"The Athenians held oysters in great esteem. They were not common at Rome, and consequently fetched there a very high price; yet Macrobius assures us, that the Roman Pontiffs never missed to have them every day on their tables. From the fourth century to the reign of Louis XIV. they were nearly forgotten; but they soon came again into vogue, and from that time have kept up their reputation. Gastronomers, we know, can swallow three or four dozen before dinner, and then sit down to eat heartily and perhaps better than if they had abstained from them. They clear the stomach of accidental phlegm, increase the gastric juices, and, by their natural coolness, condense the air which may be fixed in the organs of digestion. When good, they are wholesome, but poisonous when bad." Of lobsters. "This crustaceous fish, which, when in season, is delightful for the taste, purity, and firmness of its flesh, grows to a large size, if concealed in the rocky caverns of the deep, it can avoid the rapacity of its enemies, among whom the fisherman is not the least dangerous. Lobsters sometimes measure two feet and upwards; but Olaus Magnus, Hist. L. 21, c. 34, and Gesner de Piscibus, L. 4, pretend, that in the Indian seas, and on the shores of Norway, lobsters have been found twelve feet long, and six broad, seizing mariners with their gigantic claws, and dragging them along into the deep to devour them!! The French proverb says, a beau mentir qui vient de loin.'"* The pike he styles "the tyrant, the terror, the destroyer of the fish-pond," and then proceeds: "The poet represents him dressed, as the French style it, 'au bleu.' Boiled in wine, with onions, carrots, parsley, pepper, and salt, he is allowed to get cold; and then, laid on a napkin in stateliness, supported by a tray, he takes his situation on the table. It is deservedly reckoned by all Gastronomers very excellent eating. The flesh is white, firm, and tasteful, and the bones (which the French, in all fishes, properly call arrête, fromarreter,' to stop, because they stop the voracity of the eater) are, in a large subject, so slender, so pliant, that they can easily be put aside, or if accidentally swallowed do no harm. Pikes grow to an astonishing size. The skeleton of one, which weighed 350 pounds, has long been preserved at Manheim. Thrown in a pond by the Emperor Barbarossa, with a brass elastic collar, he was taken up in 1497, at the surprising age of 267 On the collar was engraved the following inscription in years. Greek: 'I am the first fish which was put into this lake by the hands of the governor of the universe, Frederic II. the 5th of October, 1230.' Lacépede (Hist des Poissons) pretends that the existence and bulk of fishes and amphibious animals may increase to an incalculable extent." Next comes asparagus, or sparrow-grass, or, as it is sometimes called for brevity's sake, grass. "This vegetable possesses great volatility of parts, and peculiar diuretic powers. The name is of Greek origin, and alludes to its sprouting entirely naked from the ground; that is without cotyledons or leaves. "It reminds us of a curious trick which a wag played once upon a countryman, who had no knowledge whatsoever of the existence of such a production as asparagus. They were travelling together, and arrived, on a Friday, at an inn in a small town near Arras, in France, intending to sup and sleep there. The wag asked the landlord what he had to give them ? There was nothing in the house bnt plenty of asparagus and eggs. Well, then, let us have first an omelet, and whilst we are eating it, boil us some of your best asparagus.' It was done accordingly: the omelet was served up in a few minutes.-' If I cut it in two,' said the knowing one, you will draw your share to your plate, and I the other half to mine.' The countryman bowed assent, the omelet was divided, and declared exceedingly good. Then comes the asparagus. 'I do not remember to have ever seen these sorts of things before,' said the countryman, how curious they look-are they peculiar to this part of the world?'-Without answering this preliminary question, We will do,' said the wag, as we did before;' and he severed the whole bunch in two. By an unperceived whirling of the dish, the white part became the lot of the peasant, who, beginning to tear and chew and masticate to no purpose, declared, with a solemn oath, that as this was the first, it should be also the last time he would attempt to make a meal of asparagus. The wag, of course, enjoyed the whole of the verdant and tender heads of the vegetable.' From a whole treatise about eggs, we extract a few hints which, we think, may be useful. "Sometimes eggs are positively roasted. In countries where woodfire is constantly used, the cottager half buries his eggs in an upright position in hot ashes upon the hearth; and when a clear dew-drop oozes on the top of the shell, the eggs are fit to be eaten. Ovid was not ignorant of this practice, for he says, Met. viii. 667. Ovaque, non acri leviter versata favilla. DRYDEN. Gastrologers are of opinion, that, done in this way, eggs have a much better flavour than when boiled. Fancy goes far in matters of taste. "After all, the most extraordinary manner of cooking eggs is, as it stands recorded, to turn them round in a sling till they appear slightly boiled. This was, we are told, an Egyptian custom. A more credible assertion is, that long eggs contain a male sperm, but this we also doubt; although Horace declares that the same opinion was indisputably held by the epicurean bon-vivants' in his time. How. ever, the Schola Salernitana gives a good precept as to the choice of eggs: Si sumas ovum molle sit atque novum. If thou takest an egg, let it be soft and new. "The surest mode of trying an egg is to apply the tip of the tongue to the blunt end; if it feels warm, and the acute end cold, it is a proof that no fermentation has yet taken place." There is a very entertaining little appendix on the subject of wine, which sets out with observing, that the words, wine, English, wein, German, vin, French, vinum, Latin, and oivos, Greek, are all sprung from the Hebrew 11. He says "Before, and even since the introduction of Gascoygne' wine into this island, vineyards were well cultivated and thriving in several parts of the kingdom; for we find, that a certain quantity of wine is ordered to be paid instead of rent to the chief lord of a vineyardVinagaium, i, e. Tributum a vino. Mon. Angl. 2 Tom. 980. But, in course of time, Bacchus courteously gave room for the pursuits of Ceres, and the golden