. In countries 
 where wood-fire is constantly used, the cottager 
 half buries his eggs in an upright position in hot 
 ashes upon the hearth; and when a clear dew-drop 
 oozes on the top of the shell, the eggs are fit to be 
 eaten. Ovid was not ignorant of this practice, for he 
 says, Met. viii. 667. 
 
 Ovaque, non acri leviter versata favilla. 
 
 —New-laid eggs, with Baucis’ busy care. 
 
 Turn’d by a gentle fire and roasted rare.— Dryden. 
 
 Gastrologers are of opinion that, done in this way, 
 eggs have a much better flavour than when boiled. 
 Fancy goes far in matters of taste. 
 
 After all, the most extraordinary manner of cook¬ 
 ing eggs is, as it stands recorded, to turn them round 
 in a sling till they appear slightly-boiled. This was, 
 we are told, an Egyptian custom. A more credible 
 assertion is, that long eggs contain a male sperm, but 
 this we also doubt; although Horace declares that the 
 same opinion was indisputably held by the epicurean 
 44 bon-vivants” in his time. However the Schola 
 Salernitana gives a good precept as to the choice of 
 eggs;— 
 
 Si sumas ovum molle sit atque novum. 
 
 If thou takest an egg, let it be soft and new. 
 
 The surest mode of trying an egg is to apply the 
 
87 
 
 tip of the tongue to the blunt end; if it feels warm, 
 and the acute end cold, it is a proof that no fermen¬ 
 tation has yet taken place. 
 
 Peacock's eggs were reckoned a great dainty in 
 Rome. — Q. Hortensius began this sort of luxury 
 when he was instituted Augur; he paid twenty 
 pence for each egg, and had many brought to his 
 table. 
 
 Eggs were much venerated by idolatrous antiquity 
 as symbols of the world, orbis. Philosophers saw 
 the four elements in them. The yolk represents fire ; 
 the white, water; the cupola contains air; and the 
 calcareous shell identifies the earth. For this reason 
 Orpheus and Pythagoras abstained from eggs, and 
 the Greeks and Romans carried them with great 
 pomp in the processions of the Cerealia. 
 
 Eggs were part of the first course at a Roman 
 dinner: see Horat. Sat. 1. 3. 6. ab ovo usque ad 
 mala —from the beginning to the end. In modern 
 entertainments they generally come in the rear. 
 This expression, u ab ovo” from the beginning, 
 alludes also to those prolix narrators who would begin 
 the history of the siege of Troy by the circumstance of 
 Castor and Pollux, as Avell as Helen and Clytemnestra, 
 having been hatched out of Leda’s eggs. Hor. Art. Poet. 
 This fable is alluded to in the hexameter; Pollux 
 and Castor were hatched out of a couple of eggs, says 
 our poet; yet you boldly call for them, as if you 
 were not afraid of finding there, not the Dioscuri, 
 but some half-formed chickens. Pliny, B. 18, 
 cap. 35, relates that Livia, during her pregnancy, 
 
 t 
 
88 
 
 consulted a fortune-teller, who advised her to hatch 
 an egg by the warmth of her bosom, observing, that 
 if it should bring forth a male chick, she might reckon 
 upon the infallible birth of a son. The event turned 
 out conformably to the prediction, for she hatched a 
 young cock, and afterwards brought Tiberius into the 
 world. Most of the Roman matrons followed the ex¬ 
 ample ; and, like brooding hens, devoted themselves 
 to the curious amusement of gallinaceous incubation. 
 The Romans used to make presents of eggs to their 
 friends at the beginning of the year, in memory of 
 Castor and Pollux. This custom still exists in foreign 
 countries, but arises from another cause. Eggs were 
 forbidden during the time of Lent; and at Easter they 
 were boiled by thousands, coloured of divers hues, 
 gilt, engraved, and lavishly given to children. Louis 
 XV. had pyramids of them in his apartments at Ver¬ 
 sailles, and distributed them to his courtiers. 
 
 The manner of engraving upon an egg is to cover 
 it with wax dissolved in spirit of turpentine, and to 
 steep it in strong vinegar, till the acid begins to work 
 upon the parts of the shell, which have been scraped 
 by the graving tool. (C. G.) Spirit of wine clears 
 off the varnish. 
 
 V. 185. Alba sub chlamyde ovum. i( CEufs 
 poches.” Poached eggs, generally served up, in 
 a silver spoon, with rich gravy. Poached, is de¬ 
 rived from the French “ poche,” pocket; the yolk 
 of the egg, being enclosed in the substantiated al¬ 
 bumen or white, appears as if enclosed in a pouch. The 
 French say,an egg in its shirt, " en chemise." 
 
