ST. HULDRYCHE.
“Wheresoever Huldryche hath his place, the people there brings in
Both capes and pykes, and mullets fat, his favour here to win.
Amid the church there sittieth one, and to the aultar nie,
That selleth fish, and so good cheep, that every man may buie;
Nor any thing he loseth here, bestowing thus his paine,
For when it hath beene offred once, ’tis brought him all againe,
That twise or thrise he selles the same, vngodlinesse such gaine
Both still bring in, and plentiously the kitchen doth maintaine,
Whence comes this same religion newe? What kind of God is this,
Same Huldryche here, that so desires and so delightes in fishe?”[XXI_28]
An ordinance of King John informs us that, in the 14th century, people eat porpoises and even seals.[XXI_29] In the days of the troubadours, they fished for dolphins and whales in the Mediterranean, and the flesh of these sea monsters was considered excellent.[XXI_30]
STURGEON.
This enormous cartilaginous inhabitant of the ocean, the Mediterranean, the Red, Black, and Caspian Seas, received from the Greeks, after its death, honours in which none of the most delicate or renowned fish participated. It was announced to the guests by the sound of trumpets; and slaves, magnificently dressed, placed it on the table in the midst of garlands and flowers.[XXI_31]
Joy brightened every face; a more generous wine filled fresh goblets, and some flatterers—for the sturgeon possessed many—with eyes fixed on the noble accipenser, compared its flesh to the ambrosia of the immortals.[XXI_32]
The high price of the sturgeon contributed in no small degree to such brilliant praise. This king of banquets would have ruined a modest citizen of Athens, and hardly did the exiguity of its proportions permit its figuring among the expensive rarities of an Attic supper, when it had cost only a thousand drachms, or about £16 sterling.[XXI_33]