Do not be alarmed, fair readers, at the Latin noun which heads this chapter: tolerate it in consideration of our promise seldom to solicit a like favour. It meant, among the Latins, all the plants which produce ears of corn,[V_1] the seeds of which can be converted into flour.[V_2] Clearly there never was a more innocent expression.

Barley seems to claim the first place among cereals of the second order; the Greeks looked upon it as the happy symbol of fertility,[V_3] and the ancient inhabitants of Italy gave it a name (hordeum) which, perhaps, recalled to their mind the use mankind made of it before wheat was known (exordium).[V_4]

The Jews had a great esteem for barley, and sacred history generally assimilates it to wheat, when the fruits of the earth are mentioned. Thus a beloved spot produces both these plants:[V_5] Shobi offered to David wheat and barley;[V_6] and Solomon promises twenty thousand sacks of wheat and as much barley to the workmen charged with cutting down the cedars of Lebanon.[V_7]

The Greeks and Romans did not carry their love for this grain so far as the Hebrews. In Rome it was the food of the flocks and cowards.[V_8] In LacedÆmon and at Athens the gladiators and common people had no other aliment;[V_9] they made it into barley-gruel (alphiton), the composition of which was very simple, and would not probably tempt a modern Lucullus. Here is the recipe of this ancient and national dish:—

Dry, near the fire or in the oven, twenty pounds of barley flour, then parch it. Add three pounds of linseed meal, half a pound of coriander seed, two ounces of salt, and the quantity of water necessary.[V_10] To this mixture of ingredients the Italian epicureans added a little millet, so as to give the paste more cohesion and delicacy.[V_11]

This culinary preparation must appear rather unworthy of those nations who so completely eclipsed all the gastronomic glories of the universe; wherefore let us hasten to reinstate them as men of taste and exquisite intelligence, by citing a more learned combination, which obtained the judicious patronage of the Archestrates and Apicii:—

Take pearl barley, pound it in a mortar, make use of the flour only, and put it in a saucepan; pour on it by degrees some of the best oil; with that certainty which science alone gives to the hand, and stir it carefully, whilst a slow, equal fire performs the great work of cookery. Be, above all, attentive to enrich it, at proper intervals, with a delicate gravy extracted from a young fat chicken or from a succulent lamb. Unceasingly watch, lest the ebullition, by going on too rapidly, force this delightful mixture to overflow the side of the vessel; and when your practised palate informs you that it is worthy of your guests, present it to their impatient sensuality.[V_12]

So it appears the ancients were acquainted with pearl barley, and barley water; the latter took the name of diet drink (ptisana), which we only associate with melancholy reminiscences.[V_13] Hippocrates was not only in raptures with the virtues and properties of this aliment,[V_14] but he also conferred the highest praise on that sweet and insipid drink, which our doctors order their patients, as did the oracle of Cos, and which at that time was called “barley broth.”[V_15]

Oats occupied an honourable place after barley. Pliny fancied these two plants so analogous, that the owner of a field who had sown barley might find oats at the time of harvest, whilst precisely the reverse might happen to his neighbour.[V_16] Nature, in our days, is not subject to such frolics; and our farmers are tolerably certain that, by care, labour, and God’s assistance, they will gather from the soil what they have sown.

“In order to develop a strong flavour of vanille in black oats, wash this seed, boil it a moment in water, and employ the decoction as you would potato flour, and it will form excellent creams.

“In Normandy and Lower Britany they make with flour of oats a delicious soup. The following is the manner they obtain it. They take white oats and put them in the oven; when sufficiently dried, they are fanned, cleaned, and carried to a mill, the grinders of which are freshly sharpened. The miller takes care to hold them a little way off, in order that they may not crush the grain, and that this last may preserve the shape of rice; by this means they remove the whole of the pellicle.”—Parmentier.

The Greeks and Romans knew how to appreciate oatmeal:[V_17] they used it to make a kind of gruel, such as we have already described, and also a substantial thick milk, which they prepared as we do.[V_18]

Rice was also held in great esteem by them: they considered it as a food very beneficial to the chest; therefore it was recommended in cases of consumption, and to persons subject to spitting of blood.[V_19]

Millet, so called from the multiplicity of its seeds,[V_20] abounded more particularly in Gaul, in the time of Strabo.[V_21] Pliny pretends that no grain swells so much in cooking, and he assures us that sixty pounds of bread was obtained from a single bushel of millet, weighing only twenty pounds.[V_22] This naturalist also speaks of another kind of millet, coming originally from India, and which had only been in cultivation ten years in Italy. The stalk resembled that of the reed, and often attained the height of ten feet; its fecundity was such that a single grain produced innumerable ears of corn;[V_23] therefore, if so prolific, and capable of making good and economical food, why should it not be, in 1858, cultivated largely wherever the climate may allow it?

