The Pantropheon; Or, History of Food, Its Preparation, from the Earliest Ages of the World

by Alexis Soyer

MUSHROOMS.

Agrippina, desirous of securing the crown to her worthy son, Nero, went to a celebrated female poisoner, and procured a venomous preparation which defied the most powerful antidotes.[XXIII_110] The Princess slipped this terrible poison in a very fine morel (a species of mushroom), which Claudius eat at his supper. The unfortunate Emperor died according to the desire of his amiable consort, who was, of course, inconsolable for a long time, and placed among the gods the husband she had murdered.[XXIII_111] Nero ascended the throne, and every time that mushrooms were served at his table, true to the memory of his father-in-law, he facetiously called this preparation the “dish of the gods.”[XXIII_112]

To the poisonous effects of this vegetable have been attributed, also, the death of the Emperor Tiberius, that of Pope Clement VII., King Charles VI. of France, and many other important personages, who either knew very little of good cooks, or of morels. Notwithstanding these tragical events, mushrooms always retained a proud position, among the ancients, above the most inoffensive culinary plants; and their rather doubtful reputation has not prevented them from maintaining their ground down to our time, for we find that they now claim the same rank which they formerly occupied in the gastronomic réunions of Athens and Rome: a sad image of those fortunate criminals, whom society dreads, and yet often loads with its favours.

This “voluptuous poison,” as Seneca, the philosopher,[XXIII_113] calls it, which compels us to eat of it again, even when not hungry,[XXIII_114] was much relished by the wealthy inhabitants of Rome and Italy. These free-livers, careless of the morrow, preferred the field mushroom,[XXIII_115] which they devoured with delight, having previously covered it over with a pungent sauce, which they afterwards neutralized with various iced beverages.[XXIII_116] It is true that this dish, worthy of the gods, often inflicted a severe penalty on those who yielded to its irresistible seduction; but what mortal could think of the anguish of an uncertain poisoning, when he had the good luck to meet with some boleti, or mushrooms, of the rarest description, which the price of a beautiful toga would hardly have purchased,[XXIII_117] and which promised some mouthfuls of ineffable, although ephemeral enjoyment? Besides, does not pleasure possess more piquant charms when danger is attached to it? The greater part of mushrooms are very dangerous, say the ancients;[XXIII_118] but blind destiny, perhaps, reserves for us certain kinds which are not so. Re-assured by this judicious reflection, they gave orders to their cooks to stew some,[XXIII_119] and season them with vinegar, oxymel, and honey.[XXIII_120]

However, reasonable people—and there were still some to be found—abstained entirely from this vegetable, or procured it by the method which Nicander recommends; that is to say, they frequently watered the trunk of a fig tree after manure had been placed around it. That philosopher assures us that by these means we may grow mushrooms perfectly wholesome.[XXIII_121]

Those of our readers who are in possession of fig trees will be able to give their opinion on the merit of Nicander’s method.

To obtain the seeds of most mushrooms, it only requires to expose them, when fresh, upon glass; the superficies of the glass is soon covered with it. It is also obtained by shaking in the water the mushrooms which are sufficiently developed. This water, thus impregnated, is used to water the beds, which become thereby more productive.

The natural supply of mushrooms from the fields not being thought sufficient, the art of raising them on beds during the whole year was therefore indispensable, and required a mixture of crottin de cheval, rotten dung, and mould, which is deposited in layers of one foot and a-half in thickness and width. Seeds of mushrooms are sown on these beds—that is to say, some of the mould of a former bog impregnated with it. It is then covered over with all the dung not consumed, and then copiously watered.

“At the end of a very few days, the beds begin to produce mushrooms, and keep on producing until the winter.”—Bosc.

XXIV.
PASTRY.

The art of the pastry-cook consists in preparing certain delicate and nice pastes in all sorts of shapes, in seasoning them with discretion, and in sufficient quantity, with meat, butter, sugar, preserves, &c.[XXIV_1] It is a most important branch of the culinary science; unceasingly occupied with flattering the sight as much as the taste, it raises graceful monuments, delicious fortresses, seductive ramparts, which as soon as they are on all sides attacked, totter, crumble, and no longer present anything but glorious and ephemeral ruins, like every other work of man—all pass away whether they be temples, columns, pyramids, or pies.

This charming art was known to ancient nations as soon as their intellectual development had enabled them to understand a certain gastronomic truth, long since become a trivial axiom, and of which we dare scarcely remind the reader: “On ne mange pour vivre que lorsqu’on ne sait pas vivre pour manger.” (People only eat to live when they do not understand how to live to eat.)

The oriental nations were acquainted with the art of making pastry at a very early period. The Egyptians served many different sorts of cakes at their tables;[XXIV_2] the Jews knew of at least three kinds—one sort kneaded with oil, another fried in oil, and the last was merely rubbed over with oil.[XXIV_3]

The enlightened gluttony of the Greeks and Romans inspired them with a host of combinations more or less ingenious, and destined to revive a failing appetite, or one already greatly compromised by vigorous onslaughts.

Some of these pastries would appear very nice to us in the present day; others we should think but little worthy of the epicures of Rome and Athens. However, let us not be in too great a hurry to condemn these great masters. Doubtless they had excellent reasons to like that which modern taste may despise and dislike. In return, they might have thought some of our most fashionable dishes detestable; perhaps Apicius might have made a strange grimace at the sight of a dish of sour-crout, an olla-podrida, or an immense plum-pudding.

