Part 12

We have heard of an American who tried to tame an oyster. The Romans were more successful with their sea-eels, which would come when called, and feed from the hands of men, who occasionally fattened them upon live slaves. Vedius Pollio would have grown sick and disgusted, if he had been asked to eat one of these slaves; but he was particularly fond of the fish that had been fed upon such fare; and so he only ate his slaves at second-hand; for _their_ flesh was declared by him to have greatly improved the taste of the eel. Epicures with less ferocious appetites preferred the fish that had been fattened upon veal steeped in blood. Vitellius put the fish altogether out of fashion by only eating the roes, which were procured for him at a great expense; and Heliogabalus caused even the roes to cease to be modish, by forcing them upon the Mediterranean peasants, who got as sick of their repasts as English servants in the Scottish Highlands grow weary of the everlasting sameness of their dinners consisting of venison and salmon. The Egyptians placed the sea-eel in their Pantheon; and even the unorthodox cannot deny that he was as good a deity as any to be found there; and we are told that among the Sybarites, the fishers and vendors of the eel were exempt from taxation! The origin of these honours is, however, unknown. Nearly as great were offered, even in Rome, to the fish known as the sea-wolf, which abounded in the most filthy parts of the Tiber, and which some epicures distinguished by the appellation of “child of the gods.” The Romans paid high prices for it, as they did for the regicide lamprey,--a fish which killed our first Henry, and which Italian cooks used to kill, as the murderers did maudlin Clarence, in his Malmsey butt, by plunging the victim, decked for the sacrifice with a nutmeg in his mouth, and a clove in either gill, into a pan of Candian wine; after which, covered with almonds, bread crumbs, and spices, he was exposed to a slow fire, and then to the jaws that impatiently awaited him. It was once as popular as the tunny,--a fish, by the way, which once so enriched the city of Sinope, that the coin minted there bore the figure of the fish. Where they are found at all, it is generally in shoals; but these are never to the extent which Pliny speaks of, when he says that they so obstructed the fleet of Alexander, that the pilots of the Macedonian madman were compelled to shape a different course; and though they are to be found in something like abundance in the Mediterranean, yet tourists who resort thither must not expect to see realized the gay picture of Vernet. It does not appear, however, that the tunny was ever in such favour at ancient tables as the eel, which was greedily eaten where it was not devoutly worshipped, or where medical ordinances had not been directed against it, as unfavourable to the weak of digestion, and perilous to those affected by pulmonary diseases. The pike, emblem of fecundity and example of lengthened years, was still less popular. The carp, which even surpasses the pike in fecundity, and is a long liver to boot, was, on the other hand, an especial favourite, but it was served up with sauces that would certainly not tempt a modern gastronomist to eat a fish which is seldom worth eating, and which is almost defiant of digestion. Carp, reduced to a pulp, and served up with sows’ paps, and yolk of egg, must have been as nasty as gold fish with carrots and myrtle leaves,--the delight of the Roman loungers at their “Blackwall,” on the Tiber. So the Greeks spoiled good cod by eating it with grated cheese and vinegar; and the Romans made perch more indigestible than it was before, by swallowing Damascus plums with it. But the ancients had strangely accommodating stomachs; a sauce of honey could induce them to eat cuttle-fish. Garlic and cheese made the swordfish delicacies; the rhombus floated into Greek stomachs on a sauce of wine and brine; the ladies of Rome ate onions with the muzil, and pine-nuts with the pilchard. The more refined Greeks, on the other hand, would not touch the pilchard; and the same difference of taste existed with regard to the loach; while, again, both Rome and Greece united in admiration of the gudgeon. To neither of these countries was the herring known. The Scots found the fish, and the Dutch bought, pickled, and sold, or ate them; and it is said that Charles V., in 1536, ate a herring upon the tomb of Beuckels, the first salter of that fish, and therewith friend of the poor, and enricher of the State. The profit realized by Holland exceeded two millions and a half sterling, annually. But neither Greece nor Rome felt the want of the herring while there was an abundant supply of the favourite oyster. This shell-fish was easily procured by the Greeks from Pelorus, Abydos, and Polarea; by the Romans, from Brindés, the Lake of Lucrinus, Armorica, and even from Britain. The Romans were hardly worthy of the delicacy, seeing that they abused it by mincing oysters, mussels, and sea hedgehogs together, stewed the whole with pine-almonds and hot condiments, and devoured the mixture scalding! Others, however, ate them raw, when they were opened at table by a slave; and the larger the fish, the more the Roman epicures liked them. They were not only eaten before a feast to stimulate the appetite, but during a banquet, when the appetite began to be palled. They excited to fresh exertion, and it was a cleaner custom (perhaps) than that imperial one of exonerating the stomach by tickling the throat with a peacock’s feather. The Bourdeaux oyster was the favourite fish of most of the Emperors. It is very inferior to the Whitstable oyster, however, and also to that which goes by the name of “Colchester,” and which is not caught there. The passion for the savoury fish is well illustrated in the epitaph which says,--

