Part 16

This was because the dove or pigeon (begging pardon, here, for mixing varieties) is to the hawk, according to an expression of a father of the Church, what the lamb is to the wolf,[XVII-88]--a symbol of good by the side of evil, or of a calm and peaceful conscience, as opposed to the sad and agitated criminal. But, alas! the ancient prerogatives of this tender bird, its candour and innocence, could not even preserve it from the fate common to almost everything which breathes. Its delicate flesh--fatal gift of Heaven!--recommended it to the epicure; not for its poetical qualities, but for its delicate flavour; and, after many songs of praise, it was condemned to be roasted.

From the beginning of the heroic ages, pigeons were caught with snares and nets,[XVII-89] in order to feed them, and be able to procure some at once, if required to be served at a repast; for they formed a dainty dish upon the tables of the most fastidious.[XVII-90] Of course they figured in the joyous wedding feast of that opulent Caranus who entertained his guests so sumptuously.[XVII-91]

The Greeks, therefore, used to bring up an immense number of pigeons, and built for them, in the most open situations, charming pigeon-houses, in the form of small towers, models of elegance and cleanliness, where those timid birds found at night a retreat, always fatal to some one amongst them.[XVII-92]

The Romans introduced in these sorts of edifices the most unusual luxury.[XVII-93] Each kind of pigeon had a particular home[XVII-94]--a foolish and expensive taste, which they continually attempted to embellish. It was, however, a profitable speculation for those who knew how to be satisfied with pigeon-houses of more simple appearance. A brace of rather ordinary pigeons did not cost less than 16s.: the finest were sold at £4 a pair. It is even known that L. Axius, a Roman knight, demanded and obtained £6 8_s._ for two young pigeons intended for a patrician’s table.[XVII-95]

Physicians of that period greatly praised the flesh of these birds; they recommended it to the sick and convalescent.[XVII-96]

_Roast Pigeon, with Servilian Seasoning._--Bruise some dill seeds, dried mint, and the root of benzoin; add some vinegar, dates, garum, a little mustard, and oil; stir well; then mix with it some wine reduced to half, and pour the whole on the roasted pigeon.[XVII-97]

THE GUINEA HEN.

This bird, called by the ancients the “Hen of Numidia,” comes originally from many burning regions of Africa. In Greece, and especially in Rome, vanity alone gave it a price which was willingly granted, more on account of its scarcity than for its taste.[XVII-98] The Guinea hen appeared at great banquets, when the Amphytrion was more anxious to show his opulence than to demonstrate the delicacy of his dishes. Martial,[XVII-99] and Pliny,[XVII-100] the naturalist, raised great objections against this ostentatious and useless rarity.

_Guinea Hen à la Numide._--Cook it; then put it in a saucepan with some honey and garum; make several incisions in the bird; baste it with its own gravy, and sprinkle with pepper previously to its being served.[XVII-101]

THE TURKEY HEN.

“There must be two to eat a truffled turkey,” said a gastronomist of the 18th century, to one of his friends--a noted _gourmand_--who had just come to pay him a visit. “Two!” replied the visitor, with a smile of sensuality. “Yes, two,” answered the first; “I never do otherwise: for instance, I have a turkey to-day, and of course we must be two.” The friend, looking earnestly at the other, said: “You, and who else?” “Why,” answered the gastronomist, “I and the turkey.”

In Greece, more than one stomach would have been capable of challenging nobly the voracity of this modern polyphagus: witness the insatiable greediness of the well-known glutton who complained that nature ought to have given him a neck as long as the stork, that he might enjoy for a longer period his eating and drinking.[XVII-102]

But for a long time the Greeks were quite ignorant of the culinary value of the turkey; it was looked upon as an uncommon curiosity, and not condemned to the spit. Sophocles, the first who spoke of it, pretended that those marvellous birds came purposely from some distant climate beyond the Indies, to bewail the death of Meleager, who took possession of the throne of Macedonia (279 years B.C.), and who was soon driven from it.[XVII-103] This Prince, it is reported, carried them away from barbarous regions, that they might enjoy the charms of Greek civilization; and hence could there be anything more natural than to find those compassionate volatiles shedding tears for their benefactor, in one of Sophocles’ tragedies? They have been called since, Meleagrides, and this name perpetuated “misfortune, favour, and gratitude.”

