If intelligence, strength, or graceful beauty of form were to decide what rank this numerous class of animals—which has contributed its quota to the triumphs of the culinary art—should occupy on our tables, the pig, with its vile and stupid ugliness, its depraved habits, and its waddling obesity, would be banished for ever from the farm-yard and larder in every civilised nation of the world.

But, in refusing to it brilliant external qualities, Nature, by a wise compensation, has conferred on it others much more solid; and this quadruped, so despised during its life-time, does not fail after its death to conciliate the constant favour of rich and poor—of the man indifferent to the attractions of good cheer, and of the Sybarite, ever attentive to enlarge its domain.

Pliny, the naturalist, places the pig one degree below the scale of beings. Apicius, the cook, gives it a marked preference over all meats which passed through his skilful hands. From this, it will easily be understood that the pig presents itself first in this survey of the animal diet of those nations who have transmitted to us an account of their gastrophagic exertions.

History shows us this animal variously appreciated by different countries. Certain people consecrated it, when living, to their divinities most in vogue; others honoured its image—a symbol, they thought, of the quiet happiness of states; a small number abhorred it, and the greater part found it excellent eating.

The inhabitants of Cyprus abstained from it, in order to offer it to Venus.[XVI_1] The Cretans loaded it with acorns and all the comforts of life, because Jupiter was first suckled by a sow in their island.[XVI_2] The Egyptian priests never allowed a ham to grace their feasts; they fled at the sight of pigs, unclean beings, whose presence alone defiled them,[XVI_3] although respected by the whole nation on account of the services they rendered in turning up the earth, and covering the seeds thrown upon it.[XVI_4]

The law of Moses forbad the Jews to eat this quadruped, or to touch it after its death,[XVI_5] and more than once they exposed themselves to the most frightful torments rather than be defiled by this proscribed viand.[XVI_6]

Tradition, again, strengthened their religious dread, by interdicting the faithful from even pronouncing the name of this animal, from looking at it, or selling it to foreign nations.[XVI_7]

The fear of the frightful malady to which the pig was subject in Palestine was, perhaps, the cause of this prohibition. Has not a Jewish doctor observed, that if ten measures of leprosy were to fall in the world, this unhappy animal would take nine parts for his share.[XVI_8] However, some theologians of that nation believe that the Messiah whom they expect will allow them the use of this now odious food.[XVI_9]

Like the Jews, the Phoenicians[XVI_10] and Indians[XVI_11] did not eat pork. The followers of Islamism also abstained from it, in consequence of a law of the Koran, which Mahomet borrowed from Moses.[XVI_12]

The Greeks and Romans had very different ideas. They knew that their gods showed a particular predilection for those altars on which bacon or swine’s flesh smoked;[XVI_13] they therefore offered this meat in sacrifice to the Earth, the Lares, to Ceres;[XVI_14] and many a time a medal struck at Rome perpetuated the remembrance of this solemnity, in honour of the goddess of harvest.[XVI_15]

The pig, emblem of fecundity with these two nations,[XVI_16] became, on the banners of Italy, a sign of pardon and peace.[XVI_17] Kings and princes immolated two on their wedding-day;[XVI_18] and nations subdued by the Roman arms prostrated themselves before the standard, whose image promised them the clemency of their conquerors.[XVI_19]

The re-establishment of the succulent quadruped would have been complete, if the cynical carelessness of its rather inelegant habits had not caused it to become a symbol of debauchery and profligacy of manners.[XVI_20]

Hitherto the pig has only figured in a point of view purely historical; we have not sought to weaken its faults, nor have we made mention of the qualities attributed to it—for example, that of discovering truffles. Nevertheless, we ought not to lose sight of the fact, that this animal has not passed entirely without renown through the centuries which divide us from the earliest ages of the world. We shall now speak of its flesh, its exquisite flavour, and the place it occupied in feasts: there it reigned with honour; there we must follow it, with all that antiquity has possessed of celebrated men in the science of degustation and good living.

Nature has created the pig for man’s palate; he is good only to be eaten; and life appears to have been given to him merely as a sort of salt to prevent his corrupting.[XVI_21] It is true that he possesses only a vulgar and purely animal substance; but how good is this substance, and how high does it deserve to be placed on account of its delicacy and flavour?[XVI_22]

Such is the praise of which a physician and two philosophers have thought it worthy.