“Tom ---- Lies buried in these cloisters; If, at the last trump, He does not quickly jump, Only cry ‘_Oysters_!’”

If the Emperors affected oysters, the gods themselves patronized mussels, a dish of which was contributed by Jupiter to the wedding banquet of Hebe. The mythological sanction has, however, failed to render the mussel popular, and for good reasons. It is often extremely poisonous, and in certain conditions of the stomach they who eat mussels may reckon upon being attacked by violent cutaneous disorders, painfully participated in by the oppressed intestines.

It was otherwise with the tortoise, the blood of which was reckoned good in cases of ophthalmia, and the flesh of which was eagerly devoured. The natural history of the products of those early times seems to have been written by philosophers with very poetical imaginations. We read of shells of tortoises being converted into roofs of cottages, as we are told by Pliny of crawfish measuring four cubits in length. It was then that men ate lobsters _au naturel_, and crabs converted into sausages. But this latter dish was a more dainty one than that afforded by the frog,--the abhorrence of early gastronomists, but the delight of many French and German epicures, who first find delight in angling for these unclean beasts with a bait of yellow soap, and then swallowing, with delight more intense, the hind-quarters of the animal they have caught. But if the moderns swallow frogs, the ancients ate the polypus,--and which were the nastiest even I could not tell! The Romans were especially fond of fish; and some “fast” epicures among them not only had preserve ponds of fish on the roofs of their houses, but little rivulets stocked therewith around the dinner-table, whence the guests selected their fish, and delivered them to be cooked.

It was once thought that the prawn, or shrimp, was somehow necessary to the production of soles, acting, it was believed, as a sort of nurse, or foster-parent, to the spawn. But this I suppose to be about as true as that soles always swim in pairs, with three-pennyworth of shrimps behind them, ready for sauce.

I remember two anecdotes connected with fish at table, which a guest may retail when he is next at that period of the repast. Talleyrand was dining, in the year 1805, with the Minister of Finance, who did the honours of his house in the very best style. A very fine carp was on the table opposite to Talleyrand, but the fish was already cold. “That is a magnificent carp,” said the financier: “how do you like it? It came from my estate of Vir-sur-Aisne.” “Did it?” said Talleyrand, “but why did you not have it cooked _here_?” This reply was not as fatal to the utterer of it, as a remark once made by Poodle Byng at Belvoir Castle. “Ah, ah!” he exclaimed, as he saw the fish uncovered at the Duke of Rutland’s board, “my old friend Haddock! I have not seen a haddock, at a gentleman’s table, since I was a boy.” The implication shut the gates of Belvoir on the unlucky Poodle from that day forward. He was never again the Duke’s guest.

Some French writers have asserted, after tracing the “vestiges of creation” according to a fashion of their own, that man originally sprang from the ocean; and that his present condition is one of development, the consequence of life ashore, and exposure to atmospheric air! According to this theory, I suppose, Venus Anadyomene was the Eve of our fishy generation, and mermaids show the transition state, when our ancestors were of both land and sea, and yet properly of neither!