Oublies, a light dainty for those who have weak stomachs, were thin sheets of paste composed of flour and honey, which rolled into a spiral form as soon as they approached the oven. They were eaten soaked in cooked wine.[XXIV_4] Persons of taste preferred oublies to fritters—a bold mixture of flour kneaded with wine, seasoned with pepper, and then worked up with milk, and, finally, with a little fat or oil.[XXIV_5]

Some cooks employed the finest flour only, mixed with oil, and served this paste after having cooked it in a dish.[XXIV_6] Others worked sesame flour a long time with honey and oil, and fried it.[XXIV_7] These various kinds of fritters were, doubtless, much sought after by the populace, for Cicero speaks of them with profound disdain.[XXIV_8]

The Jews, less dainty than the eloquent orator, offered some of this paste in sacrifice. The recipe for its composition is given in Leviticus; it was made of the finest flour, moistened with oil, and cooked in the frying-pan.[XXIV_9]

Women and children—those two fragile roots of society—were always fond of sweet and delicate cakes. The pastry-cooks of Attica prepared for them some very excellent kinds; sometimes it was merely a sweet mixture of honey and milk;[XXIV_10] others were made of honey, sesame flour, and cheese or oil.[XXIV_11] Delicious fruit was frequently covered with a light and perfumed paste.[XXIV_12] These Athenian dumplings met with a great success.

Rome made the conquest of these precious recipes,[XXIV_13] and vanquished Greece, conquered by her, had still the glory of dictating laws to her haughty enemy: she imposed her cookery.

Gingerbread was not unknown to the ancients. Rhodes owed its reputation to it. It was sweetened with honey, and that island furnished it to the whole of Europe. The Greeks called this delicacy Melitates, and eat it with pleasure at the close of their repasts.[XXIV_14]

Let us not forget, in this rapid survey of ancient sweets, that learned and exquisite mixture now designated under the name of Nougat, which, among the Greeks was composed of dried currants and almonds, and which has lost none of its attractions, nothing of its celebrity, after so many centuries.[XXIV_15]

The Mustaceum did not deserve to occupy so high a standing; and yet this rustic cake, composed of sweet wine and flour, a symbol of abundance and happiness, never failed to be presented to the guests at a wedding repast, and the newly-married pair sent a piece of it to each of their absent parents or friends, who, in return, addressed them congratulations, and wishes for their happiness.[XXIV_16] The mustaceum was the wedding-cake of the Romans.

Modern civilization has also rejected with equal disdain the Savillum pie, always eaten with pleasure by the voluptuous inhabitants of Rome when they went to their villas in order to rest from their prodigious excesses, and from the fatigues of intemperance. This nourishing and agreeable dish required but little art in its composition. Half-a-pound of flour and two pounds and a-half of cheese were well mixed together; three ounces of honey and one egg were then added. When the whole had been well beaten, it was placed in an earthen vessel rubbed over with oil, and which was covered with a tart dish cover. It was carefully watched to see that the process of cooking was going on; afterwards it was taken from the dish, the pie was smeared with honey, and, for an instant, replaced under the tart-dish cover, after having dredged the top with pounded poppy seed. It was always served in the dish in which it had been cooked, and was eaten with spoons.[XXIV_17]

We have already mentioned the Artocreas, a kind of hashed meat mixed with bread, which Rome borrowed from Greece, together with its original name. This pie, welcomed by modern gastrophagy, has reached our days with merely some slight modifications, and deprived of its sonorous Hellenic appellation.[XXIV_18] Formerly the Roman Emperors, for the greater part, ruled badly; but, in return, they eat well. In that gastronomic era—gone, never to return—Cæsar’s supper engaged the attention of the court, the city, nay, the whole empire. The conquered universe furnished the details for a banquet, and a royal hand sometimes deigned to write the ordinance. Now and then, even the monarch, wrapped in profound culinary meditations, long reflected, dictated to his Archimagirus a new dish, on which complaisant senators the next day bestowed enthusiastic praises and a sincere admiration. Thus the Emperor Verus, inventor of a pie, barely escaped an apotheosis of which his genius was deemed worthy. It is true that, without any exaggerated flattery, this pie was excellent, and that never was there imagined a more happy mixture, a more ingenious combination, of meats, or a more refined flavour. If any one be curious enough to wish to test this imperial dish, let him prepare a succulent amalgamation of sow’s flank (sumen), pheasant, peacock, iced ham, and wild boar’s flesh; let him inclose this mixture within the thick casing of a laboriously worked crust, and he may attack this kingly dish when a gentle and slow cooking causes it to emit burning yet sweet emanations.[XXIV_19]

Here is a more modest recipe for a cake; but then it does not claim the paternity of an emperor. However, Cato brought it much into fashion, for the wise Cato often busied himself in the science of cookery, for which reason he is greatly worthy of esteem. Well, we recommend to the reader the Libum of that philosopher, who indicates the manner of preparing it:—

“Crush,” he says, “two pounds of cheese; mix with it a pound of rye flour, or, in order to render it lighter, throw in merely half a pound of wheat flour and an egg. Stir, mix, and work this paste; form of it a cake which you will place on leaves, and cook in a tart dish on the hot hearth.” This libum was much esteemed about twenty centuries ago; in honour of Cato may it again be brought to light, if not completely unworthy of our attention.[XXIV_20] Could we not also rehabilitate the reputation of the most celebrated of ancient pies, the Placenta, which so delighted mankind, and by which the gods even allowed their fury to be appeased?[XXIV_21] Renowned writers have granted it the authority of their praise;[XXIV_22] and the illustrious geoponist, already cited, describes with lengthened complaisance the manner of preparing this important dish:—

