Part 18

_Quarter of Stag, roast à la Neméenne._--Put into a saucepan pepper, alisander, carrots, wild marjoram, parsley seed, benzoin root, and fennel seed; add garum, wine, cooked wine, and a little oil. Boil over a slow fire, thicken with fine flour, pour on the roast stag, and serve.[XIX-54]

_Shoulder of Stag à l’Hortensius._--Cook in a saucepan carrots, alisander, with pepper and parsley seed. Add honey, garum, vinegar, and luke-warm oil; thicken with fine flour, and pour this sauce on the shoulder of stag when roasted.[XIX-55]

_Fillet of Stag à la Persane._--Roast it, and at the moment of placing it on the table, cover it with a seasoning of pepper, alisander, scallions, wild marjoram, onions, and pine nuts, previously mixed with honey, garum, mustard, vinegar, and oil.[XIX-56]

THE ROEBUCK.

The flesh of the roebuck, according to Galen, has none of the bad qualities which he attributes to that of the stag.[XIX-57] Esculapius and Comus for this once agreed--which very seldom happened--in praising the beneficial properties and the delicious odour of these timid quadrupeds.

The Greeks thought much of the roebuck; they obtained the best from the island of Melos,[XIX-58] and served them at their most sumptuous repasts.[XIX-59] They were, perhaps, more rarely seen on Roman tables.

_Roebuck with Spikenard._--Pound, in a mortar, pepper, parsley seed, dry onion, and green rue; add spikenard, and then honey, vinegar, garum, dates, cooked wine, and oil; mix well the whole, and cover the roast with it.[XIX-60]

_Roebuck aux Prunes._--Mix pepper, alisander, and parsley, after having pounded them. Add to this a good quantity of Damascus plums, which you have soaked in hot water. Then add honey, wine, vinegar, garum, and a little oil; and, lastly, leeks and savory. Serve the roebuck with this sauce.[XIX-61]

_Roebuck aux Amandes de Pin._--Bruise pepper, alisander, parsley, and cummin; mix with it a great quantity of fried pine nuts; and add honey, vinegar, wine, a little oil, and garum. Pour it over the roebuck.[XIX-62]

THE DEER.

Little need be said with regard to this charming animal, whose slender and graceful form was the admiration of those who visited the parks of Lucullus and Hirpinus. Its flesh was thought to be less wholesome than that of the roebuck, because it was found to be less succulent.[XIX-63] Apicius has consecrated to it four culinary recipes, all very similar.

_Deer à la Marcellus._--Put into a saucepan pepper, gravy, rue, and onions; add honey, garum, cooked wine, and a little oil. Boil very slowly, thicken with flour, and pour the whole on the deer when roasted.[XIX-64]

THE WILD BOAR.

It was in the year 63 before the Christian era: the consul Marcus Tullius Cicero had just accused and convicted Catilina, and Rome, free from present danger, had forgotten all transitory solicitudes of the past to welcome joyous banquetings.

A worthy citizen, excellent patriot, distinguished gastronomist, and possessor of an immense fortune, of which he made the best use (at least so said several choice epicures, his habitual guests), Survilius Rullus--such was his name--thought of celebrating by an extraordinary banquet the triumph of the illustrious consul, and the deliverance of the country. His cook, a young Sicilian slave of the greatest promise, and whose mode of cooking a dish of sows’ paps procured him one day a smile of approbation from Lucullus, succeeded especially in those eminent performances which command the admiration of the guests, and give new strength to their exhausted appetites.

Rullus sent for him, and spoke thus: “Recollect that in three days Cicero will sup here: let the feast be worthy of him who gives it.”

The Sicilian even surpassed himself. As soon as the guests had tasted the enticing delicacies of the first course, the hall echoed with an unanimous concert of applause, and the proud Amphitryon, intoxicated with joy, was going to ask that a crown might be presented to his beloved slave,[XIX-65] when the cook appeared, followed by four Ethiopians, who gracefully carried a silver vase of prodigious dimensions, in the shape of a large mortar. This extraordinary dish contained a wild boar; baskets of dates were suspended to his tusks, and charming little wild boars, in exquisite pastry, no doubt--for never was there a more tempting culinary exhalation--artistically surrounded the enormous animal.[XIX-66] Every voice was hushed; the guests waited in silence the most profound.[XIX-67] The tables of the second service were placed round the guests, who raised themselves on the couches with greedy curiosity. The blacks deposited the precious burden before another domestic, a skilful carver, who opened the wild boar with incredible dexterity and precision, and presented to the astonished eyes of Rullus and his friends a second entire animal, and in this a third; then came fresh delicacies, all gradually diminishing in size, until, at length, a delicious little figpecker terminated this series of strange viands, of which Rome, wondering and astonished, long preserved the gastronomic remembrance.[XIX-68]