The pig furnishes a strong and somewhat heavy kind of food;[XVI_23] wherefore wrestlers were recommended to eat much of it, and Galen advised it to persons who worked hard, or used violent exercise.[XVI_24]

But it was not necessary to recommend to the Greeks a meat of which they were so fond. Look over the long work of AthenÆus—he everywhere extols it, everywhere speaks of it with fresh complacency, and in pompous terms.[XVI_25]

An Athenian, renowned as a man of taste and for the refined elegance of his table, would have thought his reputation lost had he not offered to his guests fat andouilles, sausages, pigs’ feet, and pork cutlets; above all, he was careful not to forget salted and smoked hams—the honour of the banquet, and the delight of the human race.[XVI_26]

The Macedonian, Caranus, invited twenty of his best friends to his wedding, and gave them a feast, of which gastrophagic annals have preserved the remembrance. Each guest received from his munificence a flagon and crown of silver, a crown of gold, and vases of the same precious metal. What shall we say of the dishes displayed at this meeting of learned epicureans? Composed by the art of the most skilful cooks, struck with admiration, they ate and relished, whilst unexpected wonders unceasingly solicited their fatigued, yet not satiated, appetites; when at last appeared an immense silver dish, on which was displayed an entire roasted hog, whose vast sides concealed a multitude of quails and other small birds, tÉtines de truie, relishing yolks of eggs, oysters, and a host of shell fish, prepared with that scientific regard for gastric energy which considerably increases its power.[XVI_27]

Macedonia possessed a particular species of pig, greatly envied by the rest of Greece. Certain individuals of this giant race acquired enormous proportions, and King Eumenes used to give as much as sixty-four pounds sterling for one of these animals, provided it measured four feet seven inches in height, and as much in length.[XVI_28]

It will be easily understood that the cooks vied with each other, to see who could form unheard-of combinations with the succulent pieces which these enormous pigs furnished. They disguised the taste and form in a thousand different ways, and the most experienced palate was always the dupe of these exquisite deceptions. Thus Titius Quintus, a clever amateur, being enraptured with the number and astonishing variety of dishes which his host caused to be served, at Chalies in Etolia, what was his surprise when the amiable Amphytrion smilingly told him that he had eaten nothing but pork![XVI_29]

Rome, be it observed, knew how to follow the example of Greece; and, in the hands of its skilful cooks, the flesh of this heavy animal was often transformed into delicate fish, ducks, turtle doves, or capons.[XVI_30]

But the masterpiece of these great artists—the ne plus ultra of their fertile imagination—was the hog À la Troyenne, so named because from the depth of its inside issued battalions of thrushes, myriads of ortolans, and fig-peckers (becaficoes)—an ingenious image of those armed cohorts inclosed in the horse of Troy.[XVI_31] Everywhere the sumptuous dish is cited, but nothing is said of the manner in which it was prepared. The curious will perhaps be thankful to find that this omission is here repaired:—

The animal is artistically bled under the shoulder. When all the blood has flowed, the intestines are drawn out by the throat, and washed for a long time with wine, taking care to pass it through them. The pig is then hung up by the feet, and washed also with wine. An excellent gravy must be prepared beforehand, with meat hashed small and well peppered, with which you stuff the intestines, and then force them back into their place by the throat. Pour in at the same time a great quantity of gravy, and fill the animal with small game. Half of the pig is afterwards covered with a thick paste of barley meal, wine, and oil. It is then put into a portable oven, on a small metal table, where it is roasted by a slow fire. When the skin has assumed a fine colour it is withdrawn, and boiled on the other side; the paste covering is then entirely removed, and the pig À la Troyenne may be served.[XVI_32] The Romans reared a great number of these animals, and also procured many from foreign countries, especially from Arcadia, which produced some of extraordinary size. Varro relates that in this part of the Peloponnesus he was shown a pig so fat that it was impossible for the animal to make the least movement; and that a mouse had settled on its back with her young family, softly ensconced in the fat, where they fed at the expense of the careless animal.[XVI_33]

Rome adopted, with a kind of gastronomic rage, the preparations and ragoÛts celebrated in Greece.[XVI_34] The Trojan pig never failed to appear on tables renowned for their luxury;[XVI_35] and sucking pigs were eaten in such profusion, that the censors were obliged to interdict their use. Alexander Severus renewed this prohibition.[XVI_36] The large pigs stuffed with game (an expensive delicacy of patrician tables) also called forth new sumptuary laws,[XVI_37] which only provoked disdain, and which fashion soon rendered obsolete.

We hardly dare mention a strange dish, in great request among the rich and luxurious, who alone could procure it. The first preparation consisted in stifling the young before they were littered.[XVI_38] Thank Heaven, this culinary atrocity could not survive an epoch without parallel, perhaps, in the history of human follies, by we know not what refinement of incredible gluttony, of frightful depravity, and atrocious cruelty, which, together, prepared the downfall of the Roman colossus.