“Place, on one side, two pounds of rye flour, which will serve to form the foundation, on which must be placed biscuits, formed of crisp paste; on the other, put four pounds of wheat; and two pounds of alica (grains of fine wheat, stripped of their husks and crushed; to which was added, in order to whiten them, a peculiar kind of chalk found between Naples and Pouzzoli[XXIV_23]). This latter must be left to infuse in water, and, when well soaked, it must be thrown into a kneading trough, and well worked with the hand. You then mix with it the four pounds of wheat flour, in order to make the whole into biscuits, or dry marchpans. This paste must be worked in a basket, and, as it dries, each separate marchpan must be shaped. When they have acquired a convenient form, rub them on all sides with a piece of stuff soaked in oil, and the same must be done to the foundation of the placenta before placing the marchpans on it. During these preparations, make the hearth very hot, as well as the cover of the tart dish intended to cook it. Then spread the two pounds of rye flour you have in reserve over fourteen pounds of cheese of sheep’s milk. Make of this a light paste for the foundation already mentioned. This cheese ought to be very fresh, and previously soaked in three waters. It is allowed to drain slowly between the hands, and when it has been left to dry, it is kneaded. Take a flour sieve, and pass the cheese through it before mixing it with the rye. Then add four pounds and a half of good honey; mix well; place the foundation, furnished with its band, on a board a foot square, covered with bay leaves rubbed with oil, and form the placenta. Begin by covering the whole of the base with a layer of marchpans, which you place one after the other, and cover slightly with cheese mixed with honey. Finally, you arrange the marchpans on the foundation, and prepare the hearth to a moderate degree of heat; place the placenta on it; cover it with the tart dish cover already heated, and spread live charcoal underneath and all around. The cooking must be done very slowly, and as soon as the pie is taken from the hearth, it must be rubbed with honey.”[XXIV_24]

The great desire we had to inform the reader of some of the methods of making ancient pastry will, perhaps, induce him to receive with indulgence the rather diffuse recipe of the worthy Cato. The following is much more concise; it relates to the relishing Globi, little globes, or balls, eaten at dessert:

Mix cheese and alica, and of this mixture make the globi, which cook one after the other, or two at a time, in boiling oil. Stir them constantly with a spoon; take them out; rub them over with honey, and serve, having previously dredged over them a little poppy-seed.[XXIV_25]

Everyone will confess that all these cakes are inferior to the simple and elegant pastry with which the inhabitants of Picenum (marshes of Ancona) regaled themselves. They placed some alica to soak in water, and left it there for the space of nine days; the tenth day they kneaded it, and formed it into round, flat cakes, which they cooked in the oven in earthen baking-dishes easily broken. When these kind of biscuits were to be eaten, they were first softened in milk and honey.[XXIV_26]

Apicius also made globi of great delicacy with the crumb of fine bread, shaped into balls, which were left to soak in milk, and which, on their being withdrawn from the boiling oil, he lightly covered with honey.[XXIV_27]

We conclude with three recipes by this amateur cook, in the hope that they may appear worthy of his genius:—

“Mix pine nuts, pepper, honey, rue, and cooked wine; cover with eggs well beaten; submit this mixture to a slow fire, and serve, after having smeared it with honey.”[XXIV_28]

“Cook the finest flour in some milk, of which make a tolerably stiff paste; spread it on a dish; cut it in pieces, which, when you have fried in very fine oil, cover with pepper and honey.”[XXIV_29]

“Make a compact mixture of milk, honey, and eggs; let it cook very slowly, and serve, after having sprinkled over it a little pepper.”[XXIV_30]

These details will, we hope, give a sufficient idea of ancient pastry. We must remember that these recipes form, as it were, the starting point. The oil fritter of the Hebrews and the meringues of our period are wide apart: more than thirty-three centuries separate the two; two thousand years have elapsed since Cato wrote the recipe for his somewhat heavy tart. The author of the “Culinary Art,” Apicius himself, is very old. The private life of the ancient people appears to be worthy of serious study; but we too often only bestow on it our disdain. The author of this work has observed their customs in the kitchen and in the dining-room—the only places to which he had access—and he has taken the liberty of writing the result of his investigations. Sometimes he admires, but never does he despise, a civilisation different to our own, but which was not without its good side. He conjures the reader to believe him when he says, that whatever eccentricities the gastronomy of ancient nations may present to us, those people (he has, perhaps, acquired the right to venture such an assertion) doubtless eat in a very different manner from ourselves; but they certainly knew how to eat.

The pastry just mentioned is certainly not altogether irreproachable—that is clear; but many kinds reveal that exquisite sentiment of the good which is nothing else than taste—whether it relate to art, literature or cooking—and the entire development of which seems to have been the appurtenance of a small number of privileged centuries. Great epochs—such as those of Pericles, Augustus, Leo XII., Louis XIV., and Queen Anne—have seen roses and myrtles flourish by the side of the laurels with which the muses are crowned. Charles XII. was fond of tartlets; Frederic II. gave himself fits of indigestion by eating Savoy cakes; and the Maréchal de Saxe rested from the fatigues of glory before a plate of macaroons.

We have renounced the kind of pastry with which our ancestors used to regale themselves in the 14th century. Their stag pies[XXIV_31] are no longer in vogue; neither have we any taste for their great pies which contained a lamb or a stuffed kid, surrounded with goslings by dozens and scores.[XXIV_32]

Their tarts have fallen into the same oblivion. Who thinks now of their Janus, or double-faced, tarts, herb tarts, rose-leaf tarts, oat tarts, or chesnut tarts?[XXIV_33]

The first statutes given to the pastry cooks by St. Louis (May, 1270), sanctioned their custom of working on all festival days without exception. Now, the motive for such a toleration was probably this: the pagans had their festivals, which they passed in banqueting; the Romans called them dies epulatæ.[XXIV_34] The early Christians, although they gave up the worship of false gods, preserved certain customs in which they had been brought up, among which was that of public and private banquets on festival days.[XXIV_35] We still see some remains of these customs in the village rejoicings on the Continent, on the day of their patron saint. The Fathers of the Church and the Councils raised their voices against this abuse;[XXIV_36] but they were obliged to tolerate it, and the pastry-cooks, who were very busy on those occasions, profited by the indulgence. It is as well to remark that they were, at one and the same time, publicans, roasters (that is, they would roast anything for anybody), and cooks.

Under the ministry of the Chancelier de l’Hôpital, little pies, or patties, were hawked through all the streets of Paris, and there was an enormous consumption of them. The severe minister considered them a luxury, which it was incumbent upon him to suppress; so he prohibited, not their sale, but the crying of them, as a temptation to gluttony.