Man seldom prescribes to himself reasonable limits in the vast field of vanity and ostentation. At first it was thought an enviable boldness to have dared to serve an entire boar of a large size. Every one did the same thing, and at length it became quite common. It was necessary then to do better. One thought of having three at the same time; another had four; and soon the extravagant--and they were not few--caused eight wild boars _à la Troyenne_ to appear at a single repast.[XIX-69] The Macedonian, Caranus, a man of spirit and of merit, placed himself at once on an eminence which baffled rivalry. He invited twenty guests to his wedding, and he had twenty wild boars served.[XIX-70]

It must be confessed that such magnificence rather resembles folly; but, alas! has not every nation its failings? Besides, the flesh of the wild boar enjoyed an astonishing reputation in Rome and Greece,[XIX-71] and no one could, with credit to himself, receive his friends at his table without presenting them with the fashionable dish,--the animal appointed by nature to appear at banquets.[XIX-72]

At length, however, they began to tire of this enormous dish; they divided it into three portions, and the middle piece obtained the preference.[XIX-73] Ultimately they served only the fillet and head; the latter of which was more particularly esteemed by the Romans.[XIX-74]

The Greeks tried their appetites by tasting the liver, which was served at the first course.[XIX-75]

The Romans sought to deprive the wild boar of its terrible ferocity; they raised them on their farms,[XIX-76] and sometimes they acquired enormous proportions. These immense beasts weighed no less than a thousand pounds.[XIX-77] But delicate connoisseurs had always the wisdom to prefer the dangerous inhabitant of the forest to these bloated victims of enervating domesticity,[XIX-78] whose insipid and degenerate flavour hardly betrayed their origin.

The wild boar was generally served surrounded by pyramids of fruits and lettuces.[XIX-79]

_Wild Boar à la Pompée._--Clean and salt a wild boar, cover it with cummin; let it remain in salt during twenty-four hours; then roast it; sprinkle with pepper, and serve with a seasoning of honey, garum, sweet and cooked wine.[XIX-80]

_Quarter of Wild Boar à la Thébaine._--Cook it in sea water with bay leaves. When very tender take off the skin, and serve with salt, mustard, and vinegar.[XIX-]

_Fillet of Wild Boar à la Macédonienne._--Pound pepper, alisander, wild marjoram, skinned myrtle leaves, coriander, and onions; add honey, wine, garum, and a little oil. This seasoning must be submitted to a gentle fire; thicken with flour, and pour the whole over the wild boar as you draw it from the oven.[XIX-82]

_Wild Boar’s Liver à la Grecque._--Fry it, and serve with a seasoning of pepper, cummin, parsley seed, mint, thyme, savory, and roasted pine nuts; to which add honey, wine, garum, vinegar, and a little oil.[XIX-83]

_Wild Boar’s Head à la Cantabre._--Make the seasoning in the following manner: mix well, pepper, alisander, parsley seed, mint, thyme, and roasted pine nuts; add wine, vinegar, garum, and a little oil; afterwards onions and rue; thicken with whites of eggs; boil over a slow fire, and stir gently.[XIX-84]

_Green Ham of Wild Boar à la Gauloise._--Insert a long and narrow blade at the joint, and carefully separate the skin from the flesh, so that the latter may be well covered with the following seasoning: pound pepper, bay leaves, rue, and benzoin; add to it some excellent gravy, cooked wine, and a little oil. Fill the ham, close the opening, and then cook it in sea water, with some tender shoots of laurel and dill.[XIX-85]

Under the Norman kings the wild boar’s head was considered a noble dish, worthy of the sovereign’s table. This, we are told, was brought to the king’s table with the trumpeters sounding their trumpets before it in procession. “For,” says Holinshed, “upon the day of coronation (of young Henry), King Henry II., his father, served him at table as sewer, bringing up the bore’s head with trumpetes afore it, according to the ancient manner.”--STRUTT, “_Manners and Customs_,” Vol ii., p. 19.

