42. However, this is enough about cooks. But we must say something about the conger. For Archestratus, in his Gastronomy, tells us how every part of it should be treated, saying—
In Sicyon my friend you best can get
A mighty head of conger, fat, and strong,
And large; and also take his entrails whole,
Then boil him a long time, well-soak'd in brine.
And after this he goes through the whole country of Italy, saying where the congers are best, describing them like a regular writer of an Itinerary, and he says—
There too fine congers may be caught, and they
Are to all other fish as far superior
As a fat tunny is to coracini.
And Alexis, in his Seven against Thebes, says—
And all the parts of a fine conger eel
Well hash'd together, overlaid with fat.
And Archedicus, in his Treasure, introduces a cook speaking of some fish which he has been buying in the following terms—
SHARKS.
Then for three drachmas I a grayling bought.
Five more I gave for a large conger's head
And shoulders. (Oh, how hard a thing is life!)
Another drachma for the neck. I swear
By Phœbus, if I knew where I could get
Or buy another neck myself, at once
I'd choke the one which now is on my shoulders,
Rather than bring these dishes to this place.
For no one ever had a harder job
To buy so many things at such a price;
And yet if I have bought a thing worth buying
May I be hang'd. They will devour me.
What I now say is what concerns myself.
And then, such wine they spit out on the ground!
Alas! Alas!
43. There is a kind of shark called γαλεὸς, which is eaten. And Icesius, in his treatise on Materials, says that the best and tenderest kind of galei are those called asteriæ. But Aristotle says that there are many kinds of them—the thorny, the smooth, the spotted, the young galeus, the fox shark, and the file shark. But Dorion, in his Book on Fishes, says that the fox shark has only one fin towards his tail, but has none along the ridge of his back. But Aristotle, in the fifth book of his Parts of Animals, says that the centrines is also a kind of shark, and also the notidanus. But Epænetus, in his Cookery Book, calls the latter the enotideus, and says "that the centrines is very inferior to him, and that it has a bad smell; and that the one may be distinguished from the other by the fact of the centrines having a sort of spur on his first fin, while the rest of the kinds have not got such a thing." "And he says that these fishes have no fat or suet in them, because they are cartilaginous."