 4 
 
89 
 
 Cochlear, w cuiller,” a spoon. The Latin name origi¬ 
 nates from cochlea , a cockle-shell, the shape 
 
 of which was originally imitated in the formation of 
 a spoon. 
 
 V. 189. Niveo colore ova. (e CEufs a la Neige.” 
 Trifles. Eggs, well tossed up and properly tormented 
 with a sort of whisk made of slender twigs for the 
 purpose. The white of eggs, milk, and other ingre¬ 
 dients, confining bubbles of air, swell to a frothy, 
 light, and snow-white, substance, and are served 
 among the u entremets.” They appear in company 
 with the tremulous a blanc-manger,” the multiform and 
 amber-colour jellies, &c. on the very line of demar¬ 
 cation between the rear of the second course and the 
 van of the dessert. 
 
 V. 191. Frigitur ovum. Fried eggs. This way 
 of eating them is not to be laid aside. Fresh butter, 
 hissing in the pan, receives the yolk and white, the 
 vitellum and the albumen together, in its burning bo¬ 
 som. One minute or two, and all the noise is over; 
 and, sprinkled with pepper, salt, and a few drops 
 of vinegar, they appear perfectly fit for the palate of 
 the Gastronomer. The salamander is often held over 
 them, and accelerates the culinary process. 
 
 V. 192. Ova in patella. CEufs au miroir.” 
 Eggs on an earthen pan. The vessel, in which the eggs 
 are cooked upon a gentle fire of charcoal, being very 
 smooth, furnished the idea of a looking-glass, or mirror, 
 ££ miroir,” and suggested the quotation from Terence, 
 Veluti in speculum, Adelphi, 3, 3, 61, with a slight 
 grammatical alteration. 
 
 N 
 
 * 
 
90 
 
 V. 195. Mala sub lagano. u Beignets auxpommes.” 
 Apple fritters. Sire de Joinville relates, in his life 
 of St. Louis, that the Saracens u most graciously” 
 presented the French monarch and his valiant knights 
 with fritters, when they granted them their, highly, 
 ransomed liberty. The French word ii Beignets,” 
 obviously shows its origin from the verb e( baig- 
 ner,” to bathe, as they are dipped in hot melted 
 butter. 
 
 V. 197. Oryza. u Pain de riz.” Rice pudding. 
 This was constantly offered at the close of the dinner 
 at Guedon’s table d’hote. A bastion or moat of rice 
 often surrounds sweet meats, roasted apples with a 
 u glacis,” jams, u marmelades,” &c. 
 
 V. 198- Placenta. “ Patisserie.” Tarts, pies, &c. 
 All that Cookery’s sister art, Pastry, can produce, is 
 alluded to under this word. From the small oven of 
 the kitchen issues forth an innumerable quantity of 
 pleasing little articles, destined to fill up some still- 
 empty cells in the department of digestion. Flour 
 of the finest quality is, of course, the basis ; butter, 
 the cement; and yeast gives life to the whole. Ac¬ 
 cording to Athenaeus, Deipns. Lib. iii. c. 28. this 
 sort of food was originally nothing more than a purer 
 sort of bread to which honey, sweet-meats, comfits, 
 or preserved fruit, were added. Some authors a&sert 
 that the inventor of pastry, with all its mysteries and 
 appendages, was a certain Thearion, a Sicilian baker 
 who brought his humble trade to a much higher des¬ 
 tination, 457 years before the Christian era. The Ro¬ 
 mans were extremely fond of pastry. Cakes, or 
 
91 
 
 “ galettes,” were used at the altar, on the tables 
 of the rich, and at the scanty repast of the poor. In 
 chivalrous ages, the lady of the castle did not disdain to 
 prepare herself the “ gateaux," large cakes, for the 
 i( preux,” knights, whose sounding horns solicited ad¬ 
 mission at the draw-bridge ; and, in 802, by an edict 
 of Louis the Debonnair, a farmer was compelled to 
 bring, as an annual ee redevance,” five sacks of the 
 finest wheaten flour to the monks of St. Denis, for 
 the exclusive use and sole disposal of the pastry-cooks 
 of the convent. 
 
 Tantxne animis ceelestibus . ... ! 
 
 Such rage for cakes in monkish times prevail’d! 
 However, medical anathemas have often been thun¬ 
 dered by the Faculty against pastry ; for, although it 
 feels light in the mouth, and tasteful to the palate, 
 yet very few stomachs are able to bear its indigestible 
 heaviness. 
 