“A very small consumption is made of the old wild boar; the flesh is hard, dry, and heavy; the head only is good. The young wild boar is a fine and delicate game, also, when a year old. The ancients submitted those they could take away from their mother to castration, and left them afterwards to run about the woods, where these animals became larger than the others, and acquired a savour and flavour which made them preferable to the pigs we rear.”--SONNINI.

THE HARE.

Plutarch contends that the Jews abstained from eating the hare, not because they thought it unclean, but because it resembled the ass, which they revered.[XIX-86] This is only a pleasantry on the part of the celebrated writer, with no other foundation than the fabulous tale of the grammarian Apion, who asserts in his book against the Jews that they preserved in Jerusalem an ass’s head, which they adored.[XIX-87] We know that a sanitary motive was the cause of this animal being interdicted to the Israelites;[XIX-88] and it has been also remarked that the ancient Britons abstained from it.[XIX-89]

This mammifer, everywhere very common, swarmed in the East, if we are to believe Xenophon, who saw a great number of them when marching with his troops to join young Cyrus.[XIX-90] Greece was abundantly stocked with them:[XIX-91] the inhabitants of islands of the Ægean sea had more than once to deplore the ravages which hunger caused these timid animals to commit, and whose fecundity they cursed.

Hegesander relates that, under the reign of Antigonus, an inhabitant of the island of Anaphe brought two hares into the neighbourhood. Their posterity became so numerous that the people were obliged to implore the gods to preserve the harvest, and to annihilate their formidable enemies. As the immortals turned a deaf ear to these complaints, recourse was had to Apollo alone, and the Pythonissa deigned to return this oracle: “Train hunting dogs, and they will exterminate the hares.”[XIX-92] The advice was good, and deemed worthy of being adopted.

The Greeks esteemed highly the flesh of this quadruped, which was served roasted, but almost bleeding,[XIX-93] or made into delicious pies,[XIX-94] much in vogue in the time of Aristophanes.[XIX-95] Hippocrates had, however, forbidden the use of it. “The hare,” said he, “thickens the blood, and causes cruel wakefulness;”[XIX-96] but epicurism will always think lightly of Hygeian precepts which do not accord with its own ideas. At all events, Galen was not of the same opinion as his colleague,[XIX-97] and Galen must be right.

The Emperor Alexander Severus eat a hare at each of his repasts.[XIX-98] Perhaps that prince shared the opinion of the Romans, who thought that a person who fed on hare for seven consectutive days became fresher, fatter, and more beautiful. A lady, named Gellia, had a large share of that unfortunate gift of nature which we call ugliness. She resolved to make a trial of this regimen, and submitted to it with a regularity really exemplary. She showed herself at the end of the week, and we are informed that no one thought her any the prettier for it.[XIX-99]

The epicures of Rome contented themselves with eating the shoulder of the hare, and left the remainder to less fastidious guests.[XIX-100]

THE RABBIT.

“The conies are but feeble folks, yet make they their houses in the rocks.”[XIX-101] They taught mankind, it is said, the art of fortification, mining, and covered roads.[XIX-102] These skilful engineers come originally from warm climates; from Africa, perhaps, whence they were brought to Spain.

They there became so numerous, and dug so well their holes beneath the houses of Tarragona, that that city was completely overthrown, and the greater part of the inhabitants buried beneath its ruins.[XIX-103]

Catullus calls Spain _Cuniculosa Celtiberia_ (Celtiberian rabbit warren); and two medals, struck in the reign of Adrian, represent that peninsula under the form of a beautiful woman, clothed in a robe and mantle, with a rabbit at her feet. This animal was called in Hebrew, _Saphan_, of which the Phœnicians have made _Spania_, and the Latins _Hispania_.[XIX-104]

Strabo relates that the inhabitants of the Balearic Islands, despairing of being able to oppose the extraordinary propagation of rabbits, which nearly rendered their country uninhabitable, sent ambassadors to Rome to implore assistance against this new kind of enemy.[XIX-105] Augustus furnished them with troops, and the Roman arms were once more victorious.[XIX-106]

Aristotle says nothing of the rabbit, which, probably, was then little known in Greece. It afterwards became common enough, and that of Macedonia, in particular, found favour at tables renowned for delicacies.[XIX-107]

The Romans, those bold innovators in cookery, so desirous of strange and unheard of dishes, would only consent to eat rabbits on condition of their being killed before they had left off sucking, or taken alive from the slaughtered mother, to be immediately transferred to the ardent stoves of their kitchens.[XIX-108] It was certainly reserved for that people to frighten the world by all kinds of culinary anomalies.

