Part 5

Whether this little story be true or not, the people of Romulus had a decided taste for gruel; it was a national dish, and was only discontinued to be given to the soldiers, defenders of the republic, when it was perceived that their laborious duties required more substantial food.[IV-41] The Romans made their gruel of all kinds of flour.

King Numa (1715 B.C.), guided by the advice of the nymph, Egeria, taught his subjects the art of parching corn, of converting it into flour by means of mortars, and of making that gruel with which he liked to regale himself.

This good prince was rather fond of interfering in what did not concern him, and the royal compound was afterwards cooked in the public bakehouses, which the piety of the sovereign placed under the protection of the powerful Fornax, a goddess unknown till then, and who soon became the object of general and fervent worship.[IV-42]

There is but one step from gruel to bread: the Romans perceived it. Thus this favourite dish lost its reputation, and the worship of Fornax somewhat cooled. But, on the other hand, there was still the smell of cakes on all sides; cooking on the hearth, on the coals, in small bell-stoves, and in large baking pans, until ultimately they became acquainted with the use of ovens.[IV-43]

At last, Rome began to have them built, under the reign of Tarquinius Superbus, about 630 years before the Christian era. They were solid constructions, immoveable, and very like those of the present day.[IV-44] Men were employed to keep up the necessary degree of heat; and their useful profession (thanks to the strange caprices which so tyrannically rule the social hierarchy) became one of the vilest and most sordid occupations in the capital of the world.[IV-45] These ovens were ordered to be built far away from all edifices, in order to prevent accidents by fire;[IV-46] an excellent precaution, where so many incautious and merry old gossips came daily to bake their bread.

Once there, those worthy plebeians amused themselves by giving full scope to their noisy fun, slandering their neighbours freely and charitably, telling each other all the little scandal they had picked up here and there, among the good souls in their neighbourhood. Hence these public places of labour and incessant babbling were called the “gossip bakehouses.”[IV-47]

These joyous meetings continued until the arrival of Greek bakers, 170 years B.C., who followed the victorious armies of the republic on their return from Macedonia.[IV-48] These new operatives effected a complete revolution in the art of making bread: they reformed the taste of their masters, and, by degrees, the proverbial frugality of the conquerors of the universe gave way to the exquisite researches and wonderful delicacies of those whom they had subdued.

The Romans perceived the importance of perpetuating the talent of these strangers, and converting it eventually into a national industry. With these views, they gave them Roman colleagues, and subsequently they were formed into a college, or sort of association, which no member could quit on any pretext whatever. The son followed his father’s profession, and he who married the daughter of a baker became one himself.[IV-49] Sometimes one of these privileged artisans was raised to the dignity of senator, as an honour to his colleagues; but in that case he was required to abandon his fortune to the person who took his place; he might, however, decline the dignity, and remain at his kneading-trough.[IV-50] All alliances with gladiators and comedians were interdicted them; and the law decreed that the delinquent guilty of such dishonour should be first scourged, then banished, and that his property should be confiscated for the benefit of the community.[IV-51] Finally, the prodigal baker was assimilated with the dishonest bankrupt, and expelled the college.[IV-52]

The above details on some of the dispositions of the law regarding this interesting corporation, sufficiently prove the importance that the Roman government attached to it, and wished it should always maintain.

The bakers of Rome received from the public granaries whatever they required, at a price fixed by the magistrate. If the officer charged with the distribution of it gave a bad quality, or exacted a bribe to supply good corn, that officer was disgraced, and he became forever a journeyman baker.[IV-53]

Independently of public bakeries, the number of which reached 329 under the reign of Augustus, there were also, in the houses of the wealthy, slaves whose sole occupation was the making of bread, and these slaves brought an exorbitant price when they excelled in their art.[IV-54] They used portable ovens, made of iron or earthenware, under which they placed red-hot coals. Sometimes they employed a round brass vessel with a cover, which was put under the flames. In the houses where the greatest luxury reigned, they had a kind of silver mould, from which the bread was taken, and served to the guests.[IV-55]

It is absolutely necessary to dive into the private life of the Roman people, and not to neglect any of their domestic customs (accounts of which are scattered here and there, in the writings of the more serious historians, and among the dangerous frivolities of certain poets), if we wish to have a correct idea of the excessive refinement which the opulent classes evinced, even in the most ordinary things.

