Little need be said with regard to this charming animal, whose slender and graceful form was the admiration of those who visited the parks of Lucullus and Hirpinus. Its flesh was thought to be less wholesome than that of the roebuck, because it was found to be less succulent.[XIX_63] Apicius has consecrated to it four culinary recipes, all very similar.
Deer à la Marcellus.—Put into a saucepan pepper, gravy, rue, and onions; add honey, garum, cooked wine, and a little oil. Boil very slowly, thicken with flour, and pour the whole on the deer when roasted.[XIX_64]
THE WILD BOAR.
It was in the year 63 before the Christian era: the consul Marcus Tullius Cicero had just accused and convicted Catilina, and Rome, free from present danger, had forgotten all transitory solicitudes of the past to welcome joyous banquetings.
A worthy citizen, excellent patriot, distinguished gastronomist, and possessor of an immense fortune, of which he made the best use (at least so said several choice epicures, his habitual guests), Survilius Rullus—such was his name—thought of celebrating by an extraordinary banquet the triumph of the illustrious consul, and the deliverance of the country. His cook, a young Sicilian slave of the greatest promise, and whose mode of cooking a dish of sows’ paps procured him one day a smile of approbation from Lucullus, succeeded especially in those eminent performances which command the admiration of the guests, and give new strength to their exhausted appetites.
Rullus sent for him, and spoke thus: “Recollect that in three days Cicero will sup here: let the feast be worthy of him who gives it.”
The Sicilian even surpassed himself. As soon as the guests had tasted the enticing delicacies of the first course, the hall echoed with an unanimous concert of applause, and the proud Amphitryon, intoxicated with joy, was going to ask that a crown might be presented to his beloved slave,[XIX_65] when the cook appeared, followed by four Ethiopians, who gracefully carried a silver vase of prodigious dimensions, in the shape of a large mortar. This extraordinary dish contained a wild boar; baskets of dates were suspended to his tusks, and charming little wild boars, in exquisite pastry, no doubt—for never was there a more tempting culinary exhalation—artistically surrounded the enormous animal.[XIX_66] Every voice was hushed; the guests waited in silence the most profound.[XIX_67] The tables of the second service were placed round the guests, who raised themselves on the couches with greedy curiosity. The blacks deposited the precious burden before another domestic, a skilful carver, who opened the wild boar with incredible dexterity and precision, and presented to the astonished eyes of Rullus and his friends a second entire animal, and in this a third; then came fresh delicacies, all gradually diminishing in size, until, at length, a delicious little figpecker terminated this series of strange viands, of which Rome, wondering and astonished, long preserved the gastronomic remembrance.[XIX_68]
Man seldom prescribes to himself reasonable limits in the vast field of vanity and ostentation. At first it was thought an enviable boldness to have dared to serve an entire boar of a large size. Every one did the same thing, and at length it became quite common. It was necessary then to do better. One thought of having three at the same time; another had four; and soon the extravagant—and they were not few—caused eight wild boars à la Troyenne to appear at a single repast.[XIX_69] The Macedonian, Caranus, a man of spirit and of merit, placed himself at once on an eminence which baffled rivalry. He invited twenty guests to his wedding, and he had twenty wild boars served.[XIX_70]
It must be confessed that such magnificence rather resembles folly; but, alas! has not every nation its failings? Besides, the flesh of the wild boar enjoyed an astonishing reputation in Rome and Greece,[XIX_71] and no one could, with credit to himself, receive his friends at his table without presenting them with the fashionable dish,—the animal appointed by nature to appear at banquets.[XIX_72]