RED MULLET.
Philoxenes, of Cythera, supped one night with Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily. It happened that the prince was served with a magnificent mullet, whereas a very small one was presented to his guest. The philosopher took his fish in his hand, and, with a very serious air, held it to his ear. Dionysius asked him what he was doing. “I am busy with my Galathea,” replied Philoxenes, “and I am questioning him on the subject of Nerea; but I can obtain no answer from him, because he was taken at too early an age. I am certain, however, that the other, evidently much older, which lies before you, is perfectly well acquainted with what I wish to know.” The tyrant, who happened that evening to be in a good humour, laughed at the joke, and offered the larger mullet to the witty gastronomist.[XXI_44]
The unbridled and cruel luxury of ancient Rome required that this fish should be cooked by a slow fire, on the table and under a glass, that the guests might gloat on its sufferings before they satiated their appetites with its flesh.[XXI_45] It is true this barbarous gratification was very expensive, and it was necessary to be very rich to indulge in it—consequently it was decidedly very fashionable, quite natural, and in the very best taste.
Ordinary mullets weighed about 2 lbs.;[XXI_46] these hardly deserved that their dying agonies should for an instant amuse the guests; they were worth only about £15 or £20 each. But sometimes fortune threw in their way much larger ones; and the opulent amateur esteemed himself only too fortunate when he could obtain a fish of three[XXI_47] or four pounds[XXI_48] for a much higher sum than he had paid for the slave, tutor of his children.
Crispinus was fond of mullets. He obtained one weighing four or six pounds, for which the fishmonger asked only £60.[XXI_49] This was giving it away; and certainly the man did not understand his trade. Crispinus, on becoming the possessor of this wonderful treasure, was astonished at his good fortune, and the whole of Rome long refused to believe it.
In the reign of Tiberius, three of these fish were sold for 30,000 sesterces,[XXI_50] or £209 9s. 8d.; and this emperor was one day generous enough to give up to P. Octavius, for the low price of 5,000 sesterces, a very fine mullet which had just been presented to him.[XXI_51]
And yet some persons of culinary authority paid but little attention to the flesh of this delicate fish; they sought only the liver and head; and if they paid for it so dearly, it was solely to find some few mouthfuls more in these two parts,[XXI_52] to which caprice, enthusiasm, that fever of admiration, and we know not what extraordinary gastronomic rage, gave an inestimable price, which at the present day excites only a smile of incredulity.
Pliny speaks of a mullet caught in the red sea, which weighed eighty pounds.[XXI_53] “At how much,” adds this great naturalist, “would it have been valued had they caught it in the environs of Rome!” We may suppose, without the least exaggeration, that many a senator would have offered £1,500 to become its possessor.
It is thus that the mistress of the world foolishly dissipated in ephemeral whims the immense treasures poured into her lap by tributary kings—conquered and spoliated nations. Each day her patricians, knights, and nobles, tired of their importunate opulence, solicited new diversions, and invented new excesses. The mullet for a moment satisfied their prodigality, and amused their barbarity; but Heliogabalus appeared, and he imagined prodigies of gluttony which excited at once admiration and envy. The liver of this fish appeared to him too paltry; he took it into his head to be served with large dishes completely filled with the gills.[XXI_54] Now, we know that the mullet possesses only two. This dish, whose price would have enriched a hundred families, was worthy of the Sardanapalus of Rome, who, at the age of eighteen, had exhausted the treasures of the empire, and whom a violent death seized most à propos, at the moment when he had attained the extreme limits of crime and infamy.
The Romans served the mullet with a seasoning of pepper, rue, onions, dates, and mustard, to which they added the flesh of the sea hedge-hog reduced to a pulp, and oil.[XXI_55]
When the liver alone was to be eaten, it was cooked, and then seasoned with pepper, salt, or a little garum—some oil was added, and hare’s or fowl’s liver, and then oil was poured over the whole.[XXI_56]
The Greeks knew how to appreciate the mullet. They thought highly of those caught on their own shores[XXI_57], and placed them in the first rank of the most exquisite dishes of their delicate cookery.
“It is with the eggs of mullets, when salted, pressed, washed, and dried, that the preparation known as botargo or botarcha is made. It is very recherché in Italy, and other southern countries, as a seasoning.”—Dr. Cloquet.