Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine

It is not a despicable or very ascetic regimen which Stevenson lays before us under April in his reproduction of Breton’s “ Fantasticks,” 1626, under the title of the “Twelve Months,” 1661 : — “The wholesome dyet that breeds good sanguine juyce, such as pullets, capons, sucking veal, beef not above three years Old, a draught of morning milk fasting from the cow; grapes, raysons, and figs be good before meat ; Rice with Almond Milk, birds of the Field, Feasants and Partridges, and fishes of stony rivers, Hen eggs potcht, and such like.” Meats and Drinks. Under May he furnishes us with a second and not less appetising menu: — “ Butter and sage are now the wholesome Breakfast, but fresh cheese and cream are meat for a dainty mouth ; the early Peascods and Strawberries want no price with great Bellies ; but the Chicken and the Duck are fatted for the Market ; the sucking Rabbet is frequently taken in the Nest, and many a Gosling never lives to be a Goose.” Even so late as the succeeding reign, Breton speaks of the good cheer at Christmas, and of the cook, if he lacks not wit, sweetly licking his fingers. The storage of liquids became a difficult problem where, as among our ancestors, glazed pottery was long unknown ; and more especially with regard to the supply of water in dry seasons. But so far as milk was concerned, the daily yield probably seldom exceeded the consumption ; and among the inhabitants further north and east, who, as Caesar says, partook also of flesh, and did not sow grain — in other words, were less vegetarian in their habits from the more Meats and Drinks. exhausting nature of the climate — the consideration might be less urgent. It is open to doubt if, even in those primitive times, the supply of a national want lagged far behind the demand. The list of wines which the King of Hungary proposed to have at the wedding of his daughter, in “The Squrre of Low Degree,” is worth consulting. Harrison, in his “ Description of England,” 1586, speaks of thirty different kinds of superior vintages and fiftysix of commoner or weaker kinds. But the same wine was perhaps known under more than one name. Romney or Rumney, a Hungarian growth, Malmsey from the Peloponnesus, and Hippoeras were favourites, and the last-named was kept as late as the last century in the buttery of St. John’s College, Cambridge, for use during the Christmas festivities. But France, Spain, Greece, almost all countries, contributed to furnish the ancient wine-cellar, and gratify the variety of taste among connoisseurs ; and for such as had not the means to purchase foreign productions, the Meats and Drinks. juice of the English grape, either alone or mingled with honey and spice, furnished a not unpalatable and not very potent stimulant. As claret and hock with us, so anciently Bastard and Piment were understood in a generic sense, the former for any mixed wine, the latter for one seasoned with spice. In “Colin Blobol’s Testament,” a whimsical production of the fifteenth century, Tent and Valencia wines are mentioned, with wine of Languedoc and Orleans. But perhaps it will be best to cite the passage : —