Besides this disgusting dish, much was thought at Rome, as well as at Athens, of pig’s head, spare-rib, hams, and bacon. Seven other parts occupied the second rank—these were the ears, feet, foreloin, fillet, cheek, intestines, and blood.[XVI_39]

Westphalia supplied sumptuous tables with much-esteemed hams; but those of Sardinia, Catalonia, and Cantabria were, nevertheless, preferred.[XVI_40] They were sometimes served at the beginning of a repast, in order to excite the appetite; and also often at the close, in order to re-animate its extinguished ardour, and provoke new libations.[XVI_41] One of the most ancient geoponics teaches how to prepare, salt, and smoke hams;[XVI_42] for the inhabitants of the country, and the lower classes in the cities, showed a singular taste for this delicate meat, which the Gauls (great amateurs of pork)[XVI_43] sent them at a low price, with an enormous quantity of pickled pork, andouillettes, and sausages.[XVI_44]

This last preparation, very celebrated in Lucania,[XVI_45] served as a means of livelihood to a great number of Roman women, who also employed themselves in making excellent black puddings, in imitation of those eaten in Greece.[XVI_46]

Bacon was then of great utility, as in the present day, though oil superseded it in the concoction of a host of dishes. Bacon for a long time served almost as the exclusive food of the Romans,[XVI_47] before their unruly luxury had given it up to the soldiers and proletarians.[XVI_48] It was also found in all public houses,[XVI_49] where the populace habitually gorged themselves with pork, vegetables,[XVI_50] and hot water.[XVI_51]

The ancients salted the pig, in order to preserve it; but Apicius taught them a very simple process for the use of epicures, which advantageously replaced common brine. You take middling-sized pieces of pork, cover them entirely with a sort of paste, composed of salt, vinegar, and honey, and place them in vessels which you close carefully.[XVI_52]

We will now indicate some of the dishes most in vogue prepared with pork—a meat so much esteemed by the Greeks and Romans, and in which they believed themselves to have discovered fifty different flavours,[XVI_53] or fifty parts, each possessing a distinct taste from the other.

Apician Pork.—Roast a fine young sucking pig; and whilst a slow fire gently embellishes it with a golden colour, pound, with pepper and alisander, some coriander seed, mint, and rue. Then pour over it some wine, honey, garum, or gravy; mix with care these different ingredients, and pour this seasoning on your roast, as soon as you have taken it from the spit or oven.[XVI_54]

Macedonian Pork.—Choose, among a number of large and fine sucking pigs, the one which appears to you the most worthy of the culinary sacrifice. Draw it by the upper part; clean it well, and fill it with chicken sausages chopped small, the flesh of thrushes, ortolans, and pork; add Lucanian sausages, dates without stones, raisins, and afterwards, mallow, beet, leeks, parsley, coriander, whole pepper, and pine nuts; add eggs, and a good quantity of well-peppered gravy. Bake it, having previously scored the back of the animal, so that it may be basted with its own gravy. When a delightful odour shall then warn you that it is done, cover it, before serving, with a relishing mixture of pepper, rue, garum, or gravy, to which you must add wine, honey, and a little oil.[XVI_55]

Stuffed Sucking Pig.—The intestines are drawn out by the throat, and an opening made under the skin. You then fill with stuffing a bladder, to the neck of which is securely fixed a long and narrow tube, which will convey to every part the somewhat liquid substance which you will express from the bladder. The opening is then closed with parchment sewn to the skin. It is hardly necessary to say that this operation should be performed in several places.

Let us now see to the inside. Crush pepper, alisander, wild marjoram, and a little benzoin root; mix with this, garum or gravy, cooked brains, raw eggs, flour, and pork gravy; the whole must be boiled on a slow fire, and the pig filled with it, also with little birds, pine nuts, whole pepper, and garum. It now only remains to place it in the oven, watch over the cooking, baste it with gravy, and serve.[XVI_56]

Aristoxenic Ham.—Take a fresh ham, salt it, and smoke it two days; then rub it with a mixture of oil and vinegar, and hang it to the ceiling.[XVI_57] Some days after you must boil it with a great quantity of figs and three bay leaves; then take off the skin, make incisions in the flesh, and fill them with honey. Finally, prepare a paste of flour and oil, with which cover the ham; put it into the oven, and withdraw it only when this crust is completely done.[XVI_58]

Lucullian Ham.—Cook a ham, newly salted, with two pounds of barley and twenty-five figs. Then bone it, and slightly scarify the skin with an iron blade; put it into the oven, taking care to cover it with a little honey. When it begins to colour, put into a saucepan some cooked wine, pepper, wine and a bunch of rue, the half of which is then poured on the ham. The other half of this seasoning serves to humect the quenelles which you have taken beforehand from the ham previous to baking; these must be well soaked with gravy, and then, if you have any remaining, pour it over the ham, which you serve surrounded by the quenelles.[XVI_59]

Ventre de Truie À l’AthÉnienne.—It is boiled with sweet herbs and served with a seasoning of cummin seed, vinegar, and silphium.[XVI_60]

Ventre de Truie À la Romaine.—It is cooked in the manner before described, and seasoned with a sauce composed of pepper, parsley seed, dried mint, benzoin-root, honey, vinegar, and garum.[XVI_61]

Fillet of Pork À la Boeotienne.—When it has been covered with honey and vinegar, and baked in the oven, it is eaten with a seasoning of pepper, benzoin, and garum.[XVI_62]

