The peacock comes originally from India: it was there that Alexander the Great saw it for the first time. He was so struck with its magnificent plumage that he forbad all persons, under pain of death, to kill any.[XVII_115]
Oriental princes kept the peacocks which travellers brought them, from time to time, in their aviaries.[XVII_116] It was thus[XVII_117] that a certain king of Egypt received one, of which he thought Jupiter alone worthy; wherefore he sent it in great pomp to the temple of that god.[XVII_118]
These birds were thus known over various parts of the world. Samos, which seems to have been provided one of the first, ornamented its money with their image.[XVII_119] Their reputation soon spread far and wide;[XVII_120] and Athenian speculators sent to that island for peacocks, which were shown to the curious once a month.[XVII_121]
This variety became afterwards an article of commerce, and all wealthy people became desirous to have them. A male and female cost £8 sterling.[XVII_122] But what was that, when delighted eyes could contemplate the charming and lovely colours of the haughty favourite of Juno!
At Rome, the peacock had a prodigious success.[XVII_123] When alive, the Romans praised its beauty; when dead, it appeared on the tables of its enthusiastic admirers.
Quintus Hortensius, the orator, was the first who had them served in a banquet given by him on the occasion of being created an augur.[XVII_124] This gastronomic novelty made an extraordinary sensation at Rome—as might be expected—and the peacock became so much in fashion, that no banquet could possibly be given unless it was embellished by its presence.[XVII_125]
Marcus Aufidius Livio was the first to contrive a sure way to fatten them;[XVII_126] and he succeeded so well that he made prodigious sums every year by the sale of those birds.[J]
Horace preferred them to the finest poultry,[XVII_127] and distinguished amateurs thought that it was not paying much for a young peacock if they could get it for two pounds and three shillings.[XVII_128]
The ridiculous consumption which was made of these birds did not allow of their becoming very common. Tiberius reared some in his gardens; and he condemned to capital punishment a soldier of his guards who had the misfortune to kill one.[XVII_129]
Ultimately, more savoury or more rare dishes took the place of peacocks’ flesh, which then began to be thought hard, unwholesome, and of difficult digestion.[XVII_130] However, it re-appeared in the middle ages at the nuptial festivities of the rich, where one of these birds was served, as if alive, with the beak and claws gilded. To do that well, it was necessary to skin the bird very carefully, and then cook it with aromatics, such as cinnamon, cloves, &c. It was then covered with its skin and feathers, and served without any appearance of having been stripped. This luxury was to gratify the sight: nobody touched it. The peacock was thus preserved for several years without being damaged—a property believed to be peculiar to its flesh,[XVII_131] but which was owing, no doubt, to the aromatics just mentioned.
Peacock of Samos.—Mix some pepper, alisander, parsley, dill flowers, dried mint, and filberts, or fried almonds; bruise them with green smallage[K] and pennyroyal, and mix the whole with wine, honey, vinegar, and garum. Make incisions in the bird, and cover it with this seasoning.[XVII_132]
It would, probably, be impossible to trace the epoch at which man began to make use of milk as food. Abraham presented some to the three angels who appeared to him in the valley of Mamre;[XVIII_1] and it is likely, that long before that patriarch, the eastern nations had recourse to an aliment so easily acquired, and which their numerous flocks produced in such abundance.
Among the Jews, milk was always considered as an emblem of the wealth of a country and the fertility of its soil; so much so, that the sacred books almost invariably speak of a happy region, as one “flowing with milk and honey.”[XVIII_2] This metaphorical expression testifies sufficiently to the taste of the Hebrews for this aliment, which their King Solomon recommended to them in these terms: “and thou shalt have goat’s milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance of thy maidens.”[XVIII_3]
Profane antiquity agrees on this point with our holy chroniclers. It represents to us the first men, free from passions and fears, surrounded by streams of milk and nectar, from which they drew health and life.[XVIII_4] Happy time! ere milk-maids existed to practise those deceptions they have now imbibed from the deceitful arts of chemistry.
The greater part of the wandering tribes, such as the Getes and Scythians, were galactophagists,[XVIII_5] or drinkers of milk;[XVIII_6] the Gauls[XVIII_7] and Germans[XVIII_8] made it also their principal food. In Greece and Italy, the shepherds decorated the vessels in which they had just milked their flocks with crowns of flowers; and, in honour of the rural divinities, they scattered about a small quantity of this sweet liquid.[XVIII_9] The reapers offered it to Ceres;[XVIII_10] and in one of the sections of Rome, Mercury was presented with milk instead of wine.