As judges of fish, the moderns are inferior to the ancients. A Greek or Roman epicure could, at first sight, tell in what waters the fish before him had been caught. This sort of wisdom is, however, not uncommon to oyster-eaters, who swallow so greedily what contains little nourishment, but what may be easily digested. It was not unusual, some years ago, in France, for a gourmand to prepare for dinner by swallowing a gross, or a dozen dozen, of oysters! Twelve of them, including the liquor, will weigh four ounces; and the gross, four pounds (Troy)!--a pretty amount of ballast whereupon to take in freight. The skin of such a feeder had need be in a good condition; but so, indeed, ought that of every one who cares for his digestion. When we remember that a person in health, who takes eight pounds of aliment during twenty-four hours of his wakefulness, discharges five of the eight pounds solely through the pores by perspiration, it will at once be seen that to hold the skin clean, and keep the pores unobstructed, is of first-rate necessity for the sake of digestion and comfort.

There are sea-board populations who live almost exclusively on fish. They feed their domestic animals upon it, and with it manure their ground; so that the pork they may occasionally indulge in, acquires a fish-like flavour, and their bread is but a consequence of the plentiful rottenness of sprats. Such populations are usually lean and sallow, but they are strong-muscled and active-limbed; and altogether they afford good testimony in favour of the efficacy of a fish diet, when no better is to be had. As a diet, fish is only so far stimulating that it augments the lymph rather than renews the blood. It is a puzzle to many gastronomic philosophers that fish was so constant a diet of the monkish orders. Its heating quality hardly suited men who were required to be ever coolly contemplative. But this matter I leave to the philosophers to determine. One of them,--that is, a gastronomic philosopher,--M. Fayot, says, that “if you would have a dinner composed altogether of fish,” the meal should consist of “a turbot, a large salmon done in a _court-bouillon_, flanked with aromatic herbs, and covered with a fresh winding-sheet of delicate seasoning. In such dinners, sea-fish have, undoubtedly, the first rank; and among them the Cherbourg lobster, the shrimp of Honfleur, the cray-fish of the Seine, and the smelts of that river’s mouth, and numerous fresh-water fish mingle agreeably. Salmon and turbot should be done briskly; drink afterwards a glass of those old wines which give a digestive action to the stomach.” With M. Fayot, the turbot is “the king of fish, especially in Lent, as it is then of most majestic size. You may serve up salmon with as much ornament as you will, but a turbot asks for nothing but aristocratic simplicity. On the day after he makes his first appearance, it is quite another affair. It may be then disguised; and the best manner of effecting this is, to dress him _à la Béchamel_,--a preparation thus called from the Marquis de Béchamel, who, in the reign of Louis XIV., for ever immortalized himself by this one _ragoût_.”

The _Almanach des Gourmands_ speaks of a Lorraine carp which was fed on bread and wine, and which was twice sent to the Paris market, in the care of a courier who travelled by the mail. It returned to its native waters in default of a purchaser willing to give thirty _louis-d’ors_ for the monstrous delicacy. This was when fish dinners were much in vogue in Paris. There was then a _table d’hôte_ for a fish repast only, held at a house profanely called, “The Name of Jesus.” This house stood in the “Cloître St. Jacques de l’Hôpital,” and every Wednesday and Friday it was crowded by the Clergy, who dined magnificently on _maigre_ fare, for about 2_s._ a head. It is of one of these that Fayot recounts a pleasant story, the locality, however, of which was the _Rocher de Cancale_. A certain Abbé dined there so copiously off salmon, that a fit of indigestion was the consequence. Some days afterwards, when celebrating Mass, the savoury memories of the fish flocked into his mind; and he was heard to murmur, not the _meâ culpâ_ of the “_Confiteor_,” but, as he quietly beat his breast, “Ah! that capital salmon! that capital salmon!”

