CHEESE.
A demi-god, Aristæus, the son of Apollo, and King of Arcadia, invented cheese,[XVIII_39] and the whole of Greece welcomed with gratitude this royal and almost divine present. Sober individuals willingly ate some at their meals;[XVIII_40] gluttons perceived that it sharpened the appetite; and great drinkers that it provoked copious libations. Thus the aged Nestor, wise as he was, brought wine to Machaon, who had just been wounded in the right arm, and did not fail to add to it goat cheese and an onion, to force him to drink more.[XVIII_41]
This food was also well known to the Hebrews, and the holy writings sometimes mention it.[XVIII_42]
Mare’s milk, or that of the ass, makes an excellent cheese, but much inferior to that procured from the camel, for which an epicure could not pay too dearly. Cow-milk cheese, although more fat and unctuous, was only considered as third-rate.[XVIII_43]
The Phrygians made exquisite cheese by artistically mixing the milk of asses and mares. The Scythians only employed the former; the Greeks imitated them.[XVIII_44] The Sicilians also mixed the milk of goats and ewes.[XVIII_45]
The Romans smoked their cheeses, to give them a sharp taste; they possessed public places expressly for this use, and subject to police regulations which no one could evade.[XVIII_46]
In the time of Pliny, little goat cheeses, which were much esteemed, were sent every morning to the market for the sale of dainties, from the environs of Rome.[XVIII_47] With the addition of a little bread, they formed the breakfast of sober and delicate persons. Asia Minor, Tuscany, the Alps, Gaul, and Nîmes especially, furnished very good ones for the tables of the Romans,[XVIII_48] who sought in preference certain sweet and soft qualities. The greater part of barbarous nations esteemed only the strong cheese.[XVIII_49]
The Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, always kept some of these last for the provision of their armies, and it was among them a military aliment.[XVIII_50] The Athenians fed their wrestlers with it,[XVIII_51] and it was the sole treat of the shepherds of Italy.[XVIII_52]
The lower classes and country people prepared with cheese and various salted substances a dish they thought most relishing, and which epicureans only mentioned with horror. This was called tyrotarichus, and Cicero often employs this word to designate a frugal style of cookery.[XVIII_53]
Besides those countries celebrated for the goodness of cheeses already mentioned, there is Tromelia, in Achaia,[XVIII_54] and the Island of Cythnus, where they represented their cheeses on their money, an ingenious manner of making them known, which succeeded wonderfully well; and lastly, Salonia, a city of Bithynia, renowned for its rich pastures, where numerous herds of cows were kept, and whose milk furnished an exquisite kind known by the name of Salonite cheese.[XVIII_55] It appears to have been often served to the Emperor Augustus, who ate it with brown bread, little fish, and fresh figs.[XVIII_56]