The ancients attributed to milk from cows, ewes, and goats, various Hygeian qualities.[XVIII_11] Hippocrates forbade it in cases of head-ache, fevers, and bilious attacks;[XVIII_12] but he sometimes ordered asses’ milk,[XVIII_13] which was considered as an excellent remedy, and a most wholesome aliment.[XVIII_14]
The voluptuous people of Rome rubbed their faces and skins with bread soaked in asses’ milk, to make them fairer and prevent the beard from growing too fast.
Suetonius[XVIII_15] and Martial[XVIII_16] speak of these refinements of luxurious delicacies. The satirical Juvenal informs us that bread was made into a kind of plaster or mask, with which they covered the face.[XVIII_17] Poppæia, wife of Nero, was the first, or one of the first, to bring this recipe into fashion, being fully persuaded that she would thus preserve the whiteness and delicacy of her skin. Five hundred asses used to supply daily the necessary quantity of milk to make the cosmetic and bath[XVIII_18] of the coquettish empress.
This high patronage did not prevent asses’ milk from losing by degrees—and very unjustly, no doubt—the reputation it acquired.[XVIII_19]
Fashion—capricious and all-powerful deity—undertook to re-instate its virtues, after several centuries of profound forgetfulness. The success was complete. This is how the affair took place:—
Francis I., finding himself weak and languishing, the physicians, after a long consultation on the monarch’s illness, advised remedies which did not cure the royal patient. However, the King of France was getting worse every day, and his state gave serious apprehensions. Some one mentioning to his Majesty that a Jew of Constantinople was noted as one of the cleverest doctors in the world, Francis immediately ordered his ambassador in Turkey to send him this Israelitish doctor, whatever might be the cost. The Jew arrived, and prescribed no other remedy than asses’ milk. The king found himself much better, and the courtiers and ladies of the court eagerly followed the same diet, even for the slightest imaginary indisposition.
A patient, cured by the use of this wholesome and restorative food, thought of expressing his gratitude by the following stanza:—
Macédoine Germanique of Milk.—Pound dry almonds, and put them into a stewpan with the following ingredients:—the most delicate parts of mallows only, and white-beet, some leeks, parsley, and other leguminous herbs, previously cooked, a fowl boiled and minced small, the brains of poultry or sucking pigs, also boiled, and lastly, some hard eggs cut in two. Put all these together, as mentioned before; some little time after that, add sausage meat, fowls’ livers, fresh cod fish, and oysters—the whole reduced into pulp—some fresh cheese, pine nuts, and whole pepper. Whilst this is boiling on a very slow fire, prepare the following seasoning: pound some pepper, alisander, parsley seeds, and silphium; stew separately with gravy; mix raw eggs with a great quantity of milk; add it to the preceding seasoning; pour it over the contents of the stewpan, then pepper, and serve.[XVIII_20]
A learned writer[XVIII_21] has maintained that the ancient inhabitants of the east did not know of butter, and that by this word must be understood, when it occurs in the holy writings, sour milk or cream. Whatever may be the respect due to the grave authority of Beckmann, we beg leave to adhere to the opinion of various translators of the Bible, and believe with them that the Jews knew how to prepare butter. Independently of the signification of chemack, to which a profound philosopher gives the same sense,[XVIII_22] and which appears very naturally to offer this acceptation, we could still fortify our opinion by the passage where Job, recalling with sorrow the happy days of his youth, says, that he used to wash his “feet in butter.”[XVIII_23] We agree that these words are understood in a figurative sense, and that the man of God wished to show by it that he was the possessor of a great number of flocks.
But it is nevertheless true, that this metaphorical locution recalls also one of the uses made of that fat substance, which was for a long while employed, like oil, to soften and refresh the limbs.
Indulgent reader, excuse this episode upon a ground which we ought not to touch, and let us re-enter the kitchen.
The Greeks, who understood many things, and knew them so well, passed over several centuries without once thinking that the milk of their ewes and cows contained a food already well-known by several barbarous nations. Aristotle mentions the serous part of milk, and cheese;[XVIII_24] but he hardly suspects the existence of butter, which he describes but very imperfectly as a liquid oil.[XVIII_25] Antecedent to him, Hippocrates never thought of it, except as a foreign remedy which Asia supplied to Greece.[XVIII_26]
It was only fifty years after Aristotle that it began to be noticed as an aliment. The Greeks, in imitation of the Parthians and Scythians, who used to send it to them, had it served upon their tables, and called it at first “oil of milk,”[XVIII_27] and later, bouturos, “cow cheese,” probably on account of the quantity made from the milk of that animal.[XVIII_28]
The Germans, according to Beckmann, taught the Romans how to make butter, but they never employed it otherwise than as a remedy in Italy.