TÉtines de Truie À la Salienne.—Cook them in water; make several incisions; cover them with salt, and place them in the oven, or on the gridiron; prepare a seasoning of pepper and alisander, with garum, wine, and cooked wine; thicken with fine floor; put in the tÉtines, and serve.[XVI_63]

TÉtines À la Flamine.—Mix the flesh of a sea-hedge hog with carrots and pepper; introduce the mixture into the tÉtines; sew up the opening; cook them in the oven, or on the gridiron, and eat them with brine and mustard.[XVI_64]

Olympian Pig’s Liver.—Take the liver of a pig that has been fed only on figs, bake it, and serve with a seasoning of oenogarum, pepper, thyme, alisander, garum, oil, and a little vinegar.[XVI_65]

Capitolian Pig’s Liver.—Make incisions in the liver of a pig that has been fed on nothing but figs, and put it into garum with pepper, alisander, and two bay leaves; then wrap it in the caul, cook it on the gridiron, and serve.[XVI_66]

Campanian Bacon.—It is cooked by just covering it with water and a good quantity of dill, to which a little oil and salt are afterwards added.[XVI_67]

Quenelles of Pig’s Liver and Brains.—Roast a pig’s liver, and take off all the fibrous parts; sprinkle it with pounded pepper and rue; add some gravy; stir the whole well; then cut it into small slices, each of which you must cover with a bay leaf; hang them over the smoke as long as you think necessary.

When you wish to eat them, roast them afresh; then put them into a mortar, with pepper, alisander, and wild marjoram; stir them, add gravy and dressed sucking pigs’ brains, pounded with care; then add five eggs, and dissolve them in such a manner as to make the whole thoroughly compact; pour over it some gravy, and cook in a saucepan; when cooked, throw it on a very clean table, and out this pulp into small square pieces, which mix in the mortar with pepper, alisander, and wild marjoram. When you have gently stirred all this, it must again be put into a saucepan, and boiled over a slow fire. At the moment of ebullition, pour it on a plate, sprinkle with pepper, and serve.[XVI_68]

Lucanian Sausages.—Pound in a mortar some pepper, cummin, and winter savory with bay leaves, and moisten with gravy and garum; then add to this mixture some pork, chopped small, more garum and pepper, and a good quantity of bacon, with a few pine nuts. When these various ingredients are well incorporated one with another, you stuff the prepared intestines, and hang up the sausages.[XVI_69]

Imperial Sausages.—Cut some pork into very small pieces, which most be pounded with the finest bread, well-soaked in wine; then pound some pepper and decorticated myrtle leaves, and add some gravy. Make some small sausages, and put inside some fir-nuts. When these sausages are finished, you must cook them over a slow fire, with sweet wine, previously reduced to a-third.[XVI_70]

The following is the seasoning you must add to it:—

Bone some small chickens, and put them into a saucepan, with leeks, dill, and salt. When this is cooked, add pepper and smallage seed; then crumble some sesame bread, on which pour some very thick gravy, mix the whole well, and serve with the sausages.[XVI_71]

The Gauls had very considerable herds of swine, which they fed exclusively upon acorns. The inhabitants of the towns reared them in their houses. As these animals went frequently out, they caused some obstruction, and we know that Philip, grandson of Louis-le-Gros, lost his life in Paris, in consequence of a furious pig having run between the legs of his horse, and caused him to fall. This accident took place on the 1st October, 1181. The 3rd of the same month a proclamation was issued, forbidding all persons to let their swine ramble through the streets of Paris. A short time after, those which belonged to the Abbaye Saint-Antoine were privileged; the abbess and the nuns having represented that it would be a want of courtesy to their patron saint not to exempt his hogs from the general rule.[XVI_72]

A new proclamation of the 20th January, 1850, interdicted with still greater severity the rearing of swine in the town of Paris, under penalty of a fine of 60 sous (two shillings and four-pence); and the police were authorized to kill them wheresoever they might be found, to take the head as a perquisite for themselves, and to deposit the carcase at the HÔtel-Dieu (the name of an hospital), charging that establishment with the cost incurred for its conveyance.[XVI_73]

There was nothing more delicate in the 16th century, nothing more odoriferous, than the flesh of young pigs fed on parsnips,[XVI_73A] and roasted, with a stuffing of fine herbs.[XVI_73B]

THE OX.

A profound sentiment of gratitude has been often the cause of rendering to the ox extraordinary honours, which no animal, perhaps, ever shared with him. The Egyptians considered this quadruped as the emblem of agriculture, and of all that serves to support existence;[XVI_74] and incense smoked on its altars at Memphis and Heliopolis.[XVI_75]

The Phoenicians religiously abstained from its flesh, and the Phrygians punished with death whosoever dared to slay the labouring ox.[XVI_76]

In Greece, during the heroic ages, an ox was the reward adjudged to the conquering wrestlers and pugilists; a horse was the prize of racing or the quoits.[XVI_77]

At a later period the Athenians decreed that their coins should bear the image of this useful quadruped;[XVI_78] and though they then offered it to their gods, the ceremonies even of the sacrifice testified the repugnance felt at shedding its blood.

