The art of cooking with its innumerable paraphernalia of sauces with gravy, pepper, cinnamon, garlic, scallion, brains,[XXII_34] with its gravy soups,
milk pottage, and ragoûts, had a signal triumph at the wedding of Charles VI. of France. On that occasion a skilful cook covered the great black marble table of the royal palace[XXII_35] with a hundred dishes prepared in a hundred different ways.
The good physicians did not proscribe the art of cooking; several of their number even deigned to write treatises upon it.[XXII_36]
A certain monkish servant, moved by an indiscreet zeal, wished not only to mortify himself but all the Franciscans of the monastery. Consequently, he prepared the repasts in the worst manner he could. But the community held a chapter, and he was condemned to receive fifty lashes; many of the monks wanted to enforce a more rigorous discipline by giving a hundred.[XXII_37]
In the middle ages, the cook of a house of any note always seated himself in a high arm chair to give his orders; he held a long wooden spoon in his hand, with which he tasted, without quitting his place, the various dishes that were cooking on the stoves and in the saucepans, and which served him also as a weapon with which to chastise the idle and gluttonous.[XXII_38]
THE KITCHEN.
Let as enter together one of those vast kitchens, where two thousand years ago, the marvellous suppers of some rich senator were concocted. In every direction, slaves are coming loaded with meat, game, sea-fish, vegetables, fruit, and those expensive delicacies of which the dessert of the Romans was principally composed. The slaves have been over the principal markets of the city, especially those of the Trigemina gate,