harvest of corn superseded the purple produce of the vintage. "It is an erroneous idea to suppose that white wine is exclusively the produce of white grapes. Fermentation alone determines the colour. The juice contained in both the white and red grape is nearly as colourless as water; except in one peculiar species, which is called the dyer, raisin teinturier,' the liquor of which is of a purple hue, as deep as that of the mulberry. It is used as an auxiliary to deepen the tint of red wine. If the juice of the grapes, which have been gently pressed by the feet of men in the tub at the vineyard, is drawn off in casks, and allowed to ferment without the skin, the seeds, and the stalks, which contain the colouring elements, the wine will certainly be white. On the contrary, if the liquor is left to ferment with them, the wine must be red. If the fermentation of the white liquid stopt in proper time, the wine becomes brisk and sparkling, on account of the quantity of fixed air which is confined within it: if this air, a sort of gas, is permitted to evaporate, the wine becomes still and quiet; in this with a few practical exceptions, consists the whole mystery. Wines require more or less time to ripen in the casks, in order to let the lees settle at the bottom; and the art principally lies in the knowledge of the proper time to bottle the wine. A thick crust does not always show that the wine is good, but often that it has been bottled too soon. White wines produce no crust; a proof that the grossest parts are lodged in the skin, seeds, and stalks of the grapes. "The practice of clarifying wine before it is bottled off by means of whites of eggs, was known to the ancients. But Horace, though a practical gourmet, was not well acquainted with the theory of the art, for he mistakes, Sat. 2. 4. the yolk for the white as used for this purpose. "Several authors of tried knowledge have, in other countries as well as in this, written scientific and interesting dissertations upon the wines of the ancients, to which we refer the Gastronomic reader, confining ourselves to the names of some of those which are particularly esteemed in our days. "As to the product of the grapes, itcan not be denied, that France has long borne the palm in the contest; and the wines of that fruitful kingdom may be classed under three principal heads, Burgundy, Champagne, and Languedoc, or Meridional wines, which may be also subdivided into three species, mousseux, tranquille, and sucré ;* brisk, still, and sweet. H "So great was the repute of some of these wines, that in 1652 a public Thesis was held at the Faculty of Medicine, to decide the mighty question, which of the two was best,Bourgogne, or Champagne.' As for the Vins de Gascogne, Bourdeaux, Provence,' &c., the quantity which is exported has always been so considerable, that according to Froissart, as early as 1372, upwards of 200 ships were annually and exclusively freighted with this commodity. "Besides these, several vins de liqueurs' are imported from France; as Ciotat, St. Laurent, Lunel, Frontignac, &c. Spain, Portugal, and the island of Madeira, offer us a considerable supply; and the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle enliven, with their produce, the tables of the Gastronomers of all polite nations." So much for this very clever little work, which the extracts we have made cannot fail to recommend in particular to our classical and travelled readers. We have seldom inet a greater display of elegance and ingenuity than the versification of the poem itself exhibits, nor with a more easy vein of amusement Languidiora vina.-HOR. "Part of the produce of this famous hill was exclusively kept for the table of the king of France. "The celebrity of this wine dates from the illness of Louis XIV. in 1680. §"This denomination originates from Claretum, a liquor made anciently of wine and honey, clarified by decoction, which the Germans, French, and English, call Hippocras; and it is for this reason that the red wines of France were called Claret." Cowel's Interp. "This name is generally applied to the white wines of Gascony." than in the notes. The book appears to have been written a long while ago, and is anonymous. But we dare say the author must be well known at one or other of the universities. Of all the sensitive beings that people this earth, man, unquestionably, experiences most suffering. Nature originally doomed him to suffer by the nakedness and delicacy of his skin, the form of his feet, and by the instinct of war and destruction, which accompanies the human race wherever it has been found. The brute creation has not been visited by this malediction; and but for a few exceptions, arising from the instinct of reproduction, pain in the state of nature would be absolutely unknown to the greater part of the species, whereas man, who can only experience a temporary pleasure, and that by a very few organs, is liable, at all times, and in every part of his body, to suffer the most excruciating torture. This decree of fate is still aggravated by a number of diseases which have sprung from the habits of the people, so that the most exquisite pleasure can never, either in intensity, or duration, compensate for the great suffering which accompanies some disorders, such as gout, tooth-ache and rheumatic pains, strangury, and that which is caused by the severe system of punishment in use amongst some nations. It is this very dread of pain that causes man, without his perceiving it, to throw himself blindly into the opposite extreme, and makes him passionately cling to the few pleasures which nature has placed within his reach. It is for this same reason that he wishes to increase them, that he forms them and indulges in them-in a word, that he adores them, since during the reign of idolatry, and for many centuries, all pleasures were looked upon as minor deities, presided over by superior gods. The severity of new forms of religion did away with this patronage; Bacchus, Cupid, Comus and Diana are no longer but poetical souvenirs; yet the custom still prevails, for under the most serious forms of our belief we see marriages, baptisms, and even funerals made the scenes of festivity. Repasts, according to our interpretation of the word, commenced with the second age of the human race, that is when it discontinued to live on fruit. The preparation and distribution of food obliged the family to assemble; the father distributed to his children the produce of the chase, and the children rendered the same service to the father when old. |