There is a kind of cake much in vogue in England, on Good Friday, designated hot-cross-bun, because it is always marked with a cross. The reader will, perhaps, take some interest in the observations of Bryant on the subject of this pastry:—

“The offerings,” says he, “which people in ancient times used to present to the gods were generally purchased at the entrance of the temple; especially every species of consecrated bread, which was denominated accordingly. One species of sacred bread which used to be offered to the gods was of great antiquity, and called Boun.” It was a kind of cake, with a representation of two horns. Julius Pollux mentions it after the same manner—a sort of cake with horns. Diogenes Laertius, speaking of the same offering being made by Empedocles, describes the chief ingredients of which it was composed:—“He offered one of the sacred liba, called a bonse (bons), which was made of fine flour and honey.”[XXIV_37] England seems, then, to have retained the name and the form of the ancient bons, though the people do not recognise in the bun anything sacred or holy.

Titus Livy said, in speaking of Rome, “The greatest things have small beginnings.” This applies equally to pastry, which appears so unworthy of attention at the commencement of the middle ages that nothing seems to announce its high destiny. At first, in the southern provinces, people simply mixed flour, oil, and honey. The Roman school was still in force. The inhabitants of the north had a mind to innovate; they employed eggs, butter, and salt. Then came the idea of inclosing within this paste cooked meat, seasoned with bacon and spices; and, from progress to progress, they at last inclosed cream, fruit, and marmalades.[XXIV_38]

We find pastry mentioned for the first time in a charter of Louis-le-Débonnaire (802). It is there said that a certain farm of the Abbey of St. Denis is to furnish, at certain festivals, sixteen measures of honey, eleven hundred oxen, and five hogsheads of flour to make pastry.[XXIV_39]

A charter of the church of Paris, 1202, mentions simnels or wigs, under the name of “panes leves qui dicuntur echaudati.” Joinville speaks, in “The life of St. Louis,” of cheese fritters cooked in the sun, which the Saracens presented to that king and his knights when they restored them to liberty. And, finally, so early as the 13th century, the flans of Chartres, the patties of Paris, and the tarts of Dourlans, were in great renown; and a charter of 1301 informs us that, at that epoch, several lords imposed on their vassals a tribute of fugués, or puff-pastry.[XXIV_40]

The cook of Charles V. says, that the word tourte signified a household loaf of a round form; that this name was afterwards given to delicate pastry; and that, by corruption, it was called tart in certain provinces.[XXIV_41]

Taillevant speaks of cream, almonds, and rose-water, as the accompaniments of Darioles, a kind of custard; and of Talmouses, a sort of cheese-cake, made of cheese, eggs, and butter, coloured with the yolks of eggs.[XXIV_42]

Platina cites tarts made with radishes, quinces, gourds, elder-berry flowers, rice, oatmeal, millet, chesnuts, cherries, dates, May-herbs, roses, and, lastly, the white, or cream tart.[XXIV_43]

XXV.
WATER.

Thales, who borrowed from Egypt the elements of philosophy, which he afterwards spread in Greece, taught that water is the vivifying principle of all things; that nature is thereby made fruitful; that without it the earth, arid and laid waste, would be a frightful desert, where every effort of man to support his existence must fail.[XXV_1]

These ideas, for a long time adopted by Pagan theology, peopled fountains, rivers, and seas, with divinities, and often confounded in the same worship those gods, sons of gratitude, with the limpid waters consecrated to them.

The Persians carried their veneration for this element so far, that they dared not wash their hands, and would have preferred being consumed to the very bone rather than dip themselves in a river.[XXV_2]

The Cappadocians were proud of treading in the same path.[XXV_3]

The Egyptians offered prayers and homage to water.[XXV_4] The Nile, in particular, received their adorations under the name of Ypeus, or Siris, and they offered to it—as a sacrifice—barley, wheat, sugar, and fruit.[XXV_5]

The Scythians honoured the Danube on account of its vast extent; the Thessalians prostrated themselves before the majestic shores of the Peneus; the ancient combat of Achelous with Hercules made it sacred to the Ætolians; by a special law, the Lacedæmonians were compelled to implore the Eurotas; and a religious precept forced the Athenians to incense in honour of the Ilissus.[XXV_6]

The Greeks and Romans did not fail to follow such good examples. The fountains and rivers had their altars. The Rhine was called a god; and when Æneas arrived in Italy, he prayed it might be favourable to him.[XXV_7]

However strange such superstition may appear, it is, nevertheless, conceivable that Paganism, struck with wonder at the flux and reflux of the sea, and at the phenomena presented by several celebrated springs, and seduced by the charming fictions of doubtful poesy, should have deified an element both beneficial and terrible, since it could not cry out with the prophet king: “The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea than the mighty waves of the sea.”[XXV_8]

Thence came the innumerable number of tutelary gods to which the Ocean alone gave an asylum. By Thetis it became the father of the seventy-two Oceanides, and the fifty Nereides called it their grandfather. Hesiod numbered three thousand nymphs, and he probably forgot a few of them. We say nothing of the Naiades, the Napææ, the Limnades, and so many others whom fable was pleased to recognise, and whom it described as joyfully disporting in the water.

Greece exhausted the treasures of its poetical imagination to embellish her fountains, beloved retreats of the timid Naiades. Several were remarkable for the beauty of their architecture and the extreme delicacy of their execution.

Megara, in Achaia, possessed one celebrated for its magnificence. That of Pirene, at Corinth, was surrounded with white marble, in which were placed grottoes which unceasingly supplied a vast and superb basin. Another fountain of Corinth, named Lerna, offered to loungers an elegant portico, under which some very commodious seats allowed them to enjoy, during summer, the freshness which the water communicated to the atmosphere.

