SECT. LXXIX.—ON PULSE.
Of pulse, the lentil forms a bad chyme and melancholic humours; but especially it, when twice boiled, binds the bowels; yet its soup, when drunk with oil and sauce, is rather laxative. But savory or pennyroyal ought to be added to it because it is flatulent. The common bean is light, flatulent, and detergent; but the Egyptian bean is much more succulent and excrementitious than ours. The pea is spongy, but not so flatulent. The chick-peas are flatulent and detergent, promote the formation of semen, are aphrodisiacal, and lithontriptic; when toasted, they part with their flatulence, but are of difficult digestion. Lupines are difficult to digest and evacuate, and produce a crude chyme. The fenugreek warms and loosens the bowels when taken before a meal. Tares and fasels, having been previously macerated in water so as to shoot out roots, are laxative of the bowels when taken before a meal with sauce; and are more nutritious than the fenugreek. But the fasels called dolichi, when eaten green with their husks, are more excrementitious.
Commentary. Hippocrates, Rhases, and other of the ancient authors agree, that pulse, in general, are nutritious. All held that they are flatulent, excrementitious, and aphrodisiacal. According to Plutarch it was on account of their aphrodisiacal qualities that the Egyptian priests forbade the use of them. Some assign this as the reason why Pythagoras “ventri indulsit non omne legumen.” Apollonius Dyscolus says that he did so because they are flatulent, difficult to digest, and occasion disturbed dreams. (Hist. Mirab. 46.) This seems the most likely reason; but Plutarch, Iamblichus, and Porphyry think they see more recondite meanings in the Pythagorean interdiction. Actuarius remarks that all kinds of pulse are to be eaten in their green juicy state. In an ancient proverb, preserved by Athenæus, it is said that “figs are to be eaten after fish, and pulse after flesh.”
Galen speaks of lentils in much the same terms as Paulus. He particularly disapproves of the practice, which he says was common in his time, of eating them with sodden wine. Rhases says that they are of a cold, desiccative, and excrementitious nature. Actuarius calls them the worst of the legumina. Athenæus mentions that the Egyptians lived much upon lentils. (iv.) Martial, in like manner, speaks of them as an Egyptian food.
All the commentators are puzzled to determine what the ancient faba was. We are inclined to think, with Dickson, that Theophrastus’s description of it applies best to our small bean. The Egyptian bean, according to Sprengel, was the nelumbium speciosum. Galen mentions that beans were much used by the gladiators, for giving them flesh, but adds that it was not firm or compact. Actuarius states that they are nutritious, but dissuades from using them freely, because of their flatulence. According to Celsus, both beans and lentils are stronger food than peas. Seth agrees with Galen, that the flesh formed from them is flabby and soft. Galen directs beans to be fried or boiled with onions, whereby they will be rendered less flatulent. (De Alim. Facult. i.)
It is probable that the faseolus was the kidney-bean, or phaseolus communis L. Harduin calls it feverole in French. Rhases says that fasels are flatulent, and fatten the body. Pliny remarks that they are eaten with their husks. He alludes, we suppose, to the variety of them called Dolichi. Galen says that they are more laxative and nutritious, but not so flatulent as peas. Oribasius says that they hold an intermediate place between those substances which give much and those which afford little nourishment. Actuarius says they are the worst kind of beans, and that being heating and excrementitious they are apt to disorder the bowels. Tares, as Galen and Oribasius mention, were sometimes used for food during a famine.
All the authorities give peas much the same characters as Paulus does. Galen mentions the method of steeping chiches in water, and getting them to germinate before using them for food. Are the bons vivans of the present day acquainted with this method of making peas tender and soft? The ancients were also in the practice of preparing these seeds for sowing in much the same manner. (Geopon. ii, 36.) See also Pliny (xviii, 13.) We are inclined to think that Virgil alludes to this practice (Georg. i, 193); but Dr. Hunter has put a different interpretation on this passage. The species of pea which grows plentifully in Sicily, and is called pisum ochrys, is said to hold a middle place as to quality.
Rhases remarks that lupines, being bitter, are not properly articles of food, but medicines. They possess, he adds, little nutriment. Galen says that they are indigestible, and therefore apt to engender crude humours. When eaten, he directs them to be well sweetened.
Galen mentions that some took fenugreek, with fish-sauce, to open the belly. He says it may be eaten with vinegar, wine, fish-sauce, or oil. Some, he adds, use them as a condiment to bread. Rhases gives similar directions for using fenugreek.
Galen likewise makes mention of the lathyrus and aracus, two varieties of the chichling vetch. He says they resemble in properties the fasels. The common vetch was scarcely an article of food.
The sesame, that is to say, the sesamum orientale, or oily grain, as Galen remarks, is of an oily nature, and consequently heavy on the stomach.
Galen speaks of linseed as having been used for food by peasants in Asia, but adds, that it is not eaten by more refined persons.