Aristotle hardly supplies us with any details upon turkey hens: he merely says that their eggs are distinguished by little specks from those of the common hens, which are white;[XVII-104] but Clytus of Miletus, his disciple, gives an exact description of them, by which no mistake can be made.[XVII-105]

Egypt also possessed some of these birds; but there they were still more rare than in Greece, and formed one of the principal ornaments in the triumphal pomp of Ptolemy Philadelphus, when he entered Alexandria. Large cages, containing meleagrides, were carried before the monarch, and on that day the people knew not which to admire most--the prince or the turkey.[XVII-106]

They were introduced into Rome about the year 115 before our era; but, for a long time, they were objects of uncommon curiosity: and Varro, the first of the Latins who speaks of them, confounds these birds with the guinea hens, or hens of Numidia.[XVII-107]

A century later, turkeys greatly multiplied, and vast numbers were reared in the Roman farms. Caligula, who had the good sense to make his own apotheosis during his life-time, through fear lest it might be refused after his death, ordered a sacrifice of peacocks, guinea hens, and turkeys to be made daily before his statue.[XVII-108]

It appears, however, that the breed of turkeys soon began to diminish in Europe; very few were reared, and that only as a curiosity: in the citadel of Athens, towards the year 540 of the Christian era;[XVII-109] and in 1510, two were exhibited in Rome, which belonged to the Cardinal of Saint Clement.[XVII-110] Jacques Cœur brought some meleagrides from India, in 1450; they were the first ever seen in France, and it was not till fifty-four years afterwards that Americus Vespucius made them known to the Portuguese. In our days these ancient inhabitants of Asia or America[XVII-111] have become naturalized among us, and let us hope that the day is yet distant when they will be absentees from our farm-yards and our tables. We admire them less perhaps than Charles IX. did when a turkey was served to him for the first time,[XVII-112] but we shall always receive with cheerfulness the majestic dish upon which appears a well-fed turkey, truffled, and smoking hot.

_Turkey à l’Africaine._--Roast a turkey; bruise some pepper, alisander, and benzoin; mix it with wine and garum. Pour this seasoning on the turkey, sprinkle with pepper, and serve.[XVII-113]

The historian of Provence, Bouche, will have it that the French are indebted for the turkey to King René, who died in 1480. Other writers assure us that this volatile was introduced during the reign of Francis I. by Admiral Chabert. La-Bruyère-Champier speaks of it as a recent acquisition, and Beckmann refutes those who date its existence in France previous to the 16th century. He says that this bird, which was wild in the forests of America, became domesticated in Europe.

It is also said that we owe the importation of it to the Jesuits. According to Hurtaut, it was not until about the time of Charles IX. that turkeys appeared in France.[XVII-114] It is asserted, adds this author, that at the wedding-dinner of that Prince the first turkey was served, and that it was admired as a very extraordinary thing. The English tasted this new dish in 1525, the fifteenth year of the reign of Henry VIII.

To fatten turkeys--every morning, for a month, give them mashed potatoes, mixed with buck-wheat flour, Indian corn, barley, or beans; a paste is made of it which they are left to eat as they please. Every evening what remains must be taken away. One month after, you add to this food, when they go to roost, half a dozen balls composed of barley floor, which they are made to swallow for eight days successively; at the end of that time turkeys, thus fed, become excessively fat, delicious, and weigh from twenty to twenty-five pounds.

In Provence, walnuts are given to them whole, which they are compelled to swallow by slipping them one by one with the hand along the neck until they have all past the œsophagus; they begin with one walnut, and increase by degrees to forty. This kind of food gives an oily taste to the flesh.

Turkey eggs are good boiled, and are preferred to those of hens for pastry; mixing them with the common eggs makes an omelette more delicate.

“To obtain all the advantages possible from turkeys, they must be killed at the same time as pigs; then cut the turkeys in quarters, and put them in earthen pots covered over with the fat of the pork, and by this means they may be eaten all the year round.”--PARMENTIER.

THE PEACOCK.

