Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine

all the matters that were apt to interest the few educated persons who were qualified to peruse its pages ; and amid a variety of allied topics we come here across a catalogue of terms used in speaking of certain dishes of that day. The reference is to the prevailing methods of dressing and carving. A deer was said to be broken, a cony unlaced, a pheasant, partridge, or quail winged, a pigeon or a woodcock thighed, a plover minced, a mallard unbraced. They spoke of a salmon or a gurnard as chined, a sole as loined, a haddock as sided, an eel as trousoned, a pike as splatted, and a trout as gobbeted. It must, I think, be predicated of Tusser’s “ Husbandry,” of which the last edition published in the writer’s lifetime is that of 1580, that it seems rather to reproduce precepts which occur elsewhere than to supply the reader with the fruits of his own direct observation. But there are certain points in it which are curious and original. He tells the ploughman that, after confession on Shrove Tuesday, he may go and thresh the fat hen, and if he is blindfold, kill her, and Cookery Books. then dine on fritters and pancakes. At other times, seed-cakes, wafers, and other light confections. It appears to have been usual for the farmer at that date to allow his hinds roast meat twice a week, on Sundays and on Thursday nights; but perhaps this was a generous extreme, as Tusser is unusually liberal in his ideas. Tobias Venner, a Somersetshire man, brought out in 1620 his “Via Recta ad Vitam Longam.” He was evidently a very intelligent person, and affords us the result of his professional experience and personal observation. He considered two meals a day sufficient for all ordinary people, — breakfast at eleven and supper at six (as at the universities) ; but he thought that children and the aged or infirm could not be tied by any rule. He condemns “bull’s beef” as rank, unpleasant, and indigestible, and holds it best for the labourer ; which seems to indicate more than anything else the low state of knowledge in the grazier, when Venner wrote : but there is something beyond friendly Cookery Books . counsel where our author dissuades the poor from eating partridges, because they are calculated to promote asthma. “Wherefore,” he ingenuously says, “ when they shall chance to meet with a covey of young partridges, they were much better to bestow them upon such, for whom they are convenient !” Salmon, turbot, and sturgeon he also reckoned hard of digestion, and injurious, if taken to excess ; nor does he approve of herrings and sprats; and anchovies he characterises as the meat of drunkards. It is the first that we have heard of them. He was not a bad judge of what was palatable, and prescribes as an agreeable and wholesome meal a couple of poached eggs with a little salt and vinegar, and a few corns of pepper, some bread and butter, and a ■draught of pure claret. He gives a receipt — the earliest I have seen in print — for making metheglin or hydromel. He does not object to furmety or junket, or indeed to custards, if they are eaten at the proper seasons, and in the middle or at the end of meals. Eut lie dislikes mushrooms, and advises you to Cookery Books . wash out your mouth, and rub your teeth and gums with a dry cloth, after drinking milk.