Some writers place Panic Grass among the wheats, because certain nations made bread of it.[V_24] The higher classes of Rome and Athens always resisted this bad taste. They preferred spelt, or red wheat, a super-excellent grain,[V_25] which was much honoured by the Latins, if we can credit the charming letter, written by Pliny the younger, to Septilius Clarus, on the occasion of a dinner, where the latter failed to join the guests. Among other delicate dishes with which he desired to treat his friend, he had ordered a spelt cake to be made.[V_26] This same flour was the base of the Carthaginian pudding; which the reader may taste if he will, here is the recipe:—

Carthaginian Pudding.—Put a pound of red wheat flour into water; when it has soaked some time, place it in a wooden bowl, add three pounds of cream cheese, half a pound of honey, and one egg; beat this mixture well together, and cook it on a slow fire in a stewpan.[V_27] Should this dish not be sufficiently delicate, try the following:—

When you have sifted some spelt flour, put it in a wooden vessel, with some water, which you must renew twice a day for ten days. At the end of that time squeeze out all the water, and place the paste in another vessel; reduce it to the consistence of thick lees, pass it through a piece of new linen, and repeat this last operation; dry it in the sun, and then boil it in milk.[V_28]

As regards the exact seasoning of this exquisite Roman dish, it is your own genius which must inspire you with the proportions.

Let us not omit to notice the Erupmon of the Greeks, the Irion of the Latins, the Indian Wheat of the moderns. This plant produces a wholesome and easily digestible food; it was well known in Italy in the time of Pliny,[V_29] at which period the peasants used to make a crisp sort of heavy bread, probably somewhat similar to that which is still used in the south of France.

Since the famine of 1847 great attention has been paid to this flour; much was imported into England from America, where it is used in domestic economy; when green, its milky pulp is an excellent food: the various advantages of this flour, however, are not sufficiently developed to give all the benefit of its goodness to the world; habit and prejudice assist materially to prevent its being generally employed.

The Romans also ate it as hasty-pudding, parched or roasted, with a little salt. A writer equally remarkable for his elegant and easy style, as well as for the justness of his observations, informs us that, in our days, the Indian inhabitants of the unfruitful plains of Marwar never dress Indian corn in any other way.[V_30]

Such are the principal graminea which the ancients thought worthy of their attention, or allowed to appear on their tables, with more or less honour according to the degree of esteem in which they were held. It is probable that the cooks in the great gastronomic period of Rome and Athens, who knew so well the capricious nature of their masters’ palates,[V_31] had to borrow from magiric chemistry, then so flourishing, some wonderful means of giving to various kinds of cereals a culinary value they now no longer possess—what might we not expect from a Thimbron,[V_32] a Mithoecus,[V_33] a Soterides?[V_34] This latter performed a feat which does him too much honour to be unnoticed here.

The King of Bithynia, Nicomedes, was taken with a strange, invincible, and imperious longing which admitted of no delay; he ordered his cook, Soterides, to be sent for, and commanded him to prepare instantly a dish of loaches. “Loaches, Sire!” cried the skilful, yet terrified cook; “by all the gods, protectors of the kingdom, where can I procure these fish at this late hour of the night?” Kings ill brook resistance to their will.[V_35] Nicomedes was not celebrated for patience when pressed by hunger. “Give me loaches, I say,” replied he, with a hollow and terrible voice; “or else——” and his clear, fearful, pantomimic expression made the unfortunate cook understand too well that he must either obey or immediately deliver up his head to the provost of the palace. The alternative was embarrassing; nevertheless, Soterides thought how to get out of the scrape. He shut himself up in his laboratory, peeled some long radishes, and with extraordinary address gave them the form of the fatal fish, seasoning them with oil, salt, black pepper, and doubtless several other ingredients, the secret of which the illustrious chef has not handed down to posterity. Then, holding in his hand a dish of irreproachable-looking fried fish, he boldly presented himself before the prince, who was walking up and down with hasty strides awaiting his arrival. The King of the Bithynians ate up the whole, and the next day he condescended to inform his court that he never had loaches served he so much liked.[V_36] This digression, which the reader will kindly pardon, sufficiently shows to what height the art of ancient cookery was carried, and of which this work will furnish new and abundant proofs.

The cereals having had so much of our attention, we have now to consider those grains or seeds which serve as the bases or necessary adjuncts to different dishes.