Table traits, with something on them

by Dr. Doran

The good are very good indeed;

The bad, not fit for pigs.

The authorities of Attica were so fond of their figs, that they passed a law against the exportation of the fruit. The advocates of free trade in figs broke the law when they could do so with profit; and the men who affected to be on friendly terms with them, in order to betray their proceedings to the Magistrates, were called by a name which is now given to all fawning traitors,—they were styled, sycophants, or “fig-declarers.” Even the philosophers in Greece became greedy in presence of figs; and with figs famished armies have been braced anew for the fight. The athletæ ate of them before appearing in the arena; and more than one invasion has been traced to the taste of the invader for figs. Medical men were divided in opinion as to the merits of this fruit. It was considered indigestible; but, to remedy that, almonds were recommended to be eaten with it! The Romans, perhaps, were wiser, who took pepper with them, as we do with melon; and Dr. Madden says that we should never eat figs at all, if we could only spend half an hour in Smyrna, and see them packed. So, as I have before said, a sight of the kitchen, just before dinner, would take away appetite; but as people do not commonly go to Smyrna, or sit with their cooks, why, figs and dinners will continue to be eaten. Modern professors have resembled ancient philosophers in an uncontrollable appetite for figs. Who has not heard of the famous Oxford fig, which, in its progress to luscious maturity, was protected by an inscription appended to it, conveying information to the effect that “this is the Principal’s fig!” which a daring Undergraduate one day devoured, and added insult to injury by changing the old placard for one on which was written, “A fig for the Principal?” The felonious fig-stealer must have been more rapid in his sacrilege, than the poet Thomson was in his method of enjoying his own peaches in his garden at Kew. Attired in the loosest and dirtiest of morning-gowns, the author of the “Castle of Indolence” used to watch his peaches ripening in the sun. When he saw one bursting with liquid promise, he was too lazy to take his unwashed hands from his well-worn pockets, and pluck the blushing treasure. No; “Jamie” simply sauntered up to it, contemplated it for a moment with a yawn, and finished his yawn by biting a piece out of the fruit,—leaving the ghastly remains on the branch for wasps and birds to divide between them.

As the Athenian rulers kept their figs, so did the Persian Kings their walnuts,—and more selfishly; for no one but their most sacred Majesties dared eat any; but one would think that even they would find it hard to digest all the walnuts that the country could produce. It is averred, that walnuts entered largely into the Mithridatic recipe against poison. The modern recipe, called “Mithridate,” I have given elsewhere; but that which Pompey is said to have found in the palace of the King whom he had overthrown, was as follows: “Pound, with care, two walnuts, two dried figs, twenty pounds of rue, and a grain of salt.” Yes, we should say it must be taken cum grano. Howbeit, the royal physician goes on to say, “Swallow this mixture,—precipitate it with a little wine,—and you have nothing to fear from the action of the most active poison, for the space of four-and-twenty hours.” There would, probably, be less to fear after that time had elapsed than before.

Nuts have not had respectability conferred on them, even by Nero, who was wont to go incog. to the upper gallery of the theatre, and take delight in pelting them on the bald head of the Prætor, who sat below. That official knew the offender, and was rewarded for bearing the attack good-humouredly; and thence, perhaps, the proverb which characterizes something falling, at once sudden and pleasant, by the term, “That’s nuts!” Of course, nuts were in fashion; not so chestnuts,—these were as much disliked by the Patricians as the filbert and hazel were said, in France, to be hated by the sun. When they were ripening, the inhabitants used to issue forth at sunrise, and endeavour to frighten the luminary out of the firmament, by making a horrid uproar, with pots, pans, and kitchen utensils generally. And this was done under a Christian dispensation. The people were not heathen Chinese, trying to cure an eclipsed planet by attacking the dragon that was supposed to be swallowing it, with a tintamarre of caldron, kettle, tongs, and trivet.

The Athenians were great hands at dumplings, consisting of fruit, covered with a light and perfumed paste; and Rhodes, verifying the proverb, that “extremes meet,” was as famous for its gingerbread as for its Colossus. The Roman wedding-cake was a simple mixture of sweet wine and flour; and the savilum pie, made of flour, cheese, honey, and eggs, was a dish to make all sorts of guests jubilant. It was, in short, the national pie; and if there were a dish that was more popular, it was the artocreas, a huge mince-pie, and the imperial pie of Verus, compounded of sow’s flank, pheasant, peacock, ham, and wild boar, all hashed together, and covered with crust. If Emperors invented pies, so did philosophers create cakes; and the libuna of Cato was a real cheesecake, that gave as much delight as any of the same author’s works in literature. Cheese was a favourite foundation for many of the Roman cakes; but he was a bold man who added chalk, and so invented the placenta. Yet the placenta was eaten as readily as Charles XII. swallowed raspberry-tarts, Frederick II. Savoy cakes, or Marshal Saxe—who loved pastry, pastrycooks, and pastrycooks’ daughters—macaroons.