Modern nations are satisfied with the bread more or less white, and even bear, without much complaint, certain illicit mixtures, in which various heterogeneous substances are sometimes strangely amalgamated; but this was not the case in Rome. The prefect of provisions (_præfectus annonæ_) was scrupulously careful to see that the supply of bread was abundant; that it was of exact weight; that the manipulation of it was excellent; and that it was made of the best flour the public granaries contained.

As we have already observed, that was one of the most serious cares of the government on behalf of a people who only required two things--bread and the circus,[IV-56] and whose ferocity, when pressed by hunger, knew no bounds.[IV-57]

They studied carefully every modification that the art of baking might seem to require: they examined the leaven in use, and experimented with new kinds. The following are the compositions Pliny has transmitted to us:--

The Romans thought much of millet for their leaven; they mixed it with sweet wine, in which they let it ferment a year.

They employed, also, wheat bran, soaked for three days in sweet white wine, and dried in the sun. Of this they diluted a certain quantity at the time of making bread, which was left to ferment in the best wheat flour, and afterwards mixed with the entire mass.

The leavens just mentioned were made during the vintage; the rest of the year they were replaced by the following:--A dish containing two pounds of barley paste was placed on red-hot coals, and heated until ebulition commenced. It was put into vessels till it became sour.

Very often leaven was procured from dough just made. A piece was taken from the mass previous to salt being added; it was then left to turn sour, and might be used the next day.

The celebrated naturalist who supplies these details, tells us that, in his time, the Gauls and Spaniards, after having made a drink from wheat, saved the scum to raise the dough, and that their bread was the lightest of all.[IV-58]

It would be difficult to form an idea of the prodigious luxury which Rome introduced into an aliment so common, and of such universal use as bread. Its name, its form, and flavour indicated the various ranks of society to which it belonged.[IV-59] There was the senator’s bread, that of the knights, of the citizens, of the people, and that of the peasants.[IV-60]

Let us go together under the vast galleries supported by those magnificent arcades.[IV-61] The _ediles_ have preceded us; they are visiting the shops;[IV-62] it is the _Forum Pistrinum_, or bread-market. The year is good: a _septier_ (five bushels) of wheat is only twenty-five shillings,[IV-63] and provisions of all kinds abound in Rome. Foreigners, also, are here, attracted by curiosity; for Vespasian is preparing to deposit with solemnity the spoils of Jerusalem in the temple of Peace.[IV-64]

In the middle of the inclosure you see the statue of Vesta, the goddess worshipped by bakers.[IV-65] In the front, and round the gallery, those open stalls are loaded with a number of round loaves of the same form and weight: they are all five inches in thickness; the top is divided by eight notches--that is to say, they are first divided across, and the four parts are again subdivided.[IV-66] These lines are made in the dough, so that they may be more easily broken.

The Roman gentry and shopkeepers give the preference to this sort of household bread, simply composed of flour, water, and salt.[IV-67]

You perceive, here and there, several baskets, full of heavy biscuits; they are called _autopyron_; it is a coarse, black food, composed of bran mixed with a little flour, and made expressly for the dogs and slaves.[IV-68]

Do you see that colossal-looking man, with enormous limbs, who is walking about with an air of stupidity, and whose small head is covered with scars? The dealers know his profession, and one of them offers him the _athletæ’s_ bread; it is kneaded, without leaven, with soft, white curd cheese, and is a coarse, heavy food, which that class of people seem to partake of with great delight.[IV-69] That stout baker before us occupies two of the most spacious shops in the market, on the left of the statue; he is one of the richest members of the corporation, and is the principal purveyor for the camp and army. Those large sacks, placed before him with so much symmetry, contain the _buccellatum_ biscuit, or dried bread for the troops.[IV-70]