The sacrificer fled with the greatest speed after he had struck it; he was followed, and, to avoid being arrested, he threw away the axe he had used, and accused it of causing the death of the innocent ox. The axe was then seized and tried; some one defended it, and alleged that it was less guilty than the grinder who had sharpened the blade. The latter cast the odium of the crime on the grinding stone, so that the trial was never ended, and the pretended offence remained unpunished.[XVI_79]

For a long time the greater part of the ancients considered it a sin to eat the flesh of the ox, the companion of the agriculturist, whose patient vigour hollows the furrow which is to be the means of his support.[XVI_80] But the bad example of Proserpine, who prepared one for Hercules,[XVI_81] caused these scruples, one by one, to be hushed, the solemn prohibition of the legislator of Athens forgotten;[XVI_82] and, in spite of the obstinate resistance of the Pythagorians and the disciples of Empedocles, every one declared in favour of the doctrines of Zeno and Epicurus.

Moreover, it is certain that the heroes of Homer were not so scrupulous: Menelaus offered roast-beef to Telemachus; Agamemnon also presented some to the wise Nestor; and an ox, roasted whole, frequently appeased the robust appetite of the illustrious chiefs of Greece.[XVI_83]

If we go back to centuries still more remote, and of which a venerable historian has preserved us an account, we find herds of oxen were possessed by the great patriarchal families.[X][XVI_84] Abraham cooked a calf and served it to the three angels, in the valley of Mamre;[XVI_85] and the flesh of this animal, whether ox or heifer, was evidently much in use in the primitive ages, since no particular proscription exempts them from those beings having “life and motion,”[XVI_86] and which are to serve us as food.[XVI_87] As to Moses, far from interdicting it to the Israelites, he places the ox in the first rank of pure animals,[XVI_88] whose flesh was allowed them.

The oracle of ancient medicine, Hippocrates, praises the flesh of the ox, in which he recognises the most nutritious qualities, but nevertheless he believes it to be heavy and indigestible.[XVI_89]

Of what material, then, must have been the stomach of Theagenes, of Thasos—he, who devoured a whole bull in one day.[XVI_90]

To be sure, the same exploit is attributed to Milo of Crotona, whose ordinary meal consisted of eighteen pounds of meat, as much bread, and fifteen pints of wine.[XVI_91] These formidable polyphagists could, without much expense, indulge their fabulous appetites; for, in the time of Demosthenes, 354 B.C., an ox of the first quality cost only eighty drachmas, or about two pounds, eleven shillings, and eightpence.[XVI_92]

Magiric writers have left us very few details on the different methods of cooking the flesh of the ox or calf. It appears to have been generally roasted,[XVI_93] in which case it was eaten alone; but sometimes it was eaten boiled, with one of the sauces to be hereafter mentioned.

These animals were fed with particular care, in order to render them more worthy of the luxurious tables for which certain choice pieces were destined. The manner of fattening oxen has already been described: it is only necessary to add, that calves, which were to be slaughtered, received no other food than their mothers’ milk; and that, frequently, they were not killed before the expiration of a twelvemonth.[XVI_94]

Double tripe was reputed as an excellent food. The Asiatics, Greeks, and Romans were particularly fond of it. It was served at a sumptuous repast prepared for Achilles; and Homer observes, that this dish was always honourably received at the banquets of heroes.[XVI_95]

AthenÆus, describing a feast of the most exquisite elegance, names double tripe among a host of dishes he enumerates;[XVI_96] he also says, speaking of a state dinner at which Philoxenus, one of the generals of Alexander the Great, was a guest, that first of all there appeared large basins containing the intestines of animals, disposed with art around their heads:[XVI_97] and it is thus, he adds, that even the gods gave themselves up, in the society of their friends, to the pleasures of good cheer.[XVI_98] To be brief, this artless chronicler of antique gastrophagy, tells us that after the sacrilegious undertaking of the Titans, the human race enjoyed such perfect happiness, that men caused to be served at every one of their repasts delicious double tripe and savoury intestines.[XVI_99]

This touching example of felicity and innocent gluttony found few imitators at Rome among that class of voluptuous men who entertained, at enormous expense, tasters whose discriminating palates could tell whether a fish had been caught at the mouth of the Tiber, or further off; whether a goose’s liver had been fattened with fresh figs, or only on dried ones.[XVI_100] For them tripe could have very little attraction, but this rather plebeian dish appeared with honour on modest tables, and proletarian epicures sought for it with eagerness.[XVI_101]

