[39.] Thrush, Turdus.) The Romans included several birds under this name.
[40.] Salsamenta, which are salted and dried. Vide [note] at chap. 2. book i.
[41.] Lacertus et aurata.) I have chosen rather to retain the Latin appellations of these fish, and several more, than to follow the conjectures of the moderns, where they are not agreed. Aurata is taken for the gilt-head, corvus, a cabot, oculata, eye-fish, resembling a lizard, plani, flat fish, or the turbot kind, lupus some will have the pike, others sturgeon. Mullus, barbett, or mullet.—See Pliny who describes them.
[42.] Four footed animal.) I have here rejected the particle vel, according to the older reading; because our author would never say, A quadruped or any animal that is sucking, &c. since no other sucking animals are used for food but quadrupeds.
[43.] Soft or sorbile.) The first by Dioscorides is called ἀπαλὸν, and the second ῥοφητὸν. Humelbergius in his notes upon Apicius de re Coquinar. takes the first to be eggs boiled soft without their shell, by us called poached eggs.
[44.] Alica is reckoned among the vernal seeds. It is a species of wheat which degenerates after being sown in soils not proper for it, as in Africa, where it has the name of zea. It is ground to meal, and the husks taken from it, and then chalk is added to it, which renders it exceedingly white and soft. The best chalk for this purpose is found between Puteoli and Naples. A common way of counterfeiting it is to take the largest and whitest grains of wheat, and after parboiling these, and drying them in the sun, to sprinkle them, and after drying a second time, to grind them. Plin. lib. xviii. cap. 7. and 11. The same author says, this is an invention of the Romans, and not very old, unknown to the Greeks, otherwise they would not have bestowed so many encomiums upon their ptisan; because it was not mentioned by any of the followers of Asclepiades, he believed it was not used in the time of Pompey the Great. Id. lib. xxii. cap. 25.
[45.] Pulse.) Pulticula is a diminutive of puls, which was a very ancient kind of food, made of meal, water, honey, or with cheese and eggs boiled, which, according to Pliny, the Romans used for many years, before they knew bread.
[46.] Passum.) Columella’s method of making passum (from Mago) is this—Gather the early grapes thoroughly ripe, and throw away what stones are either dry or rotten. Expose them to the sun in the daytime, and cover them at night from the dew. When they are dried, take out the stones—then put them into a cask, and add as much of the best must as to cover them; when the grapes are macerated and filled, on the sixth day take them out and press them, and thus draw off the passum. Columell. lib. xii. cap. 39. This resembles nothing in modern use so much as raisin wine. Other inferior kinds were also prepared, for which see Columella in the same chapter, and Pliny, lib. xiv. cap. 9.
[47.] Starch, amylum, so called from its being prepared without a mill. Though the process among the ancients differed a little from the present, yet the effect of the operation is the same.—See Dioscorid. lib. ii. cap. 311.
[48.] Tragum was made from wheat in the same manner as ptisan from barley. Plin. lib. xviii. cap. 7.