Our viands

In olden times great rejoicings were generally accom- panied by an ox roasted whole, huge fires and monster spits being required for the purpose; and once history relates that an ox was thus roasted whole on the Thames. This was during the great frost in 1715-16, when the river was frozen over for several weeks. This somewhat barbarous mode of rejoicing is now almost obsolete, yet during the severe frost of the winter of 1890, in which the Thames was again frozen over in places, we heard of sheep being roasted whole on the river at Christmas ; but in these days of refine- ment people in general prefer having their portion of meat to cook in their own way, instead of each slicing a half- cooked morsel from a burning carcase. The practice of cutting meat from the spit seems to have been common before the invention of forks, and many old Saxon drawings show the cooks, or servers, kneeling by the king's table, holding spits from which the monarch cuts a portion with a huge knife; nor must the cook's useful drudge be forgotten, who, as late as 1800, when smoke- jacks came into fashion, had the chief share in roasting the meat in large establishments — we mean the 'turnspit,' a bandy-legged dog, somewhat resembling the modern dachs- hund— who was set to turn the spit by means of a wheel, somewhat after the fashion of a squirrel in a cage, and was probably beaten and sorely worried by the cooks whenever the jack stopped. There are many stories told of these useful dogs, who knew their proper turn, and would not be CHRISTMAS FARE 71 persuaded to work out of it ; and if one of their companions got out of the way when it was his day for turning the spit, the one unjustly set to work has been known to find the truant and kill him. The poor turnspits must have hated Christmas, with its huge joints of roast beef, its peacocks and game, all entailing hard work upon the poor kitchen drudges.* Beef was known and appreciated from the very earliest times, the wild cattle having been hunted and slaughtered long before they were domesticated, and the skulls of many, of a species now extinct, are found all broken in the same way, evidently by a blow with a very heavy stone hammer. But as soon as men began to keep flocks and herds and to till the ground, the ox became doubly valuable, not only as a food but as a beast of burden, and it is continually alluded to by the most ancient writers in this capacity, whilst the earliest of paintings represent the patient kine dragging the plough or wheeled cart, yoked together even as in the present day by a heavy piece of wood bound over the necks of both. The humane laws of Moses forbade the muzzling of the ' ox that treadeth out the corn,' and in several passages of the Bible the yokes of oxen are spoken of. Elisha was ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen when Elijah cast his mantle upon him, and it seems to have been a common act of worship in those days to slay a yoke of oxen and burn them with the implements in use, as a sacrifice of thanksgiving or propitiation. ' Behold,' said Araunah the Jebusite to David, ' here be oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing instruments and other instruments * A very interesting article upon the turnspit may be read in Chambers's ' Book of Days.' 72 OUR VIANDS