It is certain that in the time of Pliny it had hardly been heard of at Rome,[XVIII_29] and that, according to this writer, the barbarians only—that is to say, those who were unfortunate enough not to be either Greeks or Romans—made their food of it.[XVIII_30] Towards the year 175 of the Christian era, Galen then placed butter only among the therapeutic agents useful in medicine.[XVIII_31] However, more than a century before him, Dioscorides wished it to be noticed that fresh butter made of ewes’ or goats’ milk was served at meals instead of oil, and that it took the place of fat in making pastry.[XVIII_32]
Herodotus has preserved some interesting details on the manipulation of butter among the Scythians. They received the milk in large pails, and beat it for a long time to separate the most delicate part, and appointed for this labour those enemies whom the fortune of war delivered into their hands. These unhappy creatures were deprived of sight, which prevented their escape.[XVIII_33]
The Romans set about making butter as we do. Pliny says: “Butter is made from milk, and this aliment, so much sought after by barbarous nations, distinguished the rich from the common people. It is obtained principally from cows’ milk; that from ewes is the fattest. Goats also supply some. It is produced by agitating the milk in long vessels with a narrow opening. A little water is added.”[XVIII_34]
Formerly it was required in many countries that the dealer in this article should sell good butter to his customers. In France, for instance, intolerance was carried so far as to forbid “all persons to re-scrape, beat, or work up any butter, either fresh or salted; change, mix, or mingle it, under pain of being whipped.”[XVIII_35] Since then the strangeness of such a measure has become palpable, the more so as modern good faith and honesty render it more useless than ever.
During the early ages of the Church, butter was burned in the lamps instead of oil. This practice is still continued in Abyssinia.[XVIII_36]
The cathedral of Rouen has a tower, called the “Butter Tower.” It acquired this name from the fact that George d’Amboise, who was archbishop of that city in 1500, seeing that oil was scarce in his diocese during Lent, authorised the use of butter, on condition that each diocesan should pay six deniers Tournois (about a farthing) for the permission. The money obtained by these means served to construct the “Butter Tower.”[XVIII_37]
To obtain butter instantly it is only necessary, in summer, to put new milk into bottles some hours after it has been taken from the cow, and shake it briskly. The clots which form, thrown into a sieve, washed and pressed together, constitute the finest and most delicate butter that can possibly be made.
One of the great means of preserving butter fresh for any length of time is, first to press all the buttermilk completely out, then to keep it under water (renewing the water frequently), and to abstract it from the influence of heat and air by wrapping it in a wet cloth.
When butter has become very rancid, it is melted several times by a moderate heat, with or without the addition of water, and, as soon as it has been malaxated, after the cooling, in order to extract any water it may have retained, it is put into brown freestone pots, sheltered from the contact of the air. Frequently, when it is melted, a piece of toasted bread is put into it, which acts in the same manner as charcoal; that is to say, it attenuates the rancidity.[XVIII_38]
A demi-god, Aristæus, the son of Apollo, and King of Arcadia, invented cheese,[XVIII_39] and the whole of Greece welcomed with gratitude this royal and almost divine present. Sober individuals willingly ate some at their meals;[XVIII_40] gluttons perceived that it sharpened the appetite; and great drinkers that it provoked copious libations. Thus the aged Nestor, wise as he was, brought wine to Machaon, who had just been wounded in the right arm, and did not fail to add to it goat cheese and an onion, to force him to drink more.[XVIII_41]
This food was also well known to the Hebrews, and the holy writings sometimes mention it.[XVIII_42]
Mare’s milk, or that of the ass, makes an excellent cheese, but much inferior to that procured from the camel, for which an epicure could not pay too dearly. Cow-milk cheese, although more fat and unctuous, was only considered as third-rate.[XVIII_43]
The Phrygians made exquisite cheese by artistically mixing the milk of asses and mares. The Scythians only employed the former; the Greeks imitated them.[XVIII_44] The Sicilians also mixed the milk of goats and ewes.[XVIII_45]
The Romans smoked their cheeses, to give them a sharp taste; they possessed public places expressly for this use, and subject to police regulations which no one could evade.[XVIII_46]