 V. 199. Monialia munera. ee Beignets souffles.” 
 Puffs. It is almost impossible to mention the name 
 which these fritters have obtained and still retain in 
 France, without a gentle suffusion of crimson pu¬ 
 dency. Nuns, who, though practising the strictest 
 abstinence, were very ingenious in contriving pleasing 
 dishes for the directors of their souls, have in their 
 retirement and solitary speculations, made out several 
 little dainties, which, passing from the convent to the 
 luxuriant tables of the “ sons of darkness’ and wor¬ 
 shippers of Comus, did not lose the memento of their 
 origin. These beignets souffles were, it appears, 
 originally blown with the breath through a tube, by 
 
92 
 
 the fair C( cuisinieres,” and a preposterous idea at¬ 
 tached itself to the operation. In this consists the 
 mystery which our poet has delicately glanced off 
 in the fable of Comus and the Vestal virgin. 
 
 V. 212. Casens. Fromage.” Cheese. It is 
 worthy of remark that, although very dissimilar in 
 themselves, these names should have sprung from the 
 same origin; namely, the case or form in which this 
 concretion of milk has been from time immemorial con¬ 
 fined to obtain a shape. Casa begat cuseus , caseus be¬ 
 gat cheese , and forma , u fromage.” The learned Grotius 
 is quoted; Forma formaginem vocat. (Cours Gas- 
 tronomique.) 
 
 Cheeses are mentioned in holy writ, under the 
 plural name Shehoth , 2 Sam. xvii. 29 ; and the singular 
 Ghebinah , Job, x. 10. Considering the root of these 
 words, it appears that cheeses were then spherical 
 like the Dutch ones in our days; since Ghebinah is 
 analogous to gibbosus, and Sheboth to eminens, a 
 round or pyramidal shape. Aristasus, son of Apollo 
 and of the nymph Cyrene, the same whom Virgil 
 made the hero of his most beautiful episode at the 
 end of the Georgies, is supposed to have been, among 
 the Greeks, the inventor of this food. (Apollodorus. 
 Justinus.) The Romans used to smoke their cheese 
 as we do herrings and hams. They had public fumi- 
 gatories for the purpose, Tabernce casearice. (Ulpian.) 
 The Athenians fed their pugilists with it; and it was 
 a military u ammunition de bouche” with the Jews, 
 the Greeks, and the Romans. Parmesan cheese, 
 used in soups, macaroni, and several other dishes, 
 
93 
 
 owes, it is said, its good quality and flavour to the 
 manure bestowed upon the meadows from which 
 it originates; and this manure consists of decayed 
 bones of all sorts of animals. Old cheese is reckoned 
 so powerful a digestive, that a small quantity intro¬ 
 duced in the shell of an oyster will soon dissolve the 
 fish. Our poet mentions only two sorts of cheese, 
 Cheshire and Gloucester: Stilton holds certainly the 
 first rank. A nomenclature of all the different kinds 
 of cheese in common use on the continent would fill 
 up too many pages ; and, unless a description of each 
 were annexed, would prove useless to the reader. 
 
 V. 215. Muturos elige fructus. Fruit is whole¬ 
 some when mature, but of a dangerous use when un¬ 
 ripe or decaying. The poet names only four species 
 of fruit, probably because the original bill of fare did 
 not contain any more; yet he might have negatively 
 noticed the cherry , from the garden of Mithridates; 
 the peach from Persia, and its lovely bastard the nec¬ 
 tarine ; the orange , or golden apple of the Hes- 
 perides; the pear , from the Epirean orchards of 
 Pyrrhus; (princes fromCydon; plums brought by the 
 crusaders from Damascus; the apple , so fatal once to 
 mankind; and the pride of America, the delightful 
 ananas of Surinam. 
 
 Y. 216. Castaneae. 44 Chataignes.” Chestnuts. 
 This kernel is of a most important use in several parts 
 of the continent, where the lower class of the people 
 daily feed upon this farinaceous and wholesome vege¬ 
 table. They were known to the Hebrews under the 
 name of Ilarmon , Gen. xxx. 37; to the Greeks by the 
 
94 
 
 appellation of xarosvov, castanon , from which the Latin 
 castanea ; English, chestnut; and French, chataigne. 
 According to heathen records, they were first noticed 
 at Sardes in Lydia. Castanece molles , Virgil. They 
 are eaten either boiled or roasted, and both ways very 
 palatable. 
 