His neighbour (called the Greek), was born at Athens; he is the fashionable purveyor to the princes, senators, and sybarites of Rome. No one understands so well as himself the art of mixing salt, oil, and milk with the best wheaten flour; an exquisite combination, which produces the celebrated bread of Cappadocia, served only on the tables of the wealthy.[IV-71] With the _artoplites_, a light bread, made with the best wheaten flour, and baked in a mould, it is the only kind of which refined persons can partake.[IV-72] If we were not afraid of tiring you, we could point out many other sorts of bread which abound in the _Forum Pistrinum_, for there is some for all tastes and classes, from the _artopticii_, baked in moulds,[IV-73] a most nutritious and digestive bread, down to the _furfuraceus_, a mass of indigestible bran that the wildest savages among the Scythians could not have swallowed with impunity.

We should have spoken to you of the _astrologicus_ bread, the paste of which is similar to that we use in our days to make fritters, commonly called batter.

Also of the _cacabaceus_, which is indebted for its agreeable and spicy flavour to the water, which is previously boiled in a kind of bronzed stewpan; and the _siligineus_ bread, made of the best flour. Its manipulation is difficult and tedious; no matter--the epicurean prefers it, when, by chance, he happens to be hungry.[IV-74]

Neither ought we to forget the _panis madidus_, a species of paste made of milk and flour, with which the fashionable ladies and effeminate dandies covered their faces before going to bed, to preserve the freshness and beauty of their complexion.[IV-75]

But this enumeration may appear to you idle and endless; let us, therefore, leave the market and assist at the distribution of bread _civilis_ among the people, of which thirteen ounces is given to each person;[IV-76] we will then give a rapid glance at the various other _cereals_ besides wheat, which, in some shape or other, are converted into food.

DESCRIPTION OF PLATE No. VII.

BREAD.--No. 1. In Herculaneum there were found two entire loaves of the same dimension, being 13½ inches in diameter, and 3½ inches thick. Each had eight divisions cut on the top, that is to say,--a cross was first marked, and between each, another division was made; some had stamps on the top.

No. 2. At Pompeii, in a shop near the Pantheon, were discovered bronze moulds for pastry and bread.

No. 3. The Cappadocia bread, made in a mould, found at Pompeii.

No. 4. The mould for the above.

The customs of the middle ages cannot be better illustrated than by adding the following curious notes:

The Norman kings subjected the bakers to very severe laws with

respect to the weight and price of bread. The first offence was punished by the confiscation of their bread; the second by a fine; and the third by the pillory.[IV-77]

Saint Louis made statutes for the bakers of Paris. He forbade them to bake on Sunday or any festival day, under pain of a fine of eighteen sous (about eight pence), and a certain quantity of bread. But he gave them permission to open their shops and _sell_ every day of the year without exception.[IV-78]

In the 17th century, a new regulation was made concerning bakers; they were to bake “daily, and have always on sale three kinds of bread, viz., that known as _pain de chalis_, of twelve ounces; _pain de chapitre_, of ten ounces; and brownish household bread, of sixteen ounces. The price of each to be _douze deniers_ (a halfpenny), marked by the baker with his own particular mark.” They were also permitted to make “rolls and other sorts,” but not to expose them for sale “under pain of being fined four hundred Paris livres (a little more than twelve pounds sterling).”[IV-79]

Master-bakers were admitted at Paris, in the 14th century, in the following manner:--

When a young man had been successively winnower, sifter, kneader, and foreman, he could, by paying a certain amount to the king as legiance money, become an aspirant-baker, and commence business on his own account. Four years after, he was received as master by going through certain formalities. On a given day, he set out from his house, followed by all the bakers of the town, and repaired to the residence of the master of the bakers, to whom he presented a new pot filled with nuts, saying: “Master, I have accomplished my four years; here is my pot of nuts.” Then the master of the bakers asked the secretary of the trade whether that were true, and having received a reply in the affirmative, the master of the bakers returned the pot to the aspirant, who broke it against the wall, and was at once reckoned amongst the masters.

