The Romans were fond of brine,—water in which bay-salt had been dissolved,—as a seasoning; and after dinner, those who could not guess the riddles that were put to them, were punished, like the refractory gentlemen at the Nightingale Club, by being compelled to swallow a cupful, without drawing breath. Apicius invented a composition made up of salt, pepper, ginger, thyme, celery, rocket, and anise-seed, with lamoni, wild marjoram, holy thistle, spikenard, parsley, and hyssop, as a specific to be taken, after heavy dinners, against indigestion. They who could digest the remedy need not have been afraid of the dinner.
That universal seasoning of the classical world, the garum, was originally a shrimp sauce; but it was subsequently made of the intestines of almost any fish, macerated in water, saturated with salt; and when symptoms of putrefaction began to appear, a little parsley and vinegar were added; and there was the famous garum, of which the inventors were so proud,—and particularly of a garum which was prepared in Spain. Flesh instead of fish was occasionally used, with no difference in the process of preparation; and it would be difficult to say which was the nastier. But, perhaps, if we could see the witchery of preparing any of our own flavouring sauces, we should be reluctant ever to allow a drop of the polluted mixture to pass our lips. There is a bliss in ignorance.
Pythagoras showed better taste in the science of seasonings, when he took to eating nothing but honey wherewith to flavour his bread. Hybla sounds sweet, the very word smells sweet, from its association with honey. Aristæus, who is said to have discovered its use, merited the patent of nobility, whereby he was declared to have descended from the gods; and the placing the honeycomb and its makers under the protection of Mellona, expressly made by men for this purpose, was a proof of the value in which they were held. Theophrastus placed sugar among the honeys,—the honey of reeds,—or the “salt of India,” as some strangely called it. The Greek physicians recommended its use, both as food and as flavourer. It was at one time as scarce as cinnamon,—that precious bark of which the phœnix made its nest, and which the Cæsars monopolized. Cinnamon and cloves were not employed in seasoning until a comparatively modern period. The good people of earlier days preferred verjuice, in certain cases prescribed by Galen. They seemed to have a taste for acids: hence the admiration, both in Greece and Rome, for vinegar and pickles. Vinegar figured in the army statistics of Rome especially; but it once, at least, figured in a still more remarkable way in the statistics of the French army, in the time of Louis XIII., when the Duc de la Meilleraye, Grand Master of the Artillery of France, put down £52,000 as the sum expended by him in cooling cannons. How hot the war must have been, and at what a price the fever must have been maintained, when the merely refrigerating process cost so much!
French epicures maintain that the pig was born to be “ringed,” and that his mission was to rout at the foot of the yoke-elm trees, and turn up truffles! Pliny gravely looked upon the truffle as a prodigy sown by the thunderbolt in autumnal storms. However this may be, all lovers of good things eat the truffle with a sort of devout ecstasy, in spite of the wide differences of opinion which exist among the faculty of guessers, as to whether the truffle be nutritious or poisonous, fit for food, or monster sire of indigestion. The fact is, that they should be delicately dealt with, like mushrooms; of which he who eats little is wise, and he who eats not of them at all is safe from blaming them for bringing on indigestion—as far as he is concerned.
The truffle is thus elaborately, yet not verbosely, described by Archimagirus Soyer: “The truffle is a very remarkable vegetable, which, without stems, roots, or fibres, grows of itself, isolated in the bosom of the earth, absorbing the nutritive juice. Its form is round, more or less regular; its surface is smooth, or tuberculous; the colour, dark brown outside, brown, grey, or white within. Its tissue is formed of articulated filaments, between which are spheric vesicles, and in the interior are placed reproductive bodies, small brown spheres, called ‘truffinelles.’ Truffles vegetate to the depth of five or six inches in the high sandy soils of the south-west of France, Piedmont, &c. Their mode of vegetation and reproduction is not known. (?) Dogs are trained to find them, as well as pigs, and boars also, who are very fond of them. They are eaten cooked under the ashes, or in wine and water. They are preserved when prepared in oil, which is soon impregnated with their odour. Poultry is stuffed with them; also geese’s livers, pies, and cooked pork, besides numerous ragoûts. They possess, as it is said, exciting virtues.” The latter, we suppose, is a paraphrase for the sentiment of “Falstaff,” before cited, “It rains potatoes!” Shell-fish had the same reputation in the olden time. “Tene marsupium,” says Italius to Olympio, in the Rudens:—
“Abi atque obsonia propera; sed lepidè volo
Molliculas escas, ut ipsa mollicula est.”
As for the mushroom, if it be not in itself deadly, it has been made the vehicle of death. Agrippina poisoned Claudius in one, and Nero, his successor, had a respect for this production ever after. Tiberius, in Pagan, and Clement VII., in Papal, Rome, as well as Charles VI. of France, are also said to have been “approximately” killed by mushrooms. Seneca calls them “voluptuous poison,” and of this poison his countrymen ate heartily, and suffered dreadfully. The mushroom was not rendered harmless by the process of Nicander,—raising them under the shadow of a well-irrigated and richly-manured fig-tree.
One of the most perfect illustrations of “sauce,” in its popular sense, with which I am acquainted, is conveyed in the reply once given by a French Curé to his Bishop. It is a regulation made by canonical law, that a Priest cannot keep a female servant to manage his household, unless she be of the assigned age of, at least, forty years. It once happened that a Bishop dined with a Curé, at whose house the Prelate had arrived in the course of a visitation tour. On that occasion he found that they were waited on at dinner by two quietly pretty female attendants, of some twenty years each. When diocesan and subordinate were once more alone, the former remarked on the uncanonical condition of the household, and asked the Curé if he were not aware that, by rule of church, he could maintain but one menagère, who must have attained, at least, forty years of age? “I am quite aware of it, Monseigneur,” said the rubicund Curé; “but, as you see, I prefer having my housekeeper in two volumes!”
With respect to the use of spices, it may be safely said, that the less they are used, the better for the stomach. A soupçon of them in certain preparations is not to be objected to; but it must be recollected that in most cases, however pleasant they may be to the palate, the apparent vigour which they give to the stomach is at the expense of the liver, and the reaction leaves the former in a worse condition than it was in before.