 V. 216 . Nuces. Noix.” Walnuts. This ex¬ 
 cellent fruit originated, according to some authors, in 
 the sunny vales of Persia. Nuts were strewed an¬ 
 ciently in all the avenues leading to the nuptial apart¬ 
 ment ; and the ceremony of strewing the nuts, nuces 
 spargere, was the conclusion of the wedding-day. 
 
 Nuts are very useful under different points of view ; 
 the threefold advantage which they possess, of giving 
 light, warmth, and food, has been combined by our 
 author in the following distich : 
 
 Nux vigilat, recreat, nutrit, prelo, igne, manuque ; 
 
 Pressa, perusta, crepans, luce, calore, cilo. 
 
 Ovid in his poem entitled Nux, has taken notice of 
 the various insults which the walnut-tree receives at the 
 hands of travellers on the high-way; and Boileau 
 says, Ep. vi. speaking of the river ii Seine ” : 
 
 Tous ses bords sont couverts de saules non plantds, 
 
 Et de noyers souvent du passant insultes. 
 
 • A bass-relief, on the south-west side of the cathe¬ 
 dral of Amiens, representing two figures, who seem 
 busy about the contents of a sack or bag full of what 
 may be taken for walnuts, attaches itself to the fol¬ 
 lowing anecdote ; but appears of a date anterior to the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
95 
 
 This town was taken by surprise, when Fer¬ 
 nand Telles besieged it in 1597, owing to the stra¬ 
 tagem of of a few Spanish soldiers, who, disguised in 
 a plain country-dress, drove, early in the morning, 
 a cart loaded with sacks full of walnuts. The gates 
 were unsuspiciously opened by the sentinels; two 
 or three of the bags bursting, as if accidentally, the 
 ground was strewed with the fruit. The guards fell 
 to directly, picking and scrambling, whilst a body of 
 troops who were in ambush under the ramparts, 
 rushed impetuously, overcame the sentinels, and 
 made themselves masters of the town. Henry IV. 
 soon retook it from the Spaniards. 
 
 V. 217. Raceinos. u Raisins.” Grapes. This 
 fruit is far from being common in England, but the 
 vine is more cultivated now than it was thirty years 
 since. Grapes seldom made their appearance on the 
 (i table d’hote.” The shrub which produces them 
 was planted in Syria soon after the flood by Noah, 
 who was not the inventor, but the restorer, of the 
 art of making wine, which must have been known to 
 the antediluvian patriarchs, since it does not appear 
 from the text of the Bible that the vegetable kingdom 
 was included in the diluvian anathema. 
 
 V. 218. Malus aprica. Abricots.” Apricots. 
 Nature, it seems, had plenty of aromatic sweets to 
 dispose of, when her plastic hands formed the gol¬ 
 den and nearly-spherical fruit of the apricot-tree, 
 and she profusely lavished them in the composition 
 of this delightful tenant of the sunny wall. Jellies 
 u marmelades," and “ compotes d’abricots,” are 
 
% 
 
 06 
 
 too well known to need a description in these notes. 
 The name originates in the particular situation which 
 this tree generally prefers ; that is the a espalier,” or 
 a wall exposed to the heat of the meridian sun. Apri- 
 cus, Lat. which means the same, is often applied to 
 other sorts of fruit ; and even to old men, Aprici 
 senes, who delight in sitting and prattling on benches 
 exposed to the reviving warmth of the god of light. 
 This fruit-tree, it appears by the records of ancient 
 authors, was first eminently cultivated in Armenia, 
 since it is called Armeniacum malum , in contradis¬ 
 tinction to malum Persicum, the above-mentioned 
 Persian apple, the peach, which, in this appellation, 
 preserves still a faint and nearly-evanescent memento 
 of its birth-place. These valuable trees, in warmer 
 climates, do not always require the friendly protection 
 of the sheltering wall. They stand insulated in the 
 vineyard or orchard, swinging gently in the breeze, 
 and produce an excellent, though smaller, fruit, which 
 the French call i( peches de vigne,” and i( abricots 
 en-plein-vent.” 
 
 The notes might have been protracted much farther, 
 but the commentators yielded to the wise maxim laid 
 down by Horace, Serm. Lib. I. Sat. i. v. 106. 
 
 There is a true proportion in all things. 
 
 Est modus in rebus. 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 —♦-— 
 
 WINE. 
 
 Finn, bibant homines, animalia ccEtera fontes. 
 