Of the more nutritive species of fish, turbot, cod, whiting, haddock, flounder, and sole, are the least heating. Of these, the cod is the least easy of digestion, though turbot is quite as difficult of digestion when much lobster sauce is taken with it. The crimping of cod facilitates the digesting of the fish. Sole and whiting are easily digested. Salmon is nutritive, but it is oily, heating, and not very digestible; far less so than salmon trout. The favourite parts of most of these fish are the least fit for weak stomachs, and the most trying to strong ones. Salmon, caught after the spawning season has commenced, is almost poisonous; and eels are objectionable at all seasons, from their excessive oiliness. Shell-fish generally may be put down as “indigestible,” particularly the under-boiled lobsters of the London market. The mussel is especially so; and these are not rendered innocuous by the removal of the beard, which is not more hurtful than any other part. Shell-fish, and, indeed, fish generally, affects the skin, by sympathy with the stomach. The effect is, sometimes, as if a poison had been generated: at others it very sensibly affects the odour of the cutaneous secretions. This effect was thoroughly understood when the Levitical Priests, like those of Egypt, were prohibited from eating fish. The prohibition was based upon a just principle.

The Egyptian and Levitical Priests were more obedient to such prohibitions than St. Patrick, who once, overcome by hunger, helped himself to pork chops on a fast-day. An angel met him with the forbidden cutlets in his hand; but the saint popped them into a pail of water, pattered an Ave-Mary over them, and our indulgent Lady heeded the appeal by turning them into a couple of respectable and orthodox-looking trout. The angel looked perplexed, and went away, with his index finger on the side of his nose. And see what came of it! In Ireland, meat dipped into water, and christened by the name of “St. Patrick’s Fish,” is commonly eaten there even on fast-days, and to the great regret of all those who eat greedily enough to acquire an indigestion.

St. Patrick’s fish ought to have fetched as high a price as the four cod which formed the sole supply in Billingsgate-market on one of the great frost-days in January, 1809; they were sold to one dealer for fourteen guineas. During the same month, salmon was sold at a guinea a pound! When fish is so high-priced, it is time to have done with it. So, _enlevez_! and let us to the succeeding courses of viands more substantial. While the fish is being removed, I will merely relate that it was the practice of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who gave plentiful dinners to admirable men, in his house in Leicester Square, always to choose his own fish, of which he was a capital judge. He was, on those occasions, ever the first visitor to the fish-shop still existing, in its primitive simplicity, in Coventry-street. He selected the best; and later in the day, his niece, Miss Palmer, used to call, dispute the price, and pay for the fish. Sir Joshua’s table is said to have been too crowded, both as to guests and dishes, while there was scant attendance, and a difficulty of getting served; but the hilarity compensated for all. The guests enjoyed themselves with a vulgar delight that would have very much ruffled the dignity of such a pompous president at repasts as the bewigged, bepatched, and bepowdered Sir Peter Lely.

With the introduction of animal food is dated the era of professional cooks; and that era itself is set down by M. Soyer, a competent authority, as having commenced in the year of the world 1656. Other authorities give 2412 as the proper date, when Prometheus, or Forethought, as his name implies, taught men the use of fire, and cooked an ox. But I think that both dates and mythology are somewhat loose here, and that the period is easier of conjecture than of determination. Ceres killed the pig that devoured her corn, Bacchus the goat that nibbled at the tendrils of the vine, and Jupiter the ox that swallowed his sacred cakes; and the animals slain by deities were roasted and eaten by men. Another tradition is, that roast meat originally smoked only on the altars of the gods, and that the Priests lived on the pretended sacrifices, until some lean and greedy heretic, having wickedly pilfered the sacred viands, so improved under the diet, that his example was promptly followed, and men took to animal food, in spite of the thunder of gods and the anathemas of Priests. I need not say where there is better authority than all these pretty tales for man’s subduing to his use and service the beasts of the earth, the birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea.