In the time of Pliny, little goat cheeses, which were much esteemed, were sent every morning to the market for the sale of dainties, from the environs of Rome.[XVIII_47] With the addition of a little bread, they formed the breakfast of sober and delicate persons. Asia Minor, Tuscany, the Alps, Gaul, and Nîmes especially, furnished very good ones for the tables of the Romans,[XVIII_48] who sought in preference certain sweet and soft qualities. The greater part of barbarous nations esteemed only the strong cheese.[XVIII_49]
The Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, always kept some of these last for the provision of their armies, and it was among them a military aliment.[XVIII_50] The Athenians fed their wrestlers with it,[XVIII_51] and it was the sole treat of the shepherds of Italy.[XVIII_52]
The lower classes and country people prepared with cheese and various salted substances a dish they thought most relishing, and which epicureans only mentioned with horror. This was called tyrotarichus, and Cicero often employs this word to designate a frugal style of cookery.[XVIII_53]
Besides those countries celebrated for the goodness of cheeses already mentioned, there is Tromelia, in Achaia,[XVIII_54] and the Island of Cythnus, where they represented their cheeses on their money, an ingenious manner of making them known, which succeeded wonderfully well; and lastly, Salonia, a city of Bithynia, renowned for its rich pastures, where numerous herds of cows were kept, and whose milk furnished an exquisite kind known by the name of Salonite cheese.[XVIII_55] It appears to have been often served to the Emperor Augustus, who ate it with brown bread, little fish, and fresh figs.[XVIII_56]
The art of giving a relish to the cheese, by mixing with it odoriferous herbs, is said to be more than nine hundred years old. This operation was designated persiller, showing that originally parsley was introduced.[XVIII_57] We cannot say whether the Romans made use of this plant to give a pungency to their cheese, but it is certain that they often mixed some herbs with it.[XVIII_58] Thus Columella informs us that sometimes the leaves and small branches of the fig tree were used to communicate an agreeable flavour.[XVIII_59] The same writer has transmitted to us a very simple process, much in use in his time, for preserving cheese. They first covered it with brine, and then dried it in a thick smoke obtained from straw or green wood.[XVIII_60]
The following are some of the dishes of which cheese served as the basis:—
Salad of Cheese à la Bithynienne.—Cut some slices of excellent bread; leave them for some time in vinegar and water; then make a mixture of this bread with pepper, mint, garlic, and green coriander; throw on it a good quantity of cow’s cheese salted; add water, oil, and wine.[XVIII_61]
Dish of Tromelian Cheese.—Take fresh cheese; mix it well with pepper, alisander, dried mint, pine nuts, sun raisins, and dates; then add honey, vinegar, and afterwards, garum, oil, wine, and cooked wine.[XVIII_62]
The celebrated cheese of Rouergue, known under the name of “Roquefort cheese,” was made, in the 17th century as follows—we cite from Marcorelle:—
“The curd employed is made from sheep’s milk, mixed with a little goat’s milk. It is broken as small as possible. When it is taken from the moulds, it is bound with a linen band and taken to the drying room; then to the caves, where it is rubbed with salt on the two flat sides of the surface. The downy substance which subsequently covers the crust is frequently scraped off; after which, it is left to ripen on tablets exposed to currents of air which proceed from the interstices of the rocks in which the caves are formed.”
Besides salt, employed as a seasoning and condiment for cheeses, they contain in their composition different substances which give rise to an infinite variety of odours, taste, and colour. In the Vosges, for example, they mix with the cheese of Gerardmer seeds of plants belonging to the family of umbellifers; in the country of Limburg, they incorporate chopped parsley, scallions, and tarragon; the Italians make use of saffron to colour the Parmesan cheese, and the English of roucou for the Cheshire cheese. Others are in the habit of cutting away a portion of the middle of the cheese, and filling the cavity with Malaga or Canary wine.[XVIII_63]
Orpheus, Pythagoras, and their sectators—good and humane people as ever lived—unceasingly recommended in their discourses to abstain from eggs, in order not to destroy a germ which nature had destined for the production of chicken.[XVIII_64] Many allowed themselves to be persuaded, and would have believed it an unpardonable crime if they had eaten a tiny omelette, or boiled eggs.
