Lettuces, olives, pomegranates, Damascus plums,[XXXV_40] tastefully arranged on silver dishes,[XXXV_41] serve to encircle dormice, prepared with honey and poppy juice,[XXXV_42] forcemeat balls of crab, lobster, or cray-fish, prepared with pepper, cummin, and benzoin root.[XXXV_43] A little further, champignon and egg sausages, prepared with garum,[XXXV_44] are placed by the side of pheasant sausages, a delicious mixture of the fat of that bird, chopped very small, and mixed with pepper, gravy, and sweet sun-made wine, to which a small quantity of hydrogarum is added.[XXXV_45] Tempting as these delicate viands may be, the practised epicureans seem to have a decided preference for peacocks’ eggs, which they open with spoons. These eggs, a master-piece of the culinary artist, who presides over Seba’s stoves, are composed of a fine perfumed paste, and contain, each one, a fat, roasted, ortolan surrounded with yolk of egg, and seasoned with pepper.[XXXV_46]
We will not go through the list of all the dishes which composed the antecœna. The nomenclature was offered, according to custom, to the guests of the rich freed-man, but the reader would doubtless think it a little tiresome. We must, however, inform him, that the true gastronomists—and there were many at that banquet—did no more than give note of preparation to their appetite, by plying it with pickled radishes,[XXXV_47] some few grasshoppers of a particular species, fried with garum,[XXXV_48] grey peas, and olives fresh from their brine.[XXXV_49]
DESCRIPTION OF [PLATE No. XXX.]
No. 1. A Greek Etruscan vase, or amphora, of terra cotta, for wine and water, commonly placed on the dinner table.—Hamilton.
No. 2. A Greek terra cotta vase, for a particular wine.—Caylus.
No. 3. Etruscan terra cotta vase, to hold wine on the table.—Caylus.
No. 4. A glass amphora, or vase, of large dimensions, for Falernian wine.
All found at Herculaneum.—Saint-Non.