In the sacred wood of Æsculapius, at Epidaurus, a splendid fountain was seen whose marvellous beauty attracted all eyes.[XXV_9] Lastly, those of Messina, known under the names of Arsinoe and of Clepsydra, yielded nothing in richness of material and finish of details to the most renowned monuments of Greece.

The Athenians named four officers to keep watch and ward over the water.[XXV_10] The other Greek towns followed the example. These officers had to keep the fountains in order and clean the reservoirs,[XXV_11] so that the water might be preserved pure and limpid.

The Romans at first contented themselves with water from the Tiber. King Ancus Martius[XXV_12] was the first[XXV_13] to build aqueducts, destined to convey the water of the fountain of Piconia from Tibur to Rome, a distance of about thirty-three thousand paces. Some have honoured the censor, Appius Claudius, for this magnificent undertaking,[XXV_14] to whom is certainly due the celebrated Appian Way.[XXV_15] These gigantic works greatly multiplied in time. Under the reign of Nero, Rome had nine principal aqueducts[XXV_16] constructed, the pipes of which were of bricks, baked tiles, stone, lead, or wood.[XXV_17]

According to the calculation of Vigenerus,[XXV_18] 500,000 hogsheads of water were conveyed into Rome every twenty-four hours, by 10,850 small channels, the internal circumference of which was one inch. The water was received in large closed basins, above which were raised splendid monuments. These basins—or châteaux d’eau—castella Aquarum—supplied other subterraneous conduits connected with the various quarters of the town,[XXV_19] which conveyed water to small reservoirs—fontes—furnished with taps, for the exclusive use of certain streets.[XXV_20] The water which was not drinkable ran out by means of large pipes into extensive inclosures, where it served to water cattle. At these places the people washed their linen, and here, too, they had a ready resource in case of fire.[XXV_21]

Augustus created water commissaries, who took care that all water coming into Rome by the aqueducts was fairly distributed in every public place, and to those of the inhabitants who had obtained the privilege of having it enter their houses.[XXV_22]

But the “ingenious thirst”[XXV_23] of the conquerors of the world could not content itself with a delicious water which nature furnished free of expense. Was it not too much for human endurance, that not only the air and the sun could not be offered to the highest bidder,[XXV_24] but that the same spring was to quench the thirst of obscure plebeians on equal terms with the rich patrician?

Intemperance and luxury very soon contrived to find excellent means of remedying a state of things so intolerable. The custom of preserving snow in cellars, to obtain cool beverages, is very old. Aristotle pointed out the method of boiling water, and putting the vessel afterwards in snow, in order to obtain ice. Rome had recourse to this expedient, which was afterwards replaced with advantage, under Nero, by constructing ice houses for the use of opulent epicureans.[XXV_25]

This even was not enough for voluptuous Romans, slaves to their strange caprices; their beverages did not appear to them as yet sufficiently cool,[XXV_26] and the summit of the Alps was put under contribution to furnish ice for the fashionable tables of the imperial city.[XXV_27]

The Romans were also frequently supplied with snow water,[XXV_28] clarified by being passed through the colum nivarium, or snow cullender,[XXV_29] a charming little utensil of silver, pierced with a great number of holes, through which the iced beverage passed into a recipient beneath. This drink was sometimes mortal, but always exquisite.[XXV_30] From this vessel, it was poured into an ampula, or a sort of crystal bottle of rotund form, which was often enormously dear on account of the elaborate chasing with which it was embellished.[XXV_31] This water bottle, with its long and narrow neck, was the principal ornament of the sideboards and tables, when it bore the name of some skilful artist from Campania or the Island of Samos.[XXV_32] [O]

Iced beverage lost all its charm at the end of the fine season, and hot water took its place during winter.[XXV_33] The same custom existed in Greece in the best classes of society.[XXV_34] At Rome, it was much more general, for there were a great number of taverns, where the middle classes and citizens of the lowest order gorged themselves copiously with pork and warm water. The Emperor Claudius caused them to be closed, and severely punished the proprietors of those houses who opposed his ordinance.[XXV_35]

At the commencement of the repast, a copper vessel was placed on the table purposely to boil water. It was much like a French bouilloire (which nearly resembles a tankard), and contained a cylinder of about four inches in diameter, covered with a moving lid, and pierced with holes for the ashes to pass through. They fell into the lower part of the cylinder. The space around was filled with water by means of a small funnel soldered to the boiler. The taps of these vases were always slightly above the bottom, so that the sediment of the water should not pass into the cups.[XXV_36]

Ancient medicine attributed to water a singular curative virtue, which it has also been supposed to possess in our days. This system, so much talked about now by some persons, is, therefore, not new. Hippocrates carefully distinguished the difference between good and bad water.[XXV_37] The best, according to him, ought to be clear, light, inodorous, without any flavour, and drawn from springs exposed to the east.[XXV_38] He interdicts all those which proceed from melted snow.[XXV_39]

Asclepiades made his patients drink plentifully of water, and frequently ordered them cold baths.[XXV_40]

The physician, Musa, prescribed to Augustus the same regimen, and the Emperor found himself much benefited by it.[XXV_41]

Under the reign of Nero, Charmis acquired a great vogue by extolling cold baths,[XXV_42] even in the depth of winter. This dexterous native of Marseilles knew so well how to persuade people, that he could hardly attend to his immense connection; and as he sometimes required as much as £800 from his patients,[XXV_43] he soon became as celebrated for his riches as for his pretended medical genius. Who will say, after this, that the water-cure system is good for nothing?

“In Egypt, rich people have the water brought to them from the Nile in leather pouches. Large and porous earthen pots of an oval shape, kept up by supporters, are filled with it. The water at the end of a few hours has deposited the slime it contained. It is afterwards distributed in small vases of terra cotta, called bardaks, of the size of our water-jugs. These vases are taken in the most showy part of the habitation. In a short time the clay of the bardaks is impregnated; their surface is covered with water, which, after borrowing from the liquid within the caloric it requires for evaporation, reduces this to a temperature of six or seven degrees under that which it had before.”—Parmentier.