Many of the most learned philosophers held eggs in a kind of respect approaching to veneration, because they saw in them the emblem of the world and the four elements. The shell, they said, represented the earth; the white, water; the yolk, fire; and air was found under the shell.[XVIII_65]
In India and Syria, there was less scruple about swallowing a few eggs; but the hens were devoutly worshipped, because the world is indebted to them for chickens.[XVIII_66]
The Greeks and Romans, although more reasonable, felt, however, for eggs a trifling weakness not exempt from superstition. They already made use of them in their sacrifices, and carried them with great pomp in the festivals of Ceres.[XVIII_67] For them it was also a symbol of the universe, and an expiation would not have been complete if some eggs had not been broken on the altar of the irritated gods.[XVIII_68]
Magicians and sorcerers, who abounded in Rome, established singular fables with regard to eggs. Livia, the happy consort of Nero, being enceinte, consulted a sorceress, who said to her, “warm in your bosom a new laid egg until hatched; if a male chicken comes forth, thank the gods, who will grant you a son.” The empress followed this advice; a cock chick came, and the princess gave birth to Tiberius.[XVIII_69] This anecdote circulated in Rome, and all ladies in the same interesting situation, imitating Livia, amused themselves with hatching chickens.
It appears that the egg played also a most important part in dreams. A man having dreamed that he had eaten one, went to consult a soothsayer, who told him that the white signified he would soon have silver, and the yolk that he would receive gold. The fortunate dreamer really received very soon afterwards a legacy partly consisting of those two precious metals. He hastened to thank the diviner, and offered him a piece of silver. “This is very well for the white,” said the latter, “but is there nought for the yolk?”[XVIII_70] It is not known whether the heir was generous enough to understand this bon mot.
All these pagan follies are to be accounted for by the doctrine of the poet Orpheus, who first taught the Greeks that a primitive egg had produced all other beings;[XVIII_71] a very ancient idea, no doubt, transmitted to them by the Egyptians, who, as well as the Phœnicians, Persians, and Chaldeans, represented the world by that symbol.
It is now time to describe eggs as an aliment.
The shepherds of Egypt had a singular manner of cooking them without the aid of fire: they placed them in a sling, which they turned so rapidly that the friction of the air heated them to the exact point required for use.[XVIII_72]
In Rome and in Greece, new-laid eggs were served at the beginning of a repast;[XVIII_73] and the Roman gourmets asserted that, to maintain oneself in health, “it was necessary to remain at table from the egg to the apple.”[XVIII_74] We have adopted the half of that proverb, and we say every day, this story must be taken up ab ovo.
The Romans did not confine themselves to hens’ eggs, of which they preferred the long ones;[XVIII_75] they sought those of the partridge and pheasant, which Galen considered the most delicate.[XVIII_76] They also thought much of peacocks’ eggs. It was Quintus Hortensius who set the example of this luxury,[XVIII_77] which, however, was discarded by degrees when the precious fecundity of the hens of Adria began to be appreciated.[XVIII_78]
The ancients appear to have been very partial to soft-boiled eggs, which may be sucked at once. Nicomachus mentions them: “My father,” says he, “had left me a poor little estate; in a few months I made it as round as an egg; then, breaking the shell, I made but one gulp of it.”[XVIII_79]
At Rome, this aliment was prepared in twenty different manners; they pickled it,[XVIII_80] cooked it in water, on hot ashes, on charcoal, and in the fryingpan. Eggs eaten in the shell, however, were thought the most wholesome.[XVIII_81]
Eggs à la Romaine.—Cook some eggs; cut them, and throw over a seasoning composed in the following manner. Bruise some pepper, alisander, coriander, and rue, to which add garum, honey, and a little oil.[XVIII_82]
Hard Eggs à l’Athénienne.—Cut each egg in four, and sprinkle over garum, oil, and wine.[XVIII_83]
Fried Eggs à l’Epænète.—Fry some eggs; place them in a dish, and season with a mixture of pepper, alisander, pine nuts, garum, benzoin, and pepper.[XVIII_84]
Egyptian Egg Pudding.—Take the yolks of a good number of hard eggs; reduce them to a paste with crushed pine nuts, an onion, a leek, some gravy, and pepper; add a little wine and garum. Stuff an intestine with this pulp, and cook.[XVIII_85]
Dish of Eggs à la Macédonienne.—Put in a mortar some pepper, mint, parsley, pennyroyal, cheese, and pine nuts; when this is well crushed, add honey, vinegar, fresh water, and garum; then a large number of yolks of eggs; mix well with the rest; throw the whole into a saucepan; add bread soaked in vinegar and water,—which, however, must be well squeezed out—with fresh cow’s-milk cheese, cucumbers, almonds, chopped onions, fowls’ livers, and garum.[XVIII_86]
Lesbian Eggs aux Roses.—Pluck the leaves of some roses; take only the whitest part, and put them into a mortar with garum. Stir a long time; add half a small glass of gravy; stir and strain; put into this liquor the brains of four fowls and eight scruples of ground pepper; stir a long time; add to it eight eggs, half a small glass of wine, and as much cooked wine, and, lastly, a little oil. Grease well the inside of a dish, pour the whole into it, and place it over a very slow charcoal fire. Cook, sprinkle with pepper, and serve.[XVIII_87]
It was a custom, common to every agricultural population throughout Europe and Asia, to celebrate the new year by eating eggs; and they formed a part of the presents made on that day. Care was taken to dye them different colours, particularly red—the favourite colour of the ancients, and of the Celts in particular.[XVIII_88]
It appears that, formerly, people consumed an astonishing number of eggs in England on Easter Sunday. We find the following article in an account of expenses for the king’s household (Edward I.) on the occasion of this festival:—
“For four hundred and a half of eggs, eighteen pence.”[XVIII_89] At that epoch eggs were not so dear in England as they are now; nor did kings fail to eat more of them.