Beef À l’IbÉrienne.—Well boil an excellent piece of beef, and serve it with the following sauce. Grind and mix pepper, alisander, parsley seed, wild marjoram, and dried onions; moisten with sun-made raisin wine; stir, and add honey, vinegar, wine, garum, oil, and sweet wine.[XVI_102]

Stewed Beef À la Sarmate.—Carefully choose a piece of beef, which stew slowly for a long time with leeks, cut small, onions, or beans. When it is well cooked, pour over a mixture of pepper, benzoin, and a little oil.[XVI_103]

Dish of Veal À la Syracusaine.—Cook a piece of veal, on a slow fire, with pepper, alisander, carrots, and parsley seed, bruised together in a mortar; then add honey, vinegar, garum, and oil; thicken the whole with fine flour, and serve.[XVI_104]

Noix de Veau À la Tarantaise.—Take a noix de veau, cook it in a saucepan with pepper, alisander, and fenugreek seed; add, later, some wild marjoram, pine nuts, and dates; then moisten with a mixture of honey, vinegar, garum, mustard, and oil. When the cookery of these various substances shall have made an homogeneous whole, serve.[XVI_105]

Cisalpine Preserve.—Mince some beef in very small pieces; do the same with a little bacon; add pine nuts, pounded with dates; pour on the whole a mixture of vinegar, garum, mustard, and oil; stir well, and throw on this pulp a powder of strong odoriferous herbs. Stir it a long time, let it rest, compress it strongly in a prepared intestine, close the opening, and put a string round to tighten it still more. This preserve cannot turn bad.[XVI_106]

The ox was so precious among the Romans, that mention is made of a certain citizen accused before the people and condemned, because he had killed one of his oxen to satisfy the fancy of a young libertine, who told him he bad never eaten any tripe. He was banished, as if he had killed his farmer.[XVI_107]

The Brahmin women think to obtain abundance of milk and butter by invoking one particular cow,—the darling cow of the king of heaven; the type, mother, and patroness of all cows. The entire species are treated with the greatest deference; they have lavished upon them every expression of gratitude, and one day of each year is set apart as a solemn festival consecrated to their worship.[XVI_108]

Some centuries ago the large pieces of meat were boiled first, and then roasted. Roasted meat was always served with sauce. Animals roasted whole were generally filled with an aromatic stuffing. Sage was the common seasoning for geese, and sucking-pigs were stuffed with chesnuts. Some minutes before these were taken from the spit, they were covered with bread crumbs; and appeared on the table enveloped in a crust composed of bread, sugar, orange juice, and rose water.[XVI_109]

Boeuf Gras.—There is a very old custom in the whole of France, and which consists in leading throughout the streets, in the provincial towns, on Shrove Tuesday, a fatted ox, ornamented with flowers and ribbons. This ceremony is considered as a commemorative emblem of the fecundity of the earth. In Paris, the ox chosen for the same purpose has generally obtained beforehand the prize awarded by the Agricultural Society. The horns of the animal are gilded; he is afterwards decorated in a sumptuous manner, and led through the principal thoroughfares of that city, on Shrove Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, to the Palace of the Tuileries, the ministerial residences, the HÔtel-de-Ville, and the foreign embassies. Troops of butchers, dressed in appropriate fancy costumes, both on horseback and on foot, are preceded by bands of music; and the heathen divinities, drawn by eight horses in a richly gilt triumphal car, form one of the most splendid and grotesque pageants of modern times.

Formerly, sworn examiners of the clouds, skilful in discovering the storms they concealed, announced to the inhabitants of the country the hail by which their crops were threatened, and every one immediately offered a sacrifice to the inimical cloud, in order that it might carry ruin and desolation elsewhere. The most devout sacrificed a lamb; the lukewarm worshippers a fowl; some even contented themselves with pricking their finger with a pin, and throwing towards heaven the drops of blood which came out. The cloud, it is said, satisfied with these pious offerings, soon disappeared never to return.[XVI_110]

The lamb, an oblation pure and agreeable in the sight of the gods, reconciled the earth with Olympus. In Egypt, the inhabitants of Sais and Thebes offered it to their divinities.[XVI_111] Minerva and Juno also were pleased to see its flesh smoking on the altars which Greece and Italy raised to them.[XVI_112]

These practices, no doubt, were an obscure imitation of the religious rites which Moses prescribed to his people,[XVI_113] and which heathen nations adopted in their turn, one from the other.[XVI_114]

The Hebrew law forbad the killing of the Paschal lamb before it was weaned, and also the cooking of it in its mother’s milk. It was to be eaten roasted, with unleavened bread, lettuces, mustard, or bitter herbs: whatever might remain was to be burnt with fire. It was not to be boiled, nor a bone of it broken. It must be chosen of that year, a male, and without fault or blemish.[XVI_115]