 The Latin poem and the English notes have for their 
 immediate object the substance or body of an enter¬ 
 tainment ; but wine is the soul of the repast. Instead 
 of treating the Gastronomer with deeply-learned dis¬ 
 sertations, we intend merely to record a few ideas as 
 they occur, and carry along with them some instruc¬ 
 tion and an accidental zest of amusement. 
 
 Etymology .—It may be interesting previously to 
 observe that the words, wine, Engl, wein, Germ, vin, Fr. 
 vinum, Lat. and oTvoy, Gr. claim their common origin 
 from pi, iin, Hebr. the first Jod being, on account of 
 repetition, pronounced as v, ou, or w, making vin , 
 ouin, or win. 
 
 History .—-Wine is mentioned for the first time in 
 the Bible, Gen. ix. 21. Noah makes too free with 
 it, and is derided by one of his sons. Soon after 
 we find wine doing mischief again between Lot and 
 his daughters, Gen. xix. 34. But, Psalm, civ. 5, 
 the inspired Lyric declares that ie it maketh glad the 
 heart of man; ” and this eulogium has never been con¬ 
 tradicted, as far as wine is drunk with relative mo¬ 
 deration ; yet, when taken to excess, this gladness of 
 heart suddenly turns into madness of mind. 
 
 If from Holy Writ we turn our eyes towards the 
 works of Heathen writers, it will appear doubtful 
 whether the Golden Age did ever know this c< heart- 
 cheering” juice. They speak of streams of milk, 
 of nectar, and even of wine, but not a word about 
 cultivated grapes; from which circumstance, and 
 other inductions, we may fairly conclude that the 
 birth of the god of wine was coetaneous with that of 
 the god of war. 
 
 o 
 
98 
 
 They also tell us that the vine-tree was brought 
 from Persia to the Phoenicians, who took it to Greece, 
 Sicily, and Italy; and Plutarch states that ft 
 Etruria it was carried to the Gauls. Laying aside 
 the records of fabulous ages, the expedition of Bacchus 
 to the Ganges, the tragic death of the abstemious 
 Pentheus, and other stories more amusing than true, 
 we can safely assert, for we really believe, that in 
 Greece, wine was known before the Trojan war, and 
 even more than 1500 years before the Christian era. 
 
 In the 9th book of the Odyssey we find that long 
 before Homer’s time, a distinction had already been 
 established between good and bad wine ; since, when 
 the crafty Ulysses presents the intoxicating cup to 
 Polyphemus, the gourmet-like Cyclop evinces directly 
 his discriminating sense of taste : he says, as follows 
 in the literal translation of this passage, by our poet:— 
 
 Arripit ille scyphum, spumantemque impiger haurit, 
 
 Et captus gustu repetilos poslulat haustus : 
 
 Amplius, ah ! vini, precur amplius adde propinans 
 Ut mihi tu qui sis narranlem prumptus arnicum 
 Hospilio excipiam. Sunt et Cyclopibus arva, 
 
 Arva racemiferas ultra gignentia viles, 
 
 Quas Jovis ceslivus calefactas concoquit imher ; 
 
 Ast id ah Ambrosia, et ccelesti Nectare manat, (a) 
 
 Hesiod, in the 2d book of his “ Works and Days” 
 shews that the cultivation of the vine-tree was well 
 known in his time; for he gives directions about the 
 vintage and advises Perse in the following words: 
 Orion now, and Sirius, adorn 
 The midnight sky—now rosy-finger’d morn 
 Spies bright Arcturus rising from the deep : 
 
 Cull then, bring home your ripen’d grapes—and keep 
 Them full expos’d ten long days to the sun. 
 
 Wine was deservedly praised by all nations. Vir¬ 
 gil made the cultivation of the grape the subject of 
 part of his Georgies, B. II. and, from Anacreon to 
 
 (a) See Pope’s Translation. 
 
99 
 
 our contemporaries, it became the theme of the 
 . et’s song, and the shrub which produces it, the 
 object of the cares and protection of princes and 
 inonarchs. (a) 4t Domitian, that monster who,’’ says 
 a Gastrographer, ought to have been immolated, 
 on the altar of Bacchus, ordered all the vineyards in 
 Gallia to be rooted up ; but the Emperor Probus , much 
 deserving of that name, ordered them to be re-planted.” 
 In 1175, the Duke of Acquitaine (afterwards Ri¬ 
 chard I.) prohibited in Guyenne the stealing of a single 
 bunch of grapes in a vineyard, under the penalty of 
 five solidi , or the loss of one ear, if the “ fellow had 
 any left/' (Cowel’s Interp.) 
 