In 1533, a bishop of Paris, authorised by a bull from the Pope, Julius III., being disposed to permit the use of eggs during Lent, the parliament took offence, and prevented the execution of the episcopal mandate. It is this severe abstinence from eggs during Lent which gave rise to the custom of having a great number of them blessed on Easter eve, to be distributed among friends on Easter Sunday; whence comes the expression, “to give Easter eggs.” Pyramids of them were carried into the king’s cabinet after the high mass. They were gilded, or admirably painted, and the prince made presents of them to his courtiers.[XVIII_90]
From the first ages of the world man has passionately loved the exercise of hunting; the dangers he then encountered inflamed his courage. It was glorious to struggle with the terrible inhabitants of the forest or the desert; to conquer them; to bring home their bleeding spoils; to furnish an heroic name for the songs of poets, and the admiration of posterity.
The sacred writings have handed down to us the name of the first mighty hunter before the Lord;[XIX_1] they inform us that Ishmael, in the solitude of Arabia, became skilful in drawing the bow;[XIX_2] and that David, when yet young, dared to fight with lions and bears.[XIX_3]
Fable, that veiled light of truth, through which it sometimes glimmers, caused Hercules to be ranked with the gods when he had overthrown the lion of Nemæa, the hydra of Lerna, and the wild boar of Erymanthus.[XIX_4]
Diana descended to the earth, and pursued in the forests the timid stag.[XIX_5] The Greeks raised altars to her, and the centaur Chiron learned of her the noble art of venery, which he, in his turn, taught to illustrious disciples, among whom are mentioned Æsculapius, Nestor, Theseus, Ulysses, and Achilles.[XIX_6]
Pollux trained the first hunting dogs, and Castor accustomed horses to follow the track of wild beasts.[XIX_7] From that time, heroes, when resting from real conquests, sought diversion in games nearly as formidable, and imitative of their combats, which often placed their lives in danger. Ulysses, for example, always bore the scar of a wound inflicted by a wild boar.[XIX_8]
The most grave philosophers, and the most illustrious poets have bestowed praises on the chase.
Aristotle advised young men to apply themselves to it early.[XIX_9] Plato finds in it something divine,[XIX_10] Horace looks upon it as healthful exercise, strengthening to the body, and preparing the way for glory;[XIX_11] and indeed, this heroic and royal exercise[XIX_12] always possessed irresistible attraction for the greatest men of antiquity.
The warriors of Homer,[XIX_13] Pelopidas,[XIX_14] Alexander of Macedon,[XIX_15] Philopœmen,[XIX_16] seemed to derive from it fresh warlike ardour.
The ancients hunted in the open country, in forests, and in parks. Mounted on fiery steeds, armed with javelins and long cutlasses, or with swords and lances,[XIX_17] they excited their indefatigable hounds, and promised to consecrate to Diana the stag’s horns, or the tusks of the boar,[XIX_18] which might become their prey.