Let us reckon up the different kinds of bread that were in use at that epoch:

The bread made simply with flour, water, salt, and yeast--the common bread; the best was made at Chailly or Gonesse.

The bread cooked in hot water--_pain échaudé_ (in England, we should call it baked dumpling).

The bread made of the finest flour, beaten a long time with two sticks--pounded bread.

The bread made of the very finest and purest flour (biscuit flour) slightly baked--roll bread.

The bread made of fine flour, kneaded with butter, and sprinkled with whole wheat--sheep bread.

The bread made of fine flour, eggs and milk--Christmas bread.

And lastly, rye bread, kneaded with spice, honey, or sugar--gingerbread.[IV-80]

V.

FRUMENTA.

Do not be alarmed, fair readers, at the Latin noun which heads this chapter: tolerate it in consideration of our promise seldom to solicit a like favour. It meant, among the Latins, all the plants which produce ears of corn,[V-1] the seeds of which can be converted into flour.[V-2] Clearly there never was a more innocent expression.

_Barley_ seems to claim the first place among cereals of the second order; the Greeks looked upon it as the happy symbol of fertility,[V-3] and the ancient inhabitants of Italy gave it a name (_hordeum_) which, perhaps, recalled to their mind the use mankind made of it before wheat was known (_exordium_).[V-4]

The Jews had a great esteem for barley, and sacred history generally assimilates it to wheat, when the fruits of the earth are mentioned. Thus a beloved spot produces both these plants:[V-5] Shobi offered to David wheat and barley;[V-6] and Solomon promises twenty thousand sacks of wheat and as much barley to the workmen charged with cutting down the cedars of Lebanon.[V-7]

The Greeks and Romans did not carry their love for this grain so far as the Hebrews. In Rome it was the food of the flocks and cowards.[V-8] In Lacedæmon and at Athens the gladiators and common people had no other aliment;[V-9] they made it into barley-gruel (_alphiton_), the composition of which was very simple, and would not probably tempt a modern Lucullus. Here is the recipe of this ancient and national dish:--

Dry, near the fire or in the oven, twenty pounds of barley flour, then parch it. Add three pounds of linseed meal, half a pound of coriander seed, two ounces of salt, and the quantity of water necessary.[V-10] To this mixture of ingredients the Italian epicureans added a little millet, so as to give the paste more cohesion and delicacy.[V-11]

This culinary preparation must appear rather unworthy of those nations who so completely eclipsed all the gastronomic glories of the universe; wherefore let us hasten to reinstate them as men of taste and exquisite intelligence, by citing a more learned combination, which obtained the judicious patronage of the Archestrates and Apicii:--

Take pearl barley, pound it in a mortar, make use of the flour only, and put it in a saucepan; pour on it by degrees some of the best oil; with that certainty which science alone gives to the hand, and stir it carefully, whilst a slow, equal fire performs the great work of cookery. Be, above all, attentive to enrich it, at proper intervals, with a delicate gravy extracted from a young fat chicken or from a succulent lamb. Unceasingly watch, lest the ebullition, by going on too rapidly, force this delightful mixture to overflow the side of the vessel; and when your practised palate informs you that it is worthy of your guests, present it to their impatient sensuality.[V-12]

So it appears the ancients were acquainted with pearl barley, and barley water; the latter took the name of diet drink (_ptisana_), which we only associate with melancholy reminiscences.[V-13] Hippocrates was not only in raptures with the virtues and properties of this aliment,[V-14] but he also conferred the highest praise on that sweet and insipid drink, which our doctors order their patients, as did the oracle of Cos, and which at that time was called “barley broth.”[V-15]

_Oats_ occupied an honourable place after barley. Pliny fancied these two plants so analogous, that the owner of a field who had sown barley might find oats at the time of harvest, whilst precisely the reverse might happen to his neighbour.[V-16] Nature, in our days, is not subject to such frolics; and our farmers are tolerably certain that, by care, labour, and God’s assistance, they will gather from the soil what they have sown.