 Before, and even since, the introduction of u Gas- 
 coygne” wine into this island, vineyards were well- 
 cultivated and thriving in several parts of the 
 kingdom; for we find that a certain quantity of 
 wine is ordered to be paid instead of rent to the 
 
 (a) The presence of the Roman matrons does not seem 
 to have ever been much courted to festival entertainments 
 in republican ages. The severity of their looks, the auste¬ 
 rity of their habits, their domestic avocations, unfitted them 
 for scenes of jollity and merriment. In private, they hardly 
 dared to sip a drop of wine; and Cato the ancient advised 
 his friends to give a kiss to their wives, when they came 
 home, in order to ascertain whether they had not in their 
 absence tasted the temetum or strong wine. Pliny xiv. 13. 
 Yet, theCensor himself was not averse to a cheerful bum¬ 
 per. Hor. Car. III. Od. xxi. says: 
 
 Narratur 1 1 prisci Catonis 
 Scepe mem ca/uisse virtus. 
 
 E’en Cato’s virtue, we are told. 
 
 When age had made him weak and cold. 
 
 Often glow’d with gen’rous wine. 
 
 La vertu du vieux Caton, 
 
 Chez les Romains tant pronde, 
 
 De Falerne, nous dit-on, 
 
 Fut souvent enluminde,—J. B. Rousseau. 
 
100 
 
 chief lord of a vineyard— Vinagium , i. e. Tributum A. 
 vino. Mon. Angl. 2 Tom. 980. But, in course of 
 time, Bacchus courteously gave room for the pursuits 
 of Ceres, and the golden harvest of corn superseded 
 the purple produce of the vintage. 
 
 CEnotechny; or, the art of making wine. It is 
 an erroneous idea to suppose that white wine is ex¬ 
 clusively the produce of white grapes. Fermentation 
 alone determines the colour. The juice contained in 
 both the white and red grape is nearly as colourless as 
 water; except in one peculiar species, which is called 
 the dyer, “ raisin teinturier,” the liquor of which is 
 of a purple hue, as deep as that of the mulberry. 
 It is used as an auxiliary to deepen the tint of red wine. 
 If the juice of the grapes which have been gently 
 pressed by the feet of men in the tub at the vineyard, 
 is drawn off in casks, and allowed to ferment without 
 the skin the seeds and the stalks which contain the 
 colouring elements, the wine will certainly be white. 
 On the contrary, if the liquor is left to ferment with 
 them, the wine must be red. If the fermentation of 
 the white liquid is stopt in proper time, the wine 
 becomes brisk and sparkling, on account of the quan¬ 
 tity of fixed air which is confined within it; if this 
 air, a sort of gas, is permitted to evaporate, the wine 
 becomes still and quiet; in this, with a few practical 
 exceptions, consists the whole mystery. Wines re¬ 
 quire more or less time to ripen in the casks, in order 
 to let the lees settle at the bottom ; and the art 
 principally lies in the knowledge of the proper 
 time to bottle the wine. A thick crust does not 
 always show that the wine is good, but often that it 
 has been bottled too soon. White wines produce no 
 crust; a proof that the grossest parts are lodged in the 
 skin, seeds, and stalks, of the grapes. 
 
 The practice of clarifying wine before it is bottled 
 off by means of whites of eggs, was known to the 
 ancients. But Horace, though a practical gourmet, 
 
101 
 
 J 
 
 was not well acquainted with the theory of the art, 
 for he mistakes, Sat. 2, 4. the yolk for the white, as 
 used for this purpose. 
 
 Nomenclature. Several authors of tried knowledge 
 have, in other countries as well as in this, written 
 scientific and interesting dissertations upon the wines 
 of the ancients, to which we refer the Gastronomic 
 reader, confining ourselves to the names of some of 
 those which are particularly esteemed in our days. 
 
 As to the product of the grapes, it cannot be denied 
 that France has long borne the palm in the contest; 
 and the wines of that fruitful kingdom may be classed 
 under three principal heads, Burgundy, Champagne, 
 and Languedoc, or Meridional wines, which may be 
 also subdivided into three species, mousseux , trun- 
 quille, and sucre; * brisk, still, and sweet. 
 
 CHAMPAGNE, 
 
 A'i. 
 
 Arlois. 
 Epernay. 
 Haut-villiers. 
 Langres. 
 Montague de 
 Rheims. (a) 
 Ricey. 
 
 Sillery. 
 
 Tonnerre. 
 
 Vtrsenay. 
 
 BOURGOGNE. 
 
 Avalons. 
 
 Beaune. 
 
 Ckablis. 
 