The Greeks and Romans reared hunting dogs with extreme care, and they began to make use of them from the age of eight or ten months.[XIX_19] These animals had names, short, sonorous, and easy to be pronounced, such as Lance, Flower, Blade, Strength, Ardent, &c.[XIX_20]
The strongest and most courageous came from England and Scotland;[XIX_21] Crete, Tuscany, and Umbria were the nurseries of the most expert.[XIX_22] The Gallic dogs surpassed all others by their agility and astonishing swiftness.[XIX_23]
Females were generally preferred to the males,[XIX_24] either because they were more docile, or pursued the game with more ardour and persistence. It may be as well to remark, too, in this place, that the Greeks thought much more of mares than of horses for chariot racing.[XIX_25]
The dogs were always chained. Their liberty was only given them at the moment of starting for the chase.[XIX_26] Their fire and ferocity were then incredible. They dashed off with fury, and when they succeeded in coming up with their prey, some would suffer their legs to be cut off rather than loose their hold. The Indian dogs, trained for lion hunting, often gave this proof of obstinate and implacable rage.[XIX_27]
The ancients also took game by means of pits covered over with brushwood, in snares,[XIX_28] with traps,[XIX_29] and with nets;[XIX_30] moreover, they often made use of bows and arrows, and understood the art of training falcons and hawks.[XIX_31]
Eastern princes amused themselves by hunting in parks where a great number of wild beasts were kept.[XIX_32] The Romans had too much taste and money, and too great a desire to spend it, not to imitate this expensive and royal luxury. Fulvius Hirpinus possessed a park of forty acres near Viterbo, in Tuscany. Lucius Lucullus, and Quintus Hortensius hastened to create more beautiful ones, and they did not fail to have a host of imitators.[XIX_33]
By the Roman law, hunting was unrestricted:[XIX_34] only, no person could pursue game on another’s land without the owner’s permission.[XIX_35]
Besides the pleasure which this amusement afforded, the ancients, like ourselves, discovered profit in it; and the produce of their chase became one of the finest ornaments of their feasts. Isaac ordered his son Esau to go out with his weapons, his quiver and bow, and to prepare for him savoury meat, such as he loved (venison).[XIX_36] Solomon had stags, roebucks, and wild oxen served on his table every day.[XIX_37]
Cyrus, King of Persia, ordered that venison should never be wanting at his repasts.[XIX_38] Is it necessary to add that it was the delight of two nations the most gastronomic in the world?—of the effeminate Greeks, and more especially those Romans for whom the animals of the earth, ocean, and air were only to be valued in proportion to the impossibility of obtaining them in Europe, Asia, and Africa; an immense inheritance, conquered by noble ancestors, and which their degenerated sons ransacked for their satisfaction and insatiable gluttony.[XIX_39]
The English have always loved hunting—the favourite pastime of their kings.
Alfred the Great was not twelve years old when he had acquired the reputation of being a skilful and indefatigable hunter.[XIX_40]
The noble and the wealthy differed from the serfs by their singular taste for this royal diversion; and, in their pursuit of it, they spared neither pains nor expense in procuring those famous dogs of pure race which the ancient Greeks and Romans prized so highly. When Athelstan, Alfred’s grandson, had subdued Constantine King of Wales, he imposed an annual tribute. The vanquished monarch had to give him gold, silver, cattle, and, which is remarkable, a certain number of hawks, and dogs possessing a quick scent, and capable of unkenneling wild beasts.[XIX_41] Edgar, the successor of Athelstan, changed the tribute of money into an annual tribute of three hundred wolves’ skins.[XIX_42]
Notwithstanding his great piety, and the extreme reserve of his habits, Edward the Confessor took great delight in following the hounds, and exciting their ardour by his cries.[XIX_43]
King Harold never appeared anywhere without his favourite hawk on his hand; neither was the approach of the British Nimrod announced otherwise than by the joyous barking of the royal pack.[XIX_44] Indeed, at that epoch, every person of distinction took the prince as his model, and gave himself up, heart and soul, to what people are pleased to call “the noble exercise of hunting.”
