Pollux, to whom your correspondent refers us, says that [Greek: zomos melas] was a Lacedaemonian food; and that it was called [Greek: aimatia], translated in Scott and Liddell's Lexicon, "blood-broth." These lexicographers add, "The Spartan black broth was made with blood," and refer to Manso's Sparta, a German work, which I have not the advantage of consulting.
Gesner, in his Thesaurus, upon the word "jus," quotes the known passage of Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 34., and thinks the "jus nigrum" was probably the [Greek: aimatia], and made with an admixture of blood, as the "botuli," the black puddings of modern time, were.
Coffee would not be of much lighter colour than blood. A decoction of senna, though of a red- brown, is sometimes administered in medicine under the common name of a "black dose."
As regards the colour, then, whether blood or coffee were the ingredient, the mess would be sufficiently dark to be called "black."
In respect of taste, it is well known, from the story told by Cicero in the passage above referred to, that the Lacedaemonian black broth was disagreeable, at least to Dionysius, and the Lacedaemonians, who observed to him that he wanted that best of sauces, hunger, convey a confession that their broth was not easily relished.
The same story is told with a little variation by Stobaeus, Serm. xxix., and Plutarch, Institut. Lacon., 2. The latter writer says, that the Syracusan, having tasted the Spartan broth, "spat it out in disgust," [Greek: dyscheranunta apoptusai].
It would not have been unlike the Lacedaemonians purposely to have established a disagreeable viand in their system of public feeding. Men that used iron money to prevent the accumulation of wealth, and, as youths, had volunteered to be scourged, scratched, beat about, and kicked about, to inure them to pain, were just the persons to affect a nauseous food to discipline the appetite.
R.O.
Lacedaemonian Black Broth.—I should be glad to know in what passages of ancient authors the Lacedaemonian black broth is mentioned, and whether it is alluded to in such terms as to indicate the nature of the food. It has occurred to me that it is much more probable that it was the same black broth which is now cooked in Greece, where I have eaten of it and found it very good, although it looked as if a bottle of ink had been poured into the mess.
The dish is composed of small cuttle-fish (with their ink-bags) boiled with rice or other vegetables. Edinburgh, Jan. 13. 1850.