Plutarch tells us that Symmachus and Polycrates wrote treatises to prove that the “innocent fishes” should be respected, and that they who ate of them were among the most ferocious of men. According to Columella, however, Apollo was called ίκθηφαγος by the Greeks, because they considered that the god of music, poetry, and eloquence should only feed on the most delicate and dainty diet; and such the Greeks considered fish. It is curious that the epithet “innocent” is also applied to fish, naturally most voracious, by St. Augustine. “Fishes were spared from the malediction,” says this father of the Church, “because it was not the fish of the sea, but the fruits of the earth which contributed to the fall of our first parents.” Whatever Plutarch or Augustine may say to the contrary, however, fish was used as a diet by the earliest Christians; and none were more celebrated in increasing the breed of fish, whether on the Continent or in England, than the earlier Churchmen—the much abused monks of the middle ages.
There is, in truth, no more wholesome or palatable diet than good fish; and one dish of fish, and sometimes two, is generally found at a gentleman’s dinner-table in England, if he entertains a family-party of four or six. But though we have the finest fish in the world in this country, we do not dress it in the variety of ways in which it is served in France. Unless immediately after the soup, we seldom eat fish, whereas in most Continental countries it is served dressed as an entrée, and in this manner it is most wholesome, as well as very relishing.
Probably, turbot, during the height of the London season, is more frequently seen than any other fish at English dinner-tables. It is almost always plainly boiled and served with lobster sauce, whereas in France it is served in fifteen or twenty ways, at the least, as will appear from the following list:—
- Turbot sauce flamande.
- Turbot sauce hollandaise.
- Emincé de turbot à la Béchamel au maigre.
- Emincé au gratin garni de pommes de terre.
- Escalope de turbot aux truffes, sauce Périgueux.
- Sauté de turbot sauce au beurre et aux queues d’écrevisses.
- Sauté de turbot sauce aux fines herbes et aux huitres.
- Sauté de turbot sauce à la génoise.
- Filets de turbot à la Sainte Ménéhould.
- Filets de turbot pannés a l’allemande.
- Filets à l’anglaise sauce aux chevrettes.
- Papillotes des filets de turbot à la maître d’hôtel.
- Orly de turbot.
- Fritot de turbot à la provençale, &c.
Juvenal, in his fourth Satire, tells us what store Roman epicures set on turbot, and gives a description of the company assembled by order of Domitian to pronounce on the goodness of the fish. The graphic pages of Suetonius, the vigorous periods of Tacitus, and the scourging satire of Juvenal, were employed to show up the vices of Domitian. Berchoux, in his poem “La Gastronomie,” thus paraphrases Juvenal:—
“Domitien un jour se présente au sénat:
Pères conscrits, dit-il, un affaire d’état
M’appelle auprès de vous. Je ne viens point vous dire
Qu’il s’agit de vieller au salut de l’empire;