The peacock comes originally from India: it was there that Alexander the Great saw it for the first time. He was so struck with its magnificent plumage that he forbad all persons, under pain of death, to kill any.[XVII-115]

Oriental princes kept the peacocks which travellers brought them, from time to time, in their aviaries.[XVII-116] It was thus[XVII-117] that a certain king of Egypt received one, of which he thought Jupiter alone worthy; wherefore he sent it in great pomp to the temple of that god.[XVII-118]

These birds were thus known over various parts of the world. Samos, which seems to have been provided one of the first, ornamented its money with their image.[XVII-119] Their reputation soon spread far and wide;[XVII-120] and Athenian speculators sent to that island for peacocks, which were shown to the curious once a month.[XVII-121]

This variety became afterwards an article of commerce, and all wealthy people became desirous to have them. A male and female cost £8 sterling.[XVII-122] But what was that, when delighted eyes could contemplate the charming and lovely colours of the haughty favourite of Juno!

At Rome, the peacock had a prodigious success.[XVII-123] When alive, the Romans praised its beauty; when dead, it appeared on the tables of its enthusiastic admirers.

Quintus Hortensius, the orator, was the first who had them served in a banquet given by him on the occasion of being created an augur.[XVII-124] This gastronomic novelty made an extraordinary sensation at Rome--as might be expected--and the peacock became so much in fashion, that no banquet could possibly be given unless it was embellished by its presence.[XVII-125]

Marcus Aufidius Livio was the first to contrive a sure way to fatten them;[XVII-126] and he succeeded so well that he made prodigious sums every year by the sale of those birds.[J]

Horace preferred them to the finest poultry,[XVII-127] and distinguished amateurs thought that it was not paying much for a young peacock if they could get it for two pounds and three shillings.[XVII-128]

The ridiculous consumption which was made of these birds did not allow of their becoming very common. Tiberius reared some in his gardens; and he condemned to capital punishment a soldier of his guards who had the misfortune to kill one.[XVII-129]

Ultimately, more savoury or more rare dishes took the place of peacocks’ flesh, which then began to be thought hard, unwholesome, and of difficult digestion.[XVII-130] However, it re-appeared in the middle ages at the nuptial festivities of the rich, where one of these birds was served, as if alive, with the beak and claws gilded. To do that well, it was necessary to skin the bird very carefully, and then cook it with aromatics, such as cinnamon, cloves, &c. It was then covered with its skin and feathers, and served without any appearance of having been stripped. This luxury was to gratify the sight: nobody touched it. The peacock was thus preserved for several years without being damaged--a property believed to be peculiar to its flesh,[XVII-131] but which was owing, no doubt, to the aromatics just mentioned.

_Peacock of Samos._--Mix some pepper, alisander, parsley, dill flowers, dried mint, and filberts, or fried almonds; bruise them with green smallage[K] and pennyroyal, and mix the whole with wine, honey, vinegar, and garum. Make incisions in the bird, and cover it with this seasoning.[XVII-132]

XVIII.

MILK, BUTTER, CHEESE, AND EGGS.

MILK.

It would, probably, be impossible to trace the epoch at which man began to make use of milk as food. Abraham presented some to the three angels who appeared to him in the valley of Mamre;[XVIII-1] and it is likely, that long before that patriarch, the eastern nations had recourse to an aliment so easily acquired, and which their numerous flocks produced in such abundance.

Among the Jews, milk was always considered as an emblem of the wealth of a country and the fertility of its soil; so much so, that the sacred books almost invariably speak of a happy region, as one “flowing with milk and honey.”[XVIII-2] This metaphorical expression testifies sufficiently to the taste of the Hebrews for this aliment, which their King Solomon recommended to them in these terms: “and thou shalt have goat’s milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance of thy maidens.”[XVIII-3]

Profane antiquity agrees on this point with our holy chroniclers. It represents to us the first men, free from passions and fears, surrounded by streams of milk and nectar, from which they drew health and life.[XVIII-4] Happy time! ere milk-maids existed to practise those deceptions they have now imbibed from the deceitful arts of chemistry.