“In order to develop a strong flavour of vanille in black oats, wash this seed, boil it a moment in water, and employ the decoction as you would potato flour, and it will form excellent creams.

“In Normandy and Lower Britany they make with flour of oats a delicious soup. The following is the manner they obtain it. They take white oats and put them in the oven; when sufficiently dried, they are fanned, cleaned, and carried to a mill, the grinders of which are freshly sharpened. The miller takes care to hold them a little way off, in order that they may not crush the grain, and that this last may preserve the shape of rice; by this means they remove the whole of the pellicle.”--PARMENTIER.

The Greeks and Romans knew how to appreciate oatmeal:[V-17] they used it to make a kind of gruel, such as we have already described, and also a substantial thick milk, which they prepared as we do.[V-18]

_Rice_ was also held in great esteem by them: they considered it as a food very beneficial to the chest; therefore it was recommended in cases of consumption, and to persons subject to spitting of blood.[V-19]

_Millet_, so called from the multiplicity of its seeds,[V-20] abounded more particularly in Gaul, in the time of Strabo.[V-21] Pliny pretends that no grain swells so much in cooking, and he assures us that sixty pounds of bread was obtained from a single bushel of millet, weighing only twenty pounds.[V-22] This naturalist also speaks of another kind of millet, coming originally from India, and which had only been in cultivation ten years in Italy. The stalk resembled that of the reed, and often attained the height of ten feet; its fecundity was such that a single grain produced innumerable ears of corn;[V-23] therefore, if so prolific, and capable of making good and economical food, why should it not be, in 1858, cultivated largely wherever the climate may allow it?

Some writers place _Panic Grass_ among the wheats, because certain nations made bread of it.[V-24] The higher classes of Rome and Athens always resisted this bad taste. They preferred spelt, or red wheat, a super-excellent grain,[V-25] which was much honoured by the Latins, if we can credit the charming letter, written by Pliny the younger, to Septilius Clarus, on the occasion of a dinner, where the latter failed to join the guests. Among other delicate dishes with which he desired to treat his friend, he had ordered a spelt cake to be made.[V-26] This same flour was the base of the Carthaginian pudding; which the reader may taste if he will, here is the recipe:--

CARTHAGINIAN PUDDING.--Put a pound of red wheat flour into water; when it has soaked some time, place it in a wooden bowl, add three pounds of cream cheese, half a pound of honey, and one egg; beat this mixture well together, and cook it on a slow fire in a stewpan.[V-27] Should this dish not be sufficiently delicate, try the following:--

When you have sifted some spelt flour, put it in a wooden vessel, with some water, which you must renew twice a day for ten days. At the end of that time squeeze out all the water, and place the paste in another vessel; reduce it to the consistence of thick lees, pass it through a piece of new linen, and repeat this last operation; dry it in the sun, and then boil it in milk.[V-28]

As regards the exact seasoning of this exquisite Roman dish, it is your own genius which must inspire you with the proportions.

Let us not omit to notice the _Erupmon_ of the Greeks, the _Irion_ of the Latins, the _Indian Wheat_ of the moderns. This plant produces a wholesome and easily digestible food; it was well known in Italy in the time of Pliny,[V-29] at which period the peasants used to make a crisp sort of heavy bread, probably somewhat similar to that which is still used in the south of France.

Since the famine of 1847 great attention has been paid to this flour; much was imported into England from America, where it is used in domestic economy; when green, its milky pulp is an excellent food: the various advantages of this flour, however, are not sufficiently developed to give all the benefit of its goodness to the world; habit and prejudice assist materially to prevent its being generally employed.

The Romans also ate it as hasty-pudding, parched or roasted, with a little salt. A writer equally remarkable for his elegant and easy style, as well as for the justness of his observations, informs us that, in our days, the Indian inhabitants of the unfruitful plains of Marwar never dress Indian corn in any other way.[V-30]