This aristocratic taste became so extremely prevalent under the domination of the Norman kings, that a writer of the twelfth century has judged it with great severity. “In our time,” he says, “hunting is considered as the most honourable occupation, the most excellent virtue. Our nobility show more solicitude, sacrifice more money, and make a greater parade in favour of it, than they would if the question were war. They are more furious in the pursuit of wild beasts, than they would be if they had to conquer the enemies of Great Britain. As a necessary consequence, they no longer retain any sentiment of humanity; they have descended almost to the level of the savage animals they are in the daily habit of tracking and unkenneling.”[XIX_45]
These uncomplimentary observations of John of Salisbury did not prevent James I. from pursuing the cherished diversion of his predecessors. That prince being one day at the hunt in the environs of Bury St. Edmunds, remarked, among the persons composing his suite, an opulent citizen magnificently dressed, whose rich costume eclipsed that of the lords the most renowned at court for the elegance of their attire. The king asked who the hunter was. Some one replied that it was Lamb. “Lamb, say you?” rejoined the king, laughing; “I don’t know what sort of a lamb that may be; but what I know well is, that he has got a superb fleece on his back.”[XIX_46]
Roman ladies of the highest distinction, arrived at that age when, in making an estimate of life, it is found that the largest portion belongs to the past—these ladies, we say, failed not to have the flesh of this animal served on their tables, and to eat as much of it as possible. Perchance it had but a slight attraction for the worthy matrons, and yet they preferred it to every other, for this reason, that the stag being free from maladies and infirmities—at least so it was thought—prolongs its existence far beyond the bounds which nature has assigned to other beings.[XIX_47] The noble patrician ladies would not have been sorry to survive their great-grandchildren, and they took the means which appeared to them most likely to ensure longevity.[XIX_48]
If the celebrated Galen had lived in their time, he would have told those credulous Roman ladies, that this kind of food could not fail to be hurtful to them; that this indigestible and heating meat is more likely to provoke disease than to destroy its germ; and that, consequently, death finds in it an auxiliary rather than an enemy.[XIX_49]
True, the oracle of Pergama wrote nearly all this a century later, and yet his medical authority was powerless to persuade, although it may have convinced the obstinate epicureans of his period.
In point of fact, whatever Galen may say, what dreadful accidents can a piece of stag properly cooked produce? Moses, so attentive to the health of his people, allows them the use of it;[XIX_50] Solomon, the wisest of men, ate it every day.[XIX_51] Do we find that the Jewish monarch and his people were any the worse for preferring this food?
At Athens, at Rome, and in all Italy, whoever possessed the intelligence of appreciating good cheer, took care to offer to his friends the shoulder or fillet of stag.[XIX_52] Nevertheless, gastronomists by profession, who so generously devoted their fortunes to the service of the culinary art, abandoned the whole animal to their slaves, and only reserved for themselves the most tender shoots of the horns. These were for a long time boiled, then cut into very small pieces, and this strange dish, seasoned with a mixture of pepper, cummin, savory, rue, parsley, bay leaves, fat, and pine nuts, sprinkled with vinegar, and fried, passed for an exquisite and dainty treat, worthy of the most flattering praises.[XIX_53]
Quarter of Stag, roast à la Neméenne.—Put into a saucepan pepper, alisander, carrots, wild marjoram, parsley seed, benzoin root, and fennel seed; add garum, wine, cooked wine, and a little oil. Boil over a slow fire, thicken with fine flour, pour on the roast stag, and serve.[XIX_54]
Shoulder of Stag à l’Hortensius.—Cook in a saucepan carrots, alisander, with pepper and parsley seed. Add honey, garum, vinegar, and luke-warm oil; thicken with fine flour, and pour this sauce on the shoulder of stag when roasted.[XIX_55]
Fillet of Stag à la Persane.—Roast it, and at the moment of placing it on the table, cover it with a seasoning of pepper, alisander, scallions, wild marjoram, onions, and pine nuts, previously mixed with honey, garum, mustard, vinegar, and oil.[XIX_56]
The flesh of the roebuck, according to Galen, has none of the bad qualities which he attributes to that of the stag.[XIX_57] Esculapius and Comus for this once agreed—which very seldom happened—in praising the beneficial properties and the delicious odour of these timid quadrupeds.
The Greeks thought much of the roebuck; they obtained the best from the island of Melos,[XIX_58] and served them at their most sumptuous repasts.[XIX_59] They were, perhaps, more rarely seen on Roman tables.
Roebuck with Spikenard.—Pound, in a mortar, pepper, parsley seed, dry onion, and green rue; add spikenard, and then honey, vinegar, garum, dates, cooked wine, and oil; mix well the whole, and cover the roast with it.[XIX_60]
Roebuck aux Prunes.—Mix pepper, alisander, and parsley, after having pounded them. Add to this a good quantity of Damascus plums, which you have soaked in hot water. Then add honey, wine, vinegar, garum, and a little oil; and, lastly, leeks and savory. Serve the roebuck with this sauce.[XIX_61]
Roebuck aux Amandes de Pin.—Bruise pepper, alisander, parsley, and cummin; mix with it a great quantity of fried pine nuts; and add honey, vinegar, wine, a little oil, and garum. Pour it over the roebuck.[XIX_62]