The greater part of the wandering tribes, such as the Getes and Scythians, were galactophagists,[XVIII-5] or drinkers of milk;[XVIII-6] the Gauls[XVIII-7] and Germans[XVIII-8] made it also their principal food. In Greece and Italy, the shepherds decorated the vessels in which they had just milked their flocks with crowns of flowers; and, in honour of the rural divinities, they scattered about a small quantity of this sweet liquid.[XVIII-9] The reapers offered it to Ceres;[XVIII-10] and in one of the sections of Rome, Mercury was presented with milk instead of wine.

The ancients attributed to milk from cows, ewes, and goats, various Hygeian qualities.[XVIII-11] Hippocrates forbade it in cases of head-ache, fevers, and bilious attacks;[XVIII-12] but he sometimes ordered asses’ milk,[XVIII-13] which was considered as an excellent remedy, and a most wholesome aliment.[XVIII-14]

The voluptuous people of Rome rubbed their faces and skins with bread soaked in asses’ milk, to make them fairer and prevent the beard from growing too fast.

Suetonius[XVIII-15] and Martial[XVIII-16] speak of these refinements of luxurious delicacies. The satirical Juvenal informs us that bread was made into a kind of plaster or mask, with which they covered the face.[XVIII-17] Poppæia, wife of Nero, was the first, or one of the first, to bring this recipe into fashion, being fully persuaded that she would thus preserve the whiteness and delicacy of her skin. Five hundred asses used to supply daily the necessary quantity of milk to make the cosmetic and bath[XVIII-18] of the coquettish empress.

This high patronage did not prevent asses’ milk from losing by degrees--and very unjustly, no doubt--the reputation it acquired.[XVIII-19]

Fashion--capricious and all-powerful deity--undertook to re-instate its virtues, after several centuries of profound forgetfulness. The success was complete. This is how the affair took place:--

Francis I., finding himself weak and languishing, the physicians, after a long consultation on the monarch’s illness, advised remedies which did not cure the royal patient. However, the King of France was getting worse every day, and his state gave serious apprehensions. Some one mentioning to his Majesty that a Jew of Constantinople was noted as one of the cleverest doctors in the world, Francis immediately ordered his ambassador in Turkey to send him this Israelitish doctor, whatever might be the cost. The Jew arrived, and prescribed no other remedy than asses’ milk. The king found himself much better, and the courtiers and ladies of the court eagerly followed the same diet, even for the slightest imaginary indisposition.

A patient, cured by the use of this wholesome and restorative food, thought of expressing his gratitude by the following stanza:--

“Par sa bonté, par sa substance D’une ânesse le lait m’a rendu la santé; Et je dois plus en cette circonstance, Aux ânes qu’à la faculté.”

_Macédoine Germanique of Milk._--Pound dry almonds, and put them into a stewpan with the following ingredients:--the most delicate parts of mallows only, and white-beet, some leeks, parsley, and other leguminous herbs, previously cooked, a fowl boiled and minced small, the brains of poultry or sucking pigs, also boiled, and lastly, some hard eggs cut in two. Put all these together, as mentioned before; some little time after that, add sausage meat, fowls’ livers, fresh cod fish, and oysters--the whole reduced into pulp--some fresh cheese, pine nuts, and whole pepper. Whilst this is boiling on a very slow fire, prepare the following seasoning: pound some pepper, alisander, parsley seeds, and silphium; stew separately with gravy; mix raw eggs with a great quantity of milk; add it to the preceding seasoning; pour it over the contents of the stewpan, then pepper, and serve.[XVIII-20]

BUTTER.

A learned writer[XVIII-21] has maintained that the ancient inhabitants of the east did not know of butter, and that by this word must be understood, when it occurs in the holy writings, _sour milk_ or _cream_. Whatever may be the respect due to the grave authority of Beckmann, we beg leave to adhere to the opinion of various translators of the Bible, and believe with them that the Jews knew how to prepare butter. Independently of the signification of _chemack_, to which a profound philosopher gives the same sense,[XVIII-22] and which appears very naturally to offer this acceptation, we could still fortify our opinion by the passage where Job, recalling with sorrow the happy days of his youth, says, that he used to wash his “feet in butter.”[XVIII-23] We agree that these words are understood in a figurative sense, and that the man of God wished to show by it that he was the possessor of a great number of flocks.