 Chamberlin. 
 
 Clos de Vougeot. 
 Coulanges. 
 
 La Romanee. 
 Macon. 
 Migrenne. 
 Nuils. (b) 
 Pomard. 
 
 GASCOGNE, &C, 
 
 Bergerae. 
 Bourdeauoc. 
 Cateau-Margot. 
 Claret, (c) 
 Condrieux. 
 
 Grave, (d) 
 Hermitage. 
 LajUte. 
 
 Pontac. 
 
 St. Peray. 
 Sautern. 
 
 * Languidiora vina .— Hor. 
 
 (a) Part of the produce of this famous Hill was exclu¬ 
 sively kept for the table of the king of France. 
 
 (b) The celebrity of this wine dates from the illness of 
 Louis XIV. in 1680. 
 
 (c) This denomination originates from “ Claretum, a 
 liquor made anciently of wine and honey, clarified by 
 decoction, which the Germans, French, and English, call 
 Hippocras ; and it is for this reason that the red wines of 
 France were called Claret.” Cowel’s Interp. 
 
 (d) This name is generally applied to the white wines 
 of Gascony. 
 
102 
 
 So great was the repute of some of these wines, that 
 in 1652 a public Thesis was held at the faculty of 
 Medicine, to decide the mighty question which of 
 the two was the best, <{ Bourgogne or Champagne.” 
 As for the “ vins de Gascogne, Bordeaux, Provence,” 
 &c. the quantity which is exported has always been 
 so considerable, that, according to Froissart, as early 
 as 1372, upwards of 200 ships were annually and 
 exclusively freighted with this commodity. 
 
 Besides these, several 44 Vins de liqueurs” are im¬ 
 ported from France; as Ciotat; St. Laurent; Lunel; 
 Frontignac , &c. Spain, Portugal, and the island of Ma¬ 
 deira, offer us a considerable supply, and the banks of 
 the Rhine and the Moselle enliven, with their produce, 
 the tables of the Gastronomers of all polite nations. 
 
 Vabi.® Lectiones. 
 
 Pag. 8. v. 137. Hirtus Elops, &c. Habemus in mar- 
 gine codicis MS. 
 
 Qtii se provolvit multis Acipenser in undis. 
 
 Ibid. y. 140. Muria dum nigrum, &c. Codex MS. 
 exhibet in margine: 
 
 Dum muria obscurum condit amara jecur. 
 
 Eligat Lector benevolus. 
 
INDEX 
 
 TO THE NOTES AND APPENDIX. 
 
 A-la-mode beef, p. 56. 
 Alliteration, 41. 
 Amiens, 95. 
 Amphibious animals, 
 70. 
 
 Apicius,three brothers 
 of that nam.e, 13, 14. 
 Apricots, 95. 
 
 Asses, young, 34. 
 Artichoke, 79. 
 Asparagus, 78. 
 Aviaries, 58. 
 
 Ballioand the cook,18. 
 Barbecue, 51. 
 
 Barbel, 69. 
 
 Bats and Olives, 35. 
 Beans, Windsor, 74; 
 
 French, 77. 
 
 Beef, buttock of, 31; 
 
 cold, boiled, 55. 
 Beet-root, 83. 
 
 Black pudding, 54. 
 Boars’ head, 50. 
 Brains, 49. 
 
 Bread, 44. 
 
 Broth, 24. 
 
 Bullock, 31. 
 
 Butter, 31. 
 
 Cabbage, origin, 24; 
 etymology ,25; green 
 and red, 24 ; twice 
 eaten, death, 26. 
 Cacus andHercules,54. 
 
 •■••XiX. 
 
 Calf’s lights, 25; liver, 
 46. 
 
 Callipash and callipee, 
 29. 
 
 Cardinal and clergy¬ 
 man. 25. 
 
 Carp, 74. 
 
 Caviare, 73. 
 
 Celery, 83. 
 
 Charon’s fare, 49. 
 
 Cheese, 92. 
 
 Chestnuts, 93. 
 
 Chicken, fricassee of, 
 42. 
 
 Codfish, 64. 
 
 Cooks, 17, 20, 47. 
 
 Coquin, etymon of, 19. 
 
 Cutlets, 48. 
 
 Desbarreaux’s conver¬ 
 sion, 85. 
 
 Dor5e, John, 71. 
 
 Duck, with turnips, 
 40; with onions, 41; 
 eggs, 40. 
 
 Eel, 69. 
 