A rearer of cattle was, in the olden time, an aristocrat in his way. The gods looked after his herds, and the law gave its protection where Olympian divinity so often proved worthless. Bubona sat the watchful goddess of their fattening; and it was she who blessed the cabbages steeped in vinegar, the straw and wheat-bran, and the bruised barley, wherewith the oxen were prepared for the cattle-show or the market. In the latter, the office of the Roman Prefect fixed the selling price: the breeder could neither ask more nor take less than according to the official tariff. There was a singular custom at one time in Rome, which proves, however, that the seller had a voice in declaring the value of his stock. Purchaser and vendor simultaneously closed, and then suddenly opened, one of their hands, or some of the fingers. If the number of fingers on both sides was even, the vendor obtained the price which he had previously asked for his meat; but if the number was uneven, the buyer received the viands for the sum he had just before tendered. This was as singular a custom as, and a more honest one than, that adopted by the first Dutch settlers in America. In their trading with the Indians a Dutchman’s fist was established as the standard of weight, with this understanding, that when a Dutchman was selling to an Indian his fist weighed a pound, but that it should only be half that weight when the Hollander was a purchaser!

The Roman markets were well supplied, and the pig seems to have been the national favourite. The Emperors used to distribute thousands of pounds of pork to the poor, as on festive occasions we, less magnificently, divide among the needy our time-honoured English roast beef. There was even an edict against making sausages of any thing _but_ pork,--an edict which is much needed in some of our suburbs, where “pork sausages” are made of any thing but pig;--and, after all, they could not be made of a dirtier animal. But the grave Romans strangely reverenced this unclean beast. Pliny places him only one degree below humanity; and certainly the porcine and human stomachs are very much alike! In the East, our ancient friend was a Pariah, and his position among the unclean was fixed by a Jewish doctor, who said, that if ten measures of leprosy were flung into the world, nine of them would naturally fall to the execrated pig. There is no doubt that the eating of the flesh of the pig in hot climates would bring on diseases in the human system akin to leprosy; and this fact may have tended to establish the unpopularity of the animal throughout the East, and to account also for the prohibition. Galen, however, prescribed it as good food for people who worked hard; and there are modern practitioners who maintain that it is the most easily digested of all meats. It is certainly more easy of digestion than that respectable impostor, the boiled chicken, which used so cruelly to test, and defy, the feeble powers of invalids.

Pigs were fatted, both in Greece and Rome, until they had attained nearly the bulk of the elephant. These fetched prices of the most “fancy” description; and they were served up whole, with an entire Noah’s-ark collection of smaller animals inside, by way of stuffing. A clever cook could so dress this meat as to make it have the flavour of any other viand; and the first culinary _artistes_ of the day prided themselves on the preparation of a _ragoût_ composed of young pigs stifled before they were littered. The mother would have had no difficulty in performing this feat herself for her own young, if sows generally had been as huge as the one mentioned by Varro, and which he says was so fat as to be incapable of movement, and to be unconscious that a mouse, with a young family, had settled in the folds of her fat, where they lived like mites in cheese.

In another page, I have spoken of what were called “the sacred pigs and lambs.” Menæchmus, in Plautus, asks the price of the “_porci sacres, sinceri_.” “_Sacres_” was applied to all animals intended for immolation. The _sinceri porci_ were the white and spotless pigs offered to the Lares on behalf of the insane. The merchant who gives instruction, in the _Pseudolus_, to his servant, as to the splendid repast that is to be served up on his birthday, is very particular on the subject of pork; and he shows us what parts formed a dish that might tempt princes,--the ham, and the head: “_Pernam, callum, glandium, sumen, facito in aquâ jaceant_.”

If men were not, anciently, fonder of beef than of pork, the reason, perhaps, was, that the ox was religiously reverenced, because of his use to man, whereas the pig was really of no value at all but for consumption. The excellence of the ox as food was, nevertheless, very early ascertained, and acted on by some primitive people. The Jews were permitted to eat of that of which Abraham had offered a portion to angels; and calf and ox were alike an enjoined food. The Greeks, too, devoured both with much complacency, as they also did tripe, which was deemed a dainty fit for heroes. Indeed, for tripe there was an ancient and long-standing propensity among the early nations. It formed the chief dish at the banquets of men who met to celebrate the victory of mortals and gods over the sacrilegious Titans.