More than five centuries ago the Sieur de Joinville described the same process. “The water of the Nile,” he said, “is of such a nature, that when we hung it in white earthen pots, made in the country, to the rigging of our ships, the water became in the heat of the day as cold as spring-water.”[XXV_44]

Sea-water is not potable, but it has long since been remarked that the vapours which rise from the sea are soft, and it was thence concluded that, by collecting and condensing them, it would be possible to obtain a potable liquid fit for domestic purposes. This phenomenon was known in the time of Pliny, who informs us that, “fleece spread about the ship, after having received the exhalations from the sea, becomes damp, and that fresh water may be extracted from it.”[XXV_45]

About the middle of the last century means were found to remove

DESCRIPTION OF [PLATE No. XVII.]

No. 1. Pail, of bronze, with movable handle, covered with hieroglyphics, to carry water from the Nile for the Feast of Isis.

No. 2. Pail, with two handles, same metal, placed on a small tripod to stand upon, owing to the convexity of the bottom.—St. Non, “Herculaneum.”

the saline substances from sea-water. Boyle, Leibnitz, the Count of Marsigli—all had made a great number of fruitless experiments. Mr. Poissonnier invented a very simple distillating machine, with which, and an absorbing powder, he succeeded in depriving sea-water of its insufferable bitterness, and rendering it perfectly salubrious. About 1784, a successful experiment was made at York with a machine which produced the same result.

Some travellers have related, that, at the Iron Island, the only soft water was that which was collected from a large tree, in the centre of the island, and which was incessantly covered with clouds. The water ran continually from the leaves, and fell into two large cisterns, constructed at the foot of the tree, which, according to Jackson, furnished enough for 8,000 souls, and 100,000 cattle. “Let us see,” says Bory de Saint-Vincent, “what amount of credit is due to the marvellous tree of the Iron Island.” Abreu Galindo, in his manuscript treatise on the Canary Islands, preserved in the archives of the country, says that he wished to see with his own eyes what the tree was. He embarked, arrived, took a guide to conduct him to a place called Tigulahe, which is separated from the sea by a valley, and there, at the extreme boundary, under a large cliff, was the holy tree, which in the country is called Garoë. Its trunk is twelve spans in circumference, four feet in diameter, and nearly forty feet in height. The branches are wide apart and tufted; its fruit resembles an acorn, and the kernel is, in colour and taste, like the little aromatic almonds which pine nuts contain. It never loses its leaves, that is to say, the old ones do not fall until the young ones are formed. On the north side, are two large stone pillars, of twenty square feet, hollowed out to a depth of twenty spans. These pillars are so placed that the water falls into one, and is preserved in the other. Vapours and mists rise almost every day from the sea, particularly in the morning, and at no great distance in the offing; these vapours are carried by the east wind against the cliffs, which block their passage, so that they cover the tree, become condensed on its smooth leaves, and run off drop by drop. The more the east wind reigns, the more abundant is the supply of water. It is distributed by a man who guards the tree. A whirlwind tore up the Garoë in 1625.[XXV_46]

XXVI.
BEVERAGES, OF WHICH WATER IS THE FOUNDATION.

Water is certainly the most ancient beverage, the most simple, natural, and the most common, which nature has given to mankind. But it is necessary to be really thirsty in order to drink water, and as soon as this craving is satisfied it becomes insipid and nauseous. What is then to be done? Cyrus would have said: “Drink no more;” so would a teetotaler of the present day. In the first ages of the world, the human race, bound by no oath of temperance, succeeded, by sheer application of their ingenuity, in finding something better, or perhaps worse, according to the ideas of certain moralists, whose wise teaching, however, commands respect. Certain it is that water, continuing to be regarded with peculiar favour, was called to play a principal part in various combinations by which it lost its insipidity and inoffensive properties, and acquired the wonderful power of provoking a sort of madness, known by the name of drunkenness.

Those beverages which man imbibes when he is no longer thirsty, which cloud his weak mind, and render him ill when in good health, are called fermented liquors.

Beer is one of the most ancient. If we are to believe Diodorus of Sicily, Bacchus himself invented it.[XXVI_1] However, it is certain that the absolute injunction not to drink wine, caused the inhabitants of Egypt to have recourse to a factitious beverage obtained from barley,[XXVI_2] often mentioned in history under the name of zythum and curmi,[XXVI_3] and whose invention has been often attributed to Osiris—which means, that its precise origin is entirely unknown.

It was a kind of beer composed of barley, and capable of being preserved for a long time without decomposing;[XXVI_4] for instead of hops, utterly unknown in that country, a bitter infusion of lupins was added.[XXVI_5]

The Egyptians also used Assyrian corn in its composition, and probably other aromatic plants, in which each one followed his peculiar taste. The method of brewing varied much among them;[XXVI_6] but the one here mentioned was that most generally in use to procure zythum in Lower Egypt, where it was converted, like our beer, into vinegar, which the Greek merchants of Alexandria exported to the European ports.[XXVI_7]

The Egyptians long drank nothing but this fermented liquor, because the followers of Osiris believed that when Jupiter crushed the Titans with thunderbolts, their blood, mixing with the earth, produced the vine. They invented the zythum as a substitute for wine.[XXVI_8]

It is not probable that the Greeks, whose wines were so renowned in antiquity, thought much of beer. Nevertheless, Aristotle[XXVI_9] mentions drunkenness being caused by drinking a beverage drawn from barley. Æschylus[XXVI_10] and Sophocles[XXVI_11] mention a liquor procured from the same cereal.