But it is nevertheless true, that this metaphorical locution recalls also one of the uses made of that fat substance, which was for a long while employed, like oil, to soften and refresh the limbs.

Indulgent reader, excuse this episode upon a ground which we ought not to touch, and let us re-enter the kitchen.

The Greeks, who understood many things, and knew them so well, passed over several centuries without once thinking that the milk of their ewes and cows contained a food already well-known by several barbarous nations. Aristotle mentions the serous part of milk, and cheese;[XVIII-24] but he hardly suspects the existence of butter, which he describes but very imperfectly as a liquid oil.[XVIII-25] Antecedent to him, Hippocrates never thought of it, except as a foreign remedy which Asia supplied to Greece.[XVIII-26]

It was only fifty years after Aristotle that it began to be noticed as an aliment. The Greeks, in imitation of the Parthians and Scythians, who used to send it to them, had it served upon their tables, and called it at first “oil of milk,”[XVIII-27] and later, _bouturos_, “cow cheese,” probably on account of the quantity made from the milk of that animal.[XVIII-28]

The Germans, according to Beckmann, taught the Romans how to make butter, but they never employed it otherwise than as a remedy in Italy.

It is certain that in the time of Pliny it had hardly been heard of at Rome,[XVIII-29] and that, according to this writer, the barbarians only--that is to say, those who were unfortunate enough not to be either Greeks or Romans--made their food of it.[XVIII-30] Towards the year 175 of the Christian era, Galen then placed butter only among the therapeutic agents useful in medicine.[XVIII-31] However, more than a century before him, Dioscorides wished it to be noticed that fresh butter made of ewes’ or goats’ milk was served at meals instead of oil, and that it took the place of fat in making pastry.[XVIII-32]

Herodotus has preserved some interesting details on the manipulation of butter among the Scythians. They received the milk in large pails, and beat it for a long time to separate the most delicate part, and appointed for this labour those enemies whom the fortune of war delivered into their hands. These unhappy creatures were deprived of sight, which prevented their escape.[XVIII-33]

The Romans set about making butter as we do. Pliny says: “Butter is made from milk, and this aliment, so much sought after by barbarous nations, distinguished the rich from the common people. It is obtained principally from cows’ milk; that from ewes is the fattest. Goats also supply some. It is produced by agitating the milk in long vessels with a narrow opening. A little water is added.”[XVIII-34]

Formerly it was required in many countries that the dealer in this article should sell good butter to his customers. In France, for instance, intolerance was carried so far as to forbid “all persons to re-scrape, beat, or work up any butter, either fresh or salted; change, mix, or mingle it, under _pain of being whipped_.”[XVIII-35] Since then the strangeness of such a measure has become palpable, the more so as modern good faith and honesty render it more useless than ever.

During the early ages of the Church, butter was burned in the lamps instead of oil. This practice is still continued in Abyssinia.[XVIII-36]

The cathedral of Rouen has a tower, called the “Butter Tower.” It acquired this name from the fact that George d’Amboise, who was archbishop of that city in 1500, seeing that oil was scarce in his diocese during Lent, authorised the use of butter, on condition that each diocesan should pay _six deniers Tournois_ (about a farthing) for the permission. The money obtained by these means served to construct the “Butter Tower.”[XVIII-37]

To obtain butter instantly it is only necessary, in summer, to put new milk into bottles some hours after it has been taken from the cow, and shake it briskly. The clots which form, thrown into a sieve, washed and pressed together, constitute the finest and most delicate butter that can possibly be made.

One of the great means of preserving butter fresh for any length of time is, first to press all the buttermilk completely out, then to keep it under water (renewing the water frequently), and to abstract it from the influence of heat and air by wrapping it in a wet cloth.

When butter has become very rancid, it is melted several times by a moderate heat, with or without the addition of water, and, as soon as it has been malaxated, after the cooling, in order to extract any water it may have retained, it is put into brown freestone pots, sheltered from the contact of the air. Frequently, when it is melted, a piece of toasted bread is put into it, which acts in the same manner as charcoal; that is to say, it attenuates the rancidity.[XVIII-38]

CHEESE.