SECT. XCIV.—ON THE CETACEA, OR LARGE FISHES.
The cetacea, such as the whales, seals, balance-fish, dolphin, and great tunnies, have hard and indigestible flesh, containing thick juices. When pickled, they are more moderately so. And of the other fishes, those which are most humid and excrementitious are most fitted for pickling; but there is the same difference in pickles as in the fishes from which they are formed.
Commentary. Under the class cetacea (κῆτος), the ancient naturalists ranked all the large fishes, such as the whale, the dolphin, the shark, &c. Aristotle was aware that the class called plagiuri by Artedi, comprehending the whale, the dolphin, &c. are viviparous, and have lungs like quadrupeds, instead of gills like fishes. The balæna of the Greeks was a species of physeter, or cachelot.
Galen states that the flesh of all the cetacea in its recent state is excrementitious, but when pickled becomes more attenuate, and easier converted into blood. He gives them, in short, the same characters as our author does.
For a full account of the pickled fishes of the ancients, we refer to the Fragment of Xenocrates, and the third book of Athenæus. We shall give the general character of them as delivered by the latter, upon the authority of the Siphnian Diphilus. He says that the pickles prepared from sea, lake, and river fishes afford little nourishment, contain few juices, are of a heating nature, are good for the belly, and whet the appetite. The old, he adds, are better and more acrid. Of all the pickled fishes, the most celebrated was the one brought from the Pontus, called saperda. According to Athenæus, it was prepared from the umber (sciæna umbra L.) See also Galen (de Alim. Facult. iii, 41.) Hippocrates says they are desiccant, attenuant, and for the most part laxative. (De Diæta.) Diphilus says they are whetters and laxatives; and hence Galen directs them to be taken at the commencement of a meal, and particularly recommends them for old men. Rhases speaks more unfavorably of them.
It may be proper in this place to give some account of the isitia, or isicia of the ancients. With regard to the etymology of the word, then, it is derived by Macrobius ab insectione. They consisted of minced meat, either flesh or fish, boiled or roasted, and seasoned with pepper, cumin, lovage, and the like. Apicius gives receipts for preparing several dishes of this kind, from the loligo, sepia, locusta, and swine’s liver. The last mentioned was inclosed in the omentum, or cowl, and must therefore have resembled the dish now called a haggis. Lampridius says that the emperor Heliogabalus was the first who prepared isicia from fishes, oysters, lobsters, squillæ, and the like. If this statement be true, the works of Apicius which we possess cannot be genuine. Isicia from shell-fish, the sepia, loligo, &c. are very favorably spoken of by Alexander Trallian (xi.) On the Isicia, see further Ludovicus Nonnius (de Piscium Esu, xxxviii), and Lambecius (ad Apic.)