The Church honoured pastry,—or would so pious a King as St. Louis have raised the pastrycooks to the dignity of a guild? The Abbey of St. Denis, long before this, stipulated with the tenant-farmers, that they should deliver a certain quantity of flour, to make pastry with; and, in some cases, in France, portions of the rent for lands was to be paid in puff pastry. This was at a time when fennel-root tooth-picks used to appear at table, thrust into the preserved fruits, and every one was expected to help himself. Certainly our refined neighbours had some questionable customs. See what L’Etoile says: (1596) “Les confitures sèches et les massepains y étaient si peu épargnés que les dames et demoiselles étaient contraintes de s’en décharger sur les pages et laquais, auxquels on les baillait tout entiers.”

Prince George of Denmark, the consort of Queen Anne, was never suspected of intermeddling with the foreign policy of the kingdom; but he was something renowned for his appetite, and for the bent of it towards pastry. I think it is Archdeacon Coxe, in his “Life of the Duke of Marlborough,” who says of this illustrious Prince, that he would leave the battle-field, in the very heat of action, and come into camp, with the hungry inquiry, if it were not yet dinner-time. This was something worse than drawing off the hounds, or unloading the fowling-pieces, because the “Castle bell” was peremptorily ringing to luncheon. Prince George was just the sort of man—fond of good living, and able to entertain others with the same predilection—who was likely to be surrounded by parasites; and the remembrance of this fact suggests that, while the wine is passing round, I may venture to give a sketch of that ancient and remarkable gentleman, “the Parasite.” It is better than getting upon controversial subjects, which are productive of any thing but unanimity. I remember one of the very pleasantest of “after-dinners” being marred by a guest, who, having slipped into the assertion that the Jews were the earliest of created people, was indiscreet enough to try to maintain what he had asserted, and weak enough to be angry at finding it summarily rejected. Why, Father Abraham himself was but a foreign Heathen, from Ur of the Chaldees; and to claim primeval antiquity for the Jews is only as absurd as if one were to say, that Yankees and mint julep were anterior to Alfred’s cakes and the Anglo-Saxons.

But many a hasty assertion has been simply the effect of an antagonism between imperfect chymification and the oppressed intellect. Mind and matter have much influence on each other; and, for the guidance of those interested in such questions, I may, while on the subject of dinner, notice, that from Dr. Beaumont’s “Table,” drawn out to show the mean time of digestion in the stomach (or chymification) of various articles of food, we learn that boiled tripe ranks first in amiable facility, being disposed of in about one hour. Venison steak requires some half-hour more. Boiled turkey and roast pig are classed together, as requiring two hours and twenty-five minutes for the process of digestion; while roast turkey and hashed meat demand five minutes more. Fricasséed chicken is not more facile of digestion than boiled salt beef, both requiring two hours and three-quarters. Boiled mutton, broiled beefsteak, and soft-boiled eggs, take three hours; while roast beef and old strong cheese trouble the stomach for some three hours and a half. Roast duck, and fowls, whether boiled or roasted, are alike slow of digestion: they require four hours as their mean time of chymification, and are only exceeded by boiled cabbage, which requires full half-an-hour more. I borrow these details from an article in the “Journal of Psychological Medicine,” for January, 1851, a periodical edited by Dr. Forbes Winslow. I believe I do not err in attributing the article in question (“Mental Dietetics”) to the able pen of the accomplished Editor himself, than whom no man has a better right to speak ex cathedrâ on the subject in question. It will be seen, by the following extract from this article, that diet influences the mind as well as the body. “The nutritive particles of the food,” says Dr. Winslow, “being in the form of chyle, mixed with the blood, and supplying it with the elements which enable it to repair the waste of the animal system, it is obvious that the health, both of the body and of the mind, must depend on the quality and quantity of the vital stream. According to Lecanu, the proportion of the red globules of the blood may be regarded as a measure of vital energy; for the action of the serum and of the globules on the nervous system is very different. The former scarcely excites it, the latter do so powerfully. Now those causes which tend to increase the mass of blood, tend also to increase the proportion of red globules; whilst those which tend to diminish the mass of blood, tend to diminish the proportion of the globules. The result is obvious. A large quantity of stimulating animal food, without a proper amount of exercise, augments the number of the red globules, and diminishes the aqueous part of the blood. Hence the nervous system becomes oppressed, the brain frequently congested, and the intellectual faculties no longer enjoy their wonted activity. In the mean time, the system endeavours to relieve itself by throwing a counter-stimulus upon certain other organs, the functions of which are morbidly increased. The blood, in such cases, becomes preternaturally thickened, and its coagulum unusually firm. On the other hand, if the system be not supplied with the requisite amount of nutrition, the blood becomes, by the loss of its red corpuscles, impoverished in quality, and, in cases of extreme abstinence, diminished in quantity. In these cases the powers of the mind soon become enfeebled.”

But we will pass from these scientific matters, to seek the company of one who, if ignorant of science, was, generally, a great man in the profession of his peculiar art,—the ancient parasite.