THE FOX.

A young fox, fattened on grapes, and roasted on the spit, is a tidbit for a king during the autumn.[XIX-109] Such was the idea of the Roman peasants; but we must be allowed, however, to differ from their opinion.

THE HEDGEHOG.

The Greeks willingly eat the hedgehog[XIX-110] in a _ragoût_--a dish the Romans never envied them.

THE SQUIRREL.

This charming little animal, which ought never to please but when alive, often appeared at Rome among the most elegant dishes of the feast.[XIX-111] At first it was only eaten by caprice: unfortunately for the little animal, it was found to be very nice.

THE CAMEL.

Aristotle gives the greatest praise to the flesh of this useful animal, and places it without hesitation above the most delicate viands.[XIX-112] The Greeks, his countrymen, thought it worthy of being roasted for the table of sovereigns,[XIX-113] and the inhabitants of Persia and Egypt partook of the same enthusiasm. Rome thought the camel fit for the solitude of the Desert, but not for the ornament of banquets; and really, for this once, Rome appears to have been right.

“The flesh of the young dromedary is as good as that of veal, and the Arabs make of it their common food. They preserve it in vases, which they cover with fat. They make butter and cheese with the milk of the female.”--DESMAREST.

The ancients, in their wars, made use of dromedaries. The soldiers when upon these animals formed a particular militia. In the Egyptian expedition Bonaparte renewed this ancient custom, and that cavalry caused a great deal of injury to the Bedouins and Arabs. Besides the rider, each dromedary carried provisions and munitions of war.

THE ELEPHANT.

Certain wandering tribes of Asia and Africa were thought formerly to be very fond of grilled elephant.[XIX-114] The Egyptians went so far in their pursuit of this delicacy, that the King Ptolemy Philadelphus was forced to forbid them, under pain of the most severe laws, to kill one of these animals, whose number diminished every day. The law was disregarded, and the elephant only possessed greater attractions for them.[XIX-115]

In our days, also, some semi-savage nations partake of the same taste. Le Vaillant, a celebrated traveller, and a most distinguished gastronomist, tells us that the first time he partook of an elephant’s trunk, which was served him by the Hottentots, he resolved that it should not be the last; for nothing appeared to him of a more exquisite flavour.[XIX-116] But he reserves his greatest praises for the foot of the colossal quadruped. We will let him speak for himself:--

“They cut off the four feet of the animal, and made in the earth a hole about three feet square. This was filled with live charcoal, and, covering the whole with very dry wood, a large fire was kept up during part of the night. When they thought that the hole was hot enough, it was emptied: a Hottentot then placed within it the four feet of the animal, covered them with hot ashes, and then with charcoal and small wood; and this fire was left burning until the morning. * * * My servants presented me at breakfast with an elephant’s foot. It had considerably swelled in the cooking; I could hardly recognise the shape, but it appeared so good, exhaled so inviting an odour, that I hastened to taste it. It was a dish for a king. Although I had often heard the bear’s foot praised, I could, not conceive how so heavy, so material an animal as the elephant, could furnish a dish so fine and delicate. * * * And I devoured, without bread, my elephant’s foot, while my Hottentots, seated around me, regaled themselves with other parts, which they found equally delicious.”[XIX-117]

The Romans never evinced fondness for the flesh of the elephant. This animal, with its gigantic proportions and rare intelligence, was found to be so amusing to the nation of kings, when dancing on the tight rope,[XIX-118] or in the terrible combats of the Circus,[XIX-119] that they hardly thought of roasting it, or making it into _fricassees_. We cannot, however, affirm that the gastronomic eccentricity of some Roman epicure did not dream of a monstrous feast, in which he may have offered to his guests an elephant _à la Troyenne_ on a silver dish, made purposely for the occasion.

XX.

FEATHERED GAME.

