Before that it was an unappreciated vegetable; it came forth, blossomed, and disappeared, without utility and without renown.
It was not thus with grey peas (pois chiche), which flourished at a very remote period, and are mentioned in the sacred writings.[VIII_28] The common people of Rome and Greece made them their ordinary food. They ate them boiled or fried; a rather disagreeable dish, according to the caustic Martial,[VIII_29] who, however, speaks with disdain of every kind of peas, in whatsoever manner they may be prepared.
Nevertheless, the satirical humour of this celebrated poet did not prevent this vegetable from being universally sold; and men, women, and children regaled, and even gorged, themselves, with fried grey peas,[VIII_30] or ram peas (cicer arietinum), a singular name, for which they were indebted to the slight asperity remarkable in each of the grains.[VIII_31]
At the Circus, and in the theatres, they were sold at a low price to the spectators, whom it seemed impossible to satiate with this delicacy, although it has so little attraction for us.[VIII_32] In short, the nation of kings had so decided a taste for grey peas, that those who coveted public employment did not fail to distribute them gratuitously to the people, in order to obtain their suffrages.[VIII_33] We must acknowledge that in those days votes were obtained at a very cheap rate.
LENTILS.
The Egyptians, whose ideas were sometimes most eccentric, imagined it was sufficient to feed children with lentils to enlighten their minds, open their hearts, and render them cheerful. That people, therefore, consumed an immense quantity of this vegetable, which from infancy had been their principal food.[VIII_34]
The Greeks also highly esteemed this aliment, and their ancient philosophers regaled themselves with lentils. Zeno would not trust to any one the cooking of them; it is true that the stoics had for their maxim: “A wise man acts always with reason, and prepares his lentils himself.”[VIII_35] We must confess that the great wit of these words escapes us, although we are willing to believe there is some in them.
However it may be, lentils were abundant in Greece and in the East; and many persons, otherwise very sensible, maintained, with the most serious countenance in the world, that they softened the temper and disposed the mind to study.[VIII_36]
It is hardly necessary to observe that this plant was well known to the Hebrews. The red pottage of lentils for which Esau sold his birthright,[VIII_37] the present of Shobi to David,[VIII_38] the victory of Shammah in the field of lentils,[VIII_39] and, lastly, the bread of Ezekiel,[VIII_40] sufficiently prove that the Jews numbered this vegetable as one of those in ordinary use among them.