The chief baker or butler, whose punishment and death Joseph foretold, when he interpreted that officer’s dream, was an Egyptian, and belonged to King Pharaoh.[IV_18]
Hitherto an infallible book has been our guide; let us now dive into the dark and almost boundless regions of fabulous antiquity.
The most frightful god of which the fevered imagination of man could possibly form an idea—a god with the face and legs of a goat, the horrible Pan!—according to some credulous writers, taught mortals the art of making and baking bread. The name even of this food, they say, furnishes an incontestable proof of this assertion.[IV_19] You are mistaken, reply more sensible writers; it is in the Greek word pan, signifying all, that we must seek the etymology of this nutritious substance, which accompanies all other aliments, takes their place if needful, and agrees equally with all mankind.[IV_20]
This, one would think, is conclusive; but the learned, the philologist, and every Procrustes of literature, protests against a halt with so fair a field before him. It is from the word pascere,[IV_21] proudly exclaims another interpreter, that the substantive, bread, is derived.[IV_22] This word has been rather disfigured on its way: think of the length of time it has been travelling down to us.
Ceres taught the Greeks how to cultivate corn; they learned from Megalarte and Megalomaze how to knead flour and bake it in ovens.[IV_23] The gratitude of the Bœotians erected statues and altars to their memories, and shortly after, Greece could boast of having obtained the most skilful bakers in the world. The bread of Athens and Megara had a well deserved reputation: its whiteness dazzled the eye, and its taste was exquisite.[IV_24] This voluptuous and fickle nation very soon began to tire of so intelligent and simple a manipulation, and must needs mix with the paste a host of ingredients which greatly altered its flavour: and seventy-two different sorts of bread[IV_25] took birth from the scientific association of milk, oil, honey, cheese, and wine with the best flour.[IV_26] All these varieties were called by the generic name of artos, bread; to which was added an epithet which prevented the mistaking of one kind for another.
The bread-market at Athens was very amusing; women (for the fair sex busied themselves with this trade) waited, seated, by the side of their baskets until Mercury should send them customers, and woe to those who came late, or whose evil genius led them to find fault with either the quality, quantity, or price of the goods. Have you ever heard the ladies of Billingsgate playing off their pleasant jokes on a timid countryman, or a foreigner, whose accent had betrayed him? It is a running fire of puns and crude picturesque expressions which nothing can resist; our Greek market-women would have been more than a match for them—can we bestow upon them greater praise?[IV_27]
Some of them sold azumos, a delicate sort of biscuit, but rather tasteless, prepared without leaven;[IV_28] others—irresistible syrens—invited children to taste of the relishing artolaganos, in which a renowned baker had the talent of introducing wine, pepper, oil, and milk.[IV_29]
Here the sparkling eyes of a rich epicurean were on the look out for some escarites, a very light paste, seasoned with new sweet wine and honey,[IV_30] and which was relished even by fatigued appetites at the close of a repast.[IV_31] The poorer people made their choice among heaps of dolyres, or typhes: they were coarse compounds of rye and barley;[IV_32] the ladies of fashion (petites maitresses) preferred the puff cakes called placites,[IV_33] or the sweet melitutes, whose exquisite and perfumed flour was delicately kneaded with the precious honey of Mount Hymettus.[IV_34] Lastly, the robust workman of the Pyræus bought the tyrontes, bread mixed with cheese,[IV_35] which the higher classes of society in Athens abhorred, and which even the middling classes excluded from their tables.
Let us add to this imperfect enumeration, that the Greeks baked their bread in several different manners: some in ovens, others under ashes, over charcoal, or between two pieces of iron, similar to our gauffre moulds, and under a bell, or cover of some metal with a rim round the top, and fire over it.[IV_36] For making a batch of bread, they employed nine pounds six ounces of leaven to twelve bushels of flour.[IV_37] With regard to their ovens, in the construction of which they excelled, they always took particular care to place them near a handmill,[IV_38] in order that the various processes that the wheat had to undergo should take place with ease and promptitude.
The Romans were for a long time Pultiphagists, or eaters of gruel, &c.;[IV_39] and it would be difficult to ascertain with accuracy the precise period at which they gave a preference to bread; they no doubt knew of it before the year 365 of Rome, for, at the siege of the Capitol by the Gauls, Jupiter, who protected the besieged, thought of nothing better to get them out of their difficulties than to appear at night to their general, Manlius, and to give him the following advice: “Make,” said he, “bread with all the flour you have left in store, and throw it to the enemy to show them that Rome has no apprehension of being reduced by famine.” This stratagem, worthy of a Merry Andrew, pleased Manlius so much, that he immediately put it into execution. The Gauls fled, Master Jupiter was highly delighted with the trick he had played, and thereby the Romans got rid of this swarm of barbarians.[IV_40]