The use of beer spread rapidly in Gaul, where wine was but little known before the time of Probus. The Emperor Julian, governor of this country, acquaints us of this fact in an epigram.[XXVI_12]

The Spaniards, and the aborigines of Britany and Germany, also delightfully intoxicated themselves with an “infusion of barley,” called by the first of these nations, cœlia, ceria, cerevisia,[XXVI_13] and curmi by the two latter. These various denominations signify literally, strong water,[XXVI_14] and this fermented drink was common to the nations just indicated.[XXVI_15] All the people of Western Europe drank a strong liquor made with grain and water. The manner of preparing it was not the same in Spain, in Gaul, and elsewhere; but everywhere it possessed the same dangerous properties.

“Man,” says Pliny, “is so skilful in flattering his vices, that he has even found means to render water poisonous and intoxicating.”[XXVI_16]

The Danes and Saxons gave themselves up to an enormous consumption of zythum and curmi, kinds of ale and beer, varying in no other respect than in the manner of preparing them.[XXVI_17] The warlike piety of their ingenuous and coarse-minded heroes, desired no greater recompense, after a life of fatigue and rough combats, than to sing the praises of Odin amidst eternal banquets, where these exhilarating beverages might unceasingly maintain the joy and bravery of the warriors.[XXVI_18]

The ancient Britons had many vines, but they esteemed them only as ornaments to their gardens; and they preferred, says Cæsar, the wine of grain to that of grapes.[XXVI_19] It is historically demonstrated that the English, at a very early epoch, applied themselves to the making of beer.

It is mentioned in the laws of Ina, Chief, or King, of Wessex; and this liquor held a distinguished rank among those that appeared at a royal feast in the reign of Edward the Confessor.[XXVI_20]

Under the Normans, ale acquired a reputation it has ever since maintained. Two gallons cost only one penny in the cities; in the country, four gallons might be obtained at the same price. Happy age! happy ale drinkers! At that period—the golden age for the apostles of the Britannic Bacchus—the brewers rendered no account of the preparation of this beloved beverage. The English nation did not yet purchase the right of intoxicating themselves: it was not till the year 1643 that this authorization was to be bought.[XXVI_21]

The use of hops would appear to be of German invention. They were employed in the Low Countries at the beginning of the 14th century; but it was not till the 16th that they were appreciated in England.[XXVI_22]

Can it be true that beer or ale possessed, in certain cases, strange curative properties? We find the following fact in a statistical account of Scotland.[XXVI_23]

A poor coal miner of the county of Clackmannan, named William Hunter, had been long suffering with acute rheumatism, or obstinate gout, which deprived him of the use of his limbs. The eve of the first Monday of the year 1758, some of his neighbours came to pass the evening with him. Ale was drunk, and they got merry. The jolly fellow never failed to empty his glass at each round. Scotch ale is a seductive drink, and as perfidious as pleasure: it bewilders the senses, and finally masters the reason. William Hunter lost his, completely; but his legs were restored, and he was able to make marvellous use of them for more than twenty years. After that happy evening, never did his old enemy, the gout, dare approach him; and the worthy coal miner took care to keep it at a distance, by reiterating the remedy which had proved so beneficial. Nobody could blame him. Ale had become so dear to him! Gratitude and prudence combined to make it a duty to remain unalterably attached, and he was faithful to it till he breathed his last.

Antecedent to the use of hops beer was made in England as follows:

“To make a Hogshead of Strong Ale.—It was necessary, first of all, to make the grout, which was thus done:—Nine gallons of water was to be well boiled, and put into a brewing-vessel; when it was a little cool there was put therein three pecks of malt, which was left standing for an hour and a-half, and then it ought to be drawn off into a cooler. When it was near cold, it was put into a vessel provided for that purpose, perfectly clean, and having a cover to stop it down close. Being therein, it was closely covered down, that it might there stand to sharpen; if the weather should be cold it might require about eighteen hours, but if it was hot not quite so long. When it was ripe enough, upon the sudden opening of the vessel, the strength of the fume arising from the liquour would near, if not entirely, extinguish a lighted candle, which ought to be provided short on purpose, and holden over for the proof thereof. When the brewer was satisfied that the grout was properly ripened, he poured it forth into the copper, and boiled it moderately upon a slow fire for about an hour, constantly stirring it all the while, and to know when it was boiled enough he provided a small ashen stick, which, being alighted at the fire, he thrust suddenly into the boiling liquor, drawing it forth as quick as possible, when, if the fire on the stick remained still unextinguished, it was well boiled, but not if it were otherwise. This being done, the liquor was put into a vessel of twenty gallons, or thereabouts, and yeast put to it, that it might work, which when it had sufficiently done, it was ready for the wort to be put to it. The wort might be brewed of what strength the brewer should please, so that it did not exceed sixty gallons to the above proportion of grout. The grout being now properly ripe, and having worked enough, a quantity of the wort, sufficient to fill up the twenty-gallon vessel into which the grout is put, must be poured upon it, and then the whole drawn off into the yeeling fatt, and there, being mixed with the remainder of the wort, is left to work together, which when it hath sufficiently done, it must be strained off into the hogshead, through a hair sieve made for that purpose, where it must also work like other beer or ale.”[XXVI_24]

In the ninth year of Edward II., things being very scarce, a gallon of ale was sold for twopence, of the better sort for threepence, and of the best for fourpence; but the Londoners ordained that, in the City, a gallon of the bettermost sort of ale should be sold for three-halfpence, and of the small ale for one penny only.[XXVI_25]

Holinshed says[XXVI_26] that every kind of wine could be procured in England. “Nevertheless,” he adds, “ale and beere beare the greatest brunt in drincking, which are of so many sortes and ages as it pleaseth the brewer to make them. The beere that is used at noblemen’s tables is commonly of a yeare olde (or, peradventure, of twoo yeares’ tunning, or more, but this is not general); it is also brued in Marche, and is therefore called Marche beere; but for the household it is usually not under a monthe’s age, eache one coveting to have the same stale as he might, so that was not soure, and the breade new as possible, so that be not hote.”