Many passages of the sacred writings allow us to appreciate the pastoral riches of the first nations of the East; and an idea may be formed of the number of their flocks, when we are told that Jacob gave the children of Hamor a hundred sheep for the price of a field;[XVI_116] and that the King of Israel received a hundred thousand every year from the King of Moab, his tributary, and a like number of rams, covered with their fleece.[XVI_117]

The delicate flesh of the lamb was the ornament of the tables of the voluptuous inhabitants of Sion and Samaria. The prophet Amos reproaches them with this luxury, and threatens them with the Divine anger[XVI_118] on that account. The Greeks carried their love for this meat to such a height, that the magistrates of Athens were obliged to forbid the eating of lamb which had not been shorn.[XVI_119] This restriction did not prevent the epicures of Attica from buying one of these animals every day, which cost them ten drachmas[XVI_120] (6s. 5d.), and the head of which, prepared with art, heightened the beauty of the first course.[XVI_121] Rome and Italy imitated Greece,[XVI_122] and the flocks of the fertile Campania hardly sufficed for the exigencies of the capital of the world, especially towards the end of autumn, a period at which lambs afforded, according to the Romans, a more highly flavoured and wholesome meat than in the spring.[XVI_123]

Lamb’s Head À la Quirinale.—The head is boiled with pepper, garum, and beans, and served with a sauce consisting of garum, pepper, benzoin, and cummin, to which is added a little oil, and small pieces of bread, soaked in sweet wine.[XVI_124]

Quarter of Lamb À l’Esquilin.—Place a quarter of lamb in a saucepan with onions and coriander, chopped very small. Then pound pepper, alisander, and cummin; put to it some oil, wine, and garum. Pour the whole on the lamb; cook well, and thicken with fine flour.[XVI_125]

Palatine Broil.—Leave a piece of lamb during some time in a mixture of pepper, benzoin, garum, and oil. After having cooked it in oil and garum, put it a little while on the gridiron, sprinkle with pepper, and serve.[XVI_126]

Roast Lamb À la Phrygienne.—Bake a lamb and serve it with the following sauce:—Mix well half an ounce of pepper, six scruples of cinnamon, a little ginger, half a pint of excellent garum, and the quarter of that quantity of oil.[XVI_127]

Lamb À la Trimalcion.—Draw a lamb at the neck; preserve the intestines entire, and wash them with the greatest care; fill them with force meat and garum; put them back again by the same way; sew up the opening, and place the lamb in the oven. Then mix gravy and milk; add pounded pepper, garum, wine, sweet wine, and oil; let it boil only an instant; thicken with fine floor, and serve it with the lamb.[XVI_128]

Blount informs us of a very ancient and rather strange custom. He says:—

“At Kidlington, in Oxfordshire, the custom is, that on Monday after Whitson week, there is a fat, live lamb provided, and the maids of the town, having their thumbs tied behind them, run after it, and she that with her mouth takes and holds the lamb is declared Lady of the Lamb, which, being dressed, with the skin hanging on, is carried on a long pole before the Lady and her companions to the Green, attended with music, and a morisco dance of men and another of women, when the rest of the day is spent in dancing, mirth, and merry glee. The next day the lamb is part baked, boiled, and roast, for the Lady’s feast, where she sits majestically at the upper end of the table, and her companions with her, with music and other attendants, which ends the solemnity.”[XVI_129]

THE KID.

The kid was one of the most delicate dishes of the Hebrews: Rebecca prepared some for Isaac, in order to dispose him to give his blessing to Jacob.[XVI_130] Moses ordered that, for the Feast of Passover, a lamb or a kid should be slain.[XVI_131] Samson carried a kid to his young wife when he wished to be reconciled to her.[XVI_132] The brother of the prodigal son complains to his father that he has never given him a kid to make merry with his friends.[XVI_133]

The Egyptians, who represented their god Pan with the face and legs of a goat, abstained religiously from killing a kid or eating its flesh.[XVI_134] Their veneration for this animal went so far, in some countries, that goat-keepers appeared in their eyes invested with an august and sacred character.[XVI_135] The Greeks did not judge it convenient to adopt these strange ideas, although on other points their theology was sufficiently ridiculous. The kid was considered one of the most dainty dishes in state banquets; it was served whole, on a silver basin, to each of the guests at the wedding of the Macedonian, Caranus.[XVI_136]

The kids of Attica were especially praised, and a considerable trade was made of them in Athens.[XVI_137] Certain connoisseurs, whose authority had weight, preferred, however, those produced in the Island of MÆlos.[XVI_138] A great many also came from Sicily: they were in less repute, and sold at a low price.[XVI_139]

At Rome, the kid of Italy was much thought of; the most delicate were fattened at Tivoli,[XVI_140] and in different localities of the Roman Campagna.[XVI_141]

Kid À la Trans-TibÉrienne.—The kid is to be cooked slowly, with a little milk, four ounces of honey, an ounce of pepper, a little salt and benzoin. After some time, add eight dates crushed in a mortar, a little gravy, garum, a small quantity of excellent wine; the whole is thickened with fine flour.[XVI_142]