 Egg, symbol of the 
 world, 87; broth, 
 23; eggs, 85; boiled 
 in a sling, 86; en¬ 
 graving upon, 88; 
 fried, 89; poached, 
 88; roasted,86, man¬ 
 ner of try ing, 86. 
 
 Esquimaux, 35. 
 
 Fish bones, 70; sauce, 
 73. 
 
 Fontenelle, anecdote, 
 81. 
 
 Fricandeau, 42. 
 Fritters, 90. 
 
 Frogs, 35. 
 
 Fruit, 93. 
 
 Gastrologer, 16. 
 Gastronomer, ibid. 
 Gastrophile, ibid. 
 Glutton, 15. 
 
 Goat, 38. 
 
 Goose, 38, 39, 51. 
 Gormand, 15. 
 Gourmet, ibid. 
 Gudgeon, 69. 
 
 Grapes, 100. 
 
 Hachis, 50. 
 
 Ham, 51. 
 
 Hampshire hog, 50. 
 Hamster rats, 35. 
 Hare, 57. 
 
 HazeUspits, 32. 
 Herring, 65. 
 Hedgehogs, 35. 
 
 Hen’s, 36; crowing, 
 ibid; experiments 
 upon, 37. 
 
 Jacob and Esau, 82. 
 
104 
 
 Incubation, 85, 87. 
 Kidneys, 54. 
 
 King of Rome, 84, 
 King and queen, 75. 
 
 Leeks, 21. 
 
 Lentils, 82. 
 
 Lobsters, 68. 
 
 Mackerel, 65. 
 
 Medea, 43, 47- 
 Mock turtle, 30. 
 Moorcock. 55. 
 
 Mullet, 69. 
 
 Muscle, 67. 
 
 Mustard, etymon, 66. 
 Mutton chops, 48. 
 
 Napkin, 70. 
 
 Napoleon, 84. 
 
 Oil, 80. 
 
 Omelet, 48, 85. 
 
 Onion, 41. 
 
 Ox, 33 ; palate, 47. 
 Oysters, 15, 67* 
 
 Parsley, 45. 
 
 Partridge, 56. 
 
 Pastry, 90. 
 
 Peach, 96. 
 
 Peacocks, 13, 87. 
 Perch* 69. 
 
 Pettitoes, 53. 
 Pheasant, 55. 
 
 Pig, 31. 
 
 Pigeon, 59; wood pi¬ 
 geon, 58; stewed, 
 ibid; broiled, 59. 
 Pike, 69. 
 
 Pilau, 36, 70. 
 Pistacchio, 25. 
 
 Plaice, 64. 
 
 Pork, 51. 
 
 Porridge, 22. 
 
 Potatoes, 84. 
 
 Pottages, 29. 
 
 Prawn, 68. 
 
 Pudding, 54. 
 
 Puffs, 91. 
 
 Pullet, 35. 
 
 Puppies, 35. 
 
 Pye, 46. 
 
 Quail, 58. 
 
 Quin, 72. 
 
 Rabbit, 62. 
 
 Rein-deer, 35. 
 
 Rice, 23, 90. 
 
 Rolls, 45. 
 
 Roman names, 75. 
 
 Salmon, 63. 
 
 Sheep, 49, 50, 54. 
 Shrimp, 58. 
 
 Sirloin, 33. 
 
 Skate, 63. 
 
 Sorrel, 41. 
 
 Snipe, 61. 
 
 Sturgeon, 73. 
 
 Soup, 21, 24, 28. 
 
 Spinach, 83. 
 
 Spoon, 89. 
 
 Succory, 53. 
 
 Sugar, 52. 
 
 Sweet bread, 47. 
 
 Tench, 69. 
 
 Thrush, 58. 
 
 Trifles, S9. 
 
 Trout, 71. 
 
 Truffles, 60. 
 
 Turbot, 72. 
 
 Turkeys, 59. 
 
 Turnips, 40. 
 
 Turtle, 29. 
 
 Varice Lectiones, 102. 
 Veal, loin of,52; broth, 
 52; cutlets,44; hash¬ 
 ed, 49; stewed, 41. 
 Venison, 62. 
 Vermicelli, 24. 
 Vinegar, 81. 
 
 Vitellius, 62. 
 
 Wag and countryman, 
 78. 
 
 Walnuts, 94, 
 
 Wheat, 44. 
 
 Whiting, 63. 
 
 Wine, 97; etymon, 
 ibid; history, Ibid; 
 nomenclature, 101 ; 
 art of making, 100 * 
 Thesis upon, 102. 
 Woodcock, 61. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 Robins and Sons, Printers, 57, Tooley Street.