Formerly, they drank beer in some parts of France—in others, wine. Perhaps it is the same now. This difference of taste gave rise to a rather jocose dispute between a grey friar and a white friar. One, who was a Fleming, was for beer; the other, who was from Bordeaux, was for wine. The Fleming cited passages without number from antiquity in proof of the excellence of beer, known by the ancients under the name of zithum, or curmi. The one from Bordeaux was not so learned, but he was a native of Bordeaux, and with one word he terminated the dispute. “Brother,” said he to his adversary, “I maintain that there is as much difference between wine and beer as there is between St. Francis and St. Dominick.” The whole community were for the Bordeaux monk, and the Fleming was reduced to silence.[XXVI_27]

Braket was formerly the cherished drink of the lower classes in England. Arnold describes the preparation of it, in his “Chronicles of London:”

“Take a pot of good ale and put thereto a porcyon of honey and pepper, in this manner:—When thou hast good ale, lete it stonde (stand) in a pott two dayes, and then drawe out a quart, or a pottell, of that ale, and putt to the honey, and set it over the fyre and let it sethe well, and take it of the fyre and scume it clene; and then sat it over the fyre and scume it agayne, and then let it keele a whyle, and put thereto the pepper, and then set hym on the fyre and let him boyle well togyder, with esy fyre, but clere. Take four gallons of good ale, a pynte of fyn tryed hony, and about a saucerful of powder of peper.”

Beer was hot unknown in Italy, but the Romans never granted it their serious attention.[XXVI_28] We will give a brief sketch of those beverages which, among them and the Greeks, replaced wine with greater or less advantage.

Convalescents, sober persons who resisted the sweet seductions of Falernian and Chios wines, drank a kind of barley-water ptisana, a sorry liquid, of which the following is the recipe for the use of the abstemious of the present day. They placed barley in water, and left it there until it swelled; it was then dried in the sun, then beaten to deprive it of its husk, and ground. Then, when it had been boiled in water for a long time, it was again exposed to the sun. When they wished to drink barley-water, a small quantity of this flour was boiled, the water was strained off, and a few drops of vinegar were added.[XXVI_29] The disciples of Comus have always shuddered at this beverage, when only mentioned.

The oxycratus was not much better. It was a mixture of water and vinegar, with which the lower orders contented themselves when they could obtain nothing more exhilarating to drink;[XXVI_30] and with which the soldiers, especially in the camp, were compelled to quench their thirst.[XXVI_31]

Some passages from Pliny, and also from other authors, prove that the ancients were acquainted with cider.[XXVI_32] It is, however, asserted that the use of this beverage goes no farther back than three or four centuries, either in England or France;[XXVI_33] but this cannot be a fact with regard to the last-named country, since the capitulars of Charlemagne place among the number of ordinary trades that of sicerator, or “cider maker.” This “wine of apples,”[XXVI_34] it is said, was very common among the Hebrews. That is possible, but it would, nevertheless, be difficult to prove it from the holy writings, since the word schecar, which has been translated by sicera, and which, again, has been rendered into cider, signifies all kinds of intoxicating beverage, whether made from grain, honey, or fruit.[XXVI_35]

Gaul, covered with forests, and swarming with bees, possessed an immense quantity of wild honey, of which, by the aid of fermentation in water, the inhabitants composed a strong and intoxicating drink, called hydromel. This beverage, highly esteemed both in Rome and Greece, was prepared in the following manner: rain water was kept some time, and then boiled until reduced to one-third, to which honey was added.[P] This mixture was exposed to the sun for the space of forty days; it was then placed in a vessel, and by these means they obtained, in time, a vinous hydromel very similar to our Madeira wine.[XXVI_36] To make oxymel, still more heady, ten pounds of honey were mixed with two pints and a half of old vinegar, and one pound of sea-salt; the whole boiled only an instant in five pints of water. This liquor was left to get very old.[XXVI_37]

Juice of quinces and honey, boiled in water, produced hydromelon, a delicious drink, which our century might envy the delicate drinkers of Athens and Rome,[XXVI_38] especially when roses had been added to this nectar, which changed it into hydrorosatum.[XXVI_39]

The apomeli was nothing more than water in which honeycomb had been boiled.[XXVI_40] Omphacomeli, an ingenious mixture of honey and verjuice, quenched thirst during the summer, and produced that agreeable gaiety which is to drunkenness what doziness is to sleep.[XXVI_41]

A mixture of honey and juice of myrtle seed, of course diluted with water, composed myrtites, the aromatic flavour of which flattered the palate, and rendered the breath more sweet.[XXVI_42] Sometimes pomegranates were substituted for the myrtle, and it was then called rhoites, and possessed an agreeable and pungent flavour.[XXVI_43]

Wine made of dates enjoyed a general esteem in the east. The Romans, who knew also how to appreciate it, prepared it by throwing into water some common, though very ripe, dates; and when they had well soaked, they were put under a press.[XXVI_44] The same means were employed to procure fig wine; but often the sediment of grapes was used instead of water, to prevent its being too sweet.[XXVI_45]

“Artificial wines” were also procured by the aid of several other kinds of fruits, such as sorbs, medlars, and mulberries.[XXVI_46] Fermentation dispelled the sweet and insipid flavour which generally distinguishes these fruits; and, at the commencement of a repast, the guests swallowed with delight large cups of these beverages.[XXVI_47]

It was also the custom to serve very cold water, in which certain plants had been infused, and which was freshened by being surrounded with snow after it had been boiled for some time. The invention of this iced water is attributed to the Emperor Nero, who made great use of it; and who appears to have bitterly regretted it when, dethroned and flying from his assassins, he was constrained through excessive thirst to drink muddy water from a ditch. The unfortunate Cæsar then, for the first time, thought of the strange vicissitudes of fortune, and casting a sorrowful glance at the disgusting fluid he held in his hand, “Alas!” he exclaimed, with a sigh, “is this the iced water that Nero drank?”[XXVI_48]

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