Moses permitted his people to eat game, with the exception of birds of prey and some other species whose flesh appeared to him hard and unwholesome.[XX-1]

The Egyptians piously offered to their priests the most delicate birds, which they willingly accepted, and eat, in order not to weaken their intelligence by the use of more simple and heavy food.[XX-2]

Among the Greeks, at the commencement of the repast, little birds were served roasted, on which was poured a boiling sauce, composed of scraped cheese, oil, vinegar, and silphium.[XX-3]

Feathered game appeared in Italy only at the second course. The Romans were very partial to it, and many epicureans, possessing strange tastes, found means to ruin themselves by eating pheasants and flamingoes.

The celebrated comedian, Æsopus, whom Cicero thought worthy of being his master in the art of declamation, had one day the fancy to regale himself with a dish of birds, the whole of which, when living, had both learned to sing and speak.[XX-4] This gluttony of a new kind cost him very dear, and the supper of the barbarian was not any the better for it.

Some modern nations--the French among others--formerly eat the heron, crane, crow, stork, swan, cormorant, and bittern; the first three especially were highly esteemed, and Taillevant, cook of Charles VII., teaches us how to prepare these meagre, tough birds. Belon says that, in spite of its revolting taste when unaccustomed to it, the bittern is, however, among the delicious treats of the French.[XX-5] This writer asserts also that a falcon, or a vulture, either roasted or boiled, is excellent eating; and that if one of these birds happened to kill itself in flying after the game, the falconer instantly cooked it. Liebaut calls the heron a royal viand!

These same men who eat vultures, herons, and cormorants, did not touch young game: they thought it indigestible; and, for instance, abstained from leverets and partridges.

The internal parts being the first to corrupt, the ancients carefully drew the game they wished to preserve. That done, they filled the inside with wheat or oats, and then placed it in the midst of a heap of flour or grain, with the feathers or hair on.

Thus protected from the contact of the air or insects, the game kept remarkably well.

THE PHEASANT.

The Argonauts discovered this magnificent bird on the shores of Phasis, a celebrated river of Colchis, and introduced it into Greece, where it was unknown.[XX-6] This tradition, sung by the poets,[XX-7] has only met with one contradictor, Isidorus,[XX-8] who pretends that the pheasant is a native of an island of Greece, called Phasis.

All nations soon hastened to receive it with the favour its rich plumage and the exquisite delicacy of its flesh deserve. Carried in cages composed of precious wood, it adorned the triumphal march of Ptolemy Philadelphus, at his entry into Alexandria.[XX-9] Ptolemy Evergetes, successor to that prince, caused pheasants to be sent from Media, which he destined for his aviary; and he never eat them, so much did he dread the idea of diminishing their number.[XX-10] But, alas! custom and time, those jealous enemies of the greatest glories, eventually put an end to that. The unfortunate creature was stripped of its feathers and roasted; gluttony, an insatiable monster that never says “enough,” rejoiced at being able to count it among the number of its conquests. The Greeks had coops for pheasants as we have for fowls, not to please the eye, but to ornament the table,[XX-11] and a foolish prodigality caused a whole pheasant to be served to each guest in those luxurious repasts which the Athenians gave to display their pomp and ostentatious hospitality.[XX-12]

Among the Romans, Pliny is the first (or we are mistaken) who mentions this bird, then very uncommon in Italy, since they went in quest of it to the banks of the Phasis.[XX-13] Its rarity did not prevent Vitellius from having a _ragoût_ of pheasants’ brains,[XX-14] mixed with other viands of an unheard-of delicacy, in the immense dish called by him “the Shield of Minerva.”[XX-15]

Pertinax willingly partook of pheasant, but on condition that they cost his miserly sensuality nothing. Heliogabalus would only eat them three times a week. Alexander Severus reserved them for solemn occasions.[XX-16] They were sacrificed each morning to the statue of Caligula,[XX-17] at the foot of which the vile troop of courtiers prostrated themselves at the very time even when Cæsar, in a fit of sanguinary monomania, wished that the Roman people had but one neck, that he might sever it at a blow.[XX-18]

It is especially from the commencement of the 14th century that the pheasant, better appreciated in Europe, has resumed in banquets that remarkable place,[XX-19] constantly assigned to it throughout this new era, in which our taste maintains it, and from which our posterity will never remove it, if they inherit that wonderful sentiment of the good and beautiful which so eminently distinguishes the epicures of the present day.