Roast Kid À la Janiculum.—Empty and carefully clean a kid; rub it well with oil and pepper; sprinkle with salt and a large quantity of coriander seed; place it in the oven, and bake slowly.[XVI_143]

Kid À la TarpÉienne.—Empty the kid; stuff it, and sew it up; then entirely cover it with a thick mixture of pepper, rue, winter savory, onions, a small quantity of thyme, and some garum; then place it in an oven, or on a dish, covered with oil. When the kid is cooked, you surround it with a sauce of winter savory, onions, rue, dates, mixed with wine, oil, and cooked wine; sprinkle with pepper, and serve.[XVI_144]

Kid À la Tivoli.—Bake the kid; then pound some pepper, rue, onions, winter savory, and Damascus plums (without their stones), a little benzoin, which you must dilute in wine, garum, and oil; throw this sauce on the kid as you withdraw it from the oven, and, at the moment of serving, cover it with boiling wine.[XVI_145]

Kid À la MÉlissienne.—Draw the kid at the neck, and clean the intestines; then pound some pepper, alisander, benzoin root, two bay leaves, and a little Spanish camomile; add two or three brains; mix them well together; then add some garum and a little salt; afterwards, a small quantity of milk and honey. Fill the intestines with this stuffing, and place them round the kid, which you then put into a large basin on the fire. When half-cooked, you must add a mixture of garum, oil, and wine. Then bruise some pepper and alisander seed, which moisten with the gravy of the kid, and a little cooked wine; pour it into the basin, and the moment before serving thicken with fine flour.[XVI_146]

THE ASS.

The ass was an impure animal, according to the law of Moses, whose flesh was forbidden because it did not ruminate.[XVI_147] However, at the siege of Samaria, the Jews were compelled to eat it for want of other food. The famine was such, that the head of an ass was sold for eighty pieces of silver.[XVI_148]

The Roman peasants thought the flesh of the young ass had a very agreeable taste,[XVI_149] and regaled themselves with it at their rustic festivals. The celebrated MecÆnas one day tasted of this dish at the house of one of his free slaves; he spoke of it with much praise, caused it to be served on his own table, and even succeeded in introducing it on those of the great and rich, who gave up the onager, or wild ass, which they had hitherto preferred, to humour this illustrious favourite. But this new gastronomic conquest had only a short vogue; and was forgotten after the death of MecÆnas.[XVI_150] Galen tells us that the cooks of Alexandria thought much of the ass,[XVI_151] whose flesh, he says, much resembles that of the stag.[XVI_152] Still, this great physician disapproves of the use of this food, which he considers unsuited to mankind.[XVI_153]

It is asserted, even at the present day, that the flesh of the young ass is a pretty good dish; we have heard, but we hardly can repeat it, that much is consumed in the guinguettes round Paris, where the artless customers are far from thinking that anything else but veal can be served to them.

The modern restaurateurs of the BarriÈres of Paris, have, perhaps, read the biography of MecÆnas, and endeavour to render popular the dish so honoured by the celebrated favourite. Who can blame them?

THE DOG.

We must beg pardon of the reader for informing him that the dog presented a very relishing dish to many nations advanced in culinary science. To them, one of these animals, young, plump, and delicately prepared, appeared excellent food.[XVI_154]

The Greeks, that people so charming by their seductive folly, their love of the arts, their poetic civilization, and the intelligent spirit of research presiding over their dishes—the Greeks (we grieve to say it) ate dogs, and even dared to think them good: the grave Hippocrates himself—the most wise, the least gluttonous, and therefore the most impartial of their physicians—was convinced that this quadruped furnished a wholesome and, at the same time, a light food.[XVI_155]

As to the Romans, they also liked it,[XVI_156] and no doubt prepared it in the same manner as the hare, which they thought it resembled in taste.[XVI_157]

However, it is but right to add, that this dish, which we will not even hear mentioned, was never favourably received by the fashionable portion of Roman society, and that the legislators of ancient gastrophagy even repulsed it with disdain.

There is every reason to believe that the people regaled themselves with a roast or boiled dog, especially once a year, at the period when they celebrated the deliverance of the Capitol from the siege of the Gauls. It is known that, at this solemnity, a goose, laid on a soft cushion, was carried in triumph, followed by an unhappy dog nailed to a cross,[XVI_158] whose loud cries greatly amused the populace. In this manner they commemorated the signal service rendered by one animal, and the fatal negligence of the other. The Gauls scaled the Capitol while the dogs slept, and Rome had been lost if the deafening cries of the geese had not given an alarm to the garrison, who, it must be allowed, should have kept better watch.

The quadrupeds last mentioned are the only domestic animals of the kind used as food by the ancients. The chase afforded them several others, which we shall mention, after having just glanced at the poultry—one of the most interesting divisions in natural history for the serious and reflective appreciator of gastronomic productions.