The Pantropheon; Or, History of Food, Its Preparation, from the Earliest Ages of the World — Background and Themes

than five centuries, the art of making bread was there unknown, which says little for her civilisation and intelligence. Subsequently, the conquest of Greece, the spoils of the subjugated world, the prodigious refinements of the Syracusans, gave to the conquered nations, says Juvenal, a complete revenge on their conquerors. The unheard-of excesses of the table swallowed up patrimonies which seemed to be inexhaustible, and illustrious dissipators obtained a durable but sad renown.

The Romans had whimsical tastes, since they dared serve the flesh of asses and dogs, and ruined themselves to fatten snails. But, after all, the caprices of fashion, rather than the refinement of sensuality, compelled them to adopt these strange aliments. Paulus Æmilius, no doubt a good judge in such matters, formed a high opinion of the elegance displayed by his compatriots in the entertainments; and he compared a skilful cook, at the moment when he is planning and arranging a repast, to a great general.

We were very anxious to enrich our “PANTROPHEON” with a greater number of _Bills of Fare_, or details of banquets; but we have become persuaded that it is very difficult, at the present day, to procure a complete and accurate account of the arrangement of feasts at which were seated guests who died two or three thousand years ago. Save and except the indications--more or less satisfactory, but always somewhat vague--which we gather on this subject from Petronius, Athenæus, Apuleius, Macrobius, Suetonius, and some other writers, we can do little more than establish analogies, make deductions, and reconstruct the entire edifice of an antique banquet by the help of a few data, valuable, without doubt, but almost always incomplete.

One single passage in Macrobius--a curious monument of Roman cookery--will supply the place of multiplied researches: it is the description of a supper given by the Pontiff Lentulus on the day of his reception. We present it to the amateurs of the magiric art:

“The first course (_ante-cœna_) was composed of sea-hedgehogs, raw oysters in abundance, all sorts of shell-fish, and asparagus. The second service comprised a fine fatted pullet, a fresh dish of oysters, and other shell-fish, different kinds of dates, univalvular shell-fish (as whelks, conchs, &c.), more oysters, but of different kinds, sea-nettles, beccaficoes, chines of roe-buck and wild boar, fowls covered with a perfumed paste, a second dish of shell-fish, and purples--a very costly kind of Crustacea. The third and last course presented several _hors-d’œuvre_, a wild boar’s head, fish, a second set of _hors-d’œuvre_, ducks, potted river fish, leverets, roast fowls, and cakes from the marshes of Ancona.”

All these delicacies would very much surprise an epicurean of the present day, particularly if they were offered to him in the order indicated by Macrobius. The text of that writer, as it is handed down to us, may be imperfect or mutilated; again, he may have described the supper of Lentulus from memory, regardless of the order prescribed for those punctilious and learned transitions to which a feast owes all its value.

Let us, we would say, in addressing our culinary colleagues, avoid those deplorable _lacunes_; let us preserve for future generations, who may be curious concerning our gastronomic pomp, the minutiæ of our memorable magiric meetings, prompted, almost without exception, by some highly civilising idea--a love of the arts, the commercial propagandism, or a feeling of philanthropy. The Greeks and Romans--egotists, if there ever were any--supped for themselves, and lived only to sup; our pleasures are ennobled by views more useful and more elevated. We often dine for the poor, and we sometimes dance for the afflicted, the widow, and the orphan.

Moreover, a most important ethnographical consideration seems to give a serious interest to the diet of a people, if it be true, as we are convinced it is, and as we shall probably one day endeavour to demonstrate, that the manners of individuals, their idiosyncrasies, inclinations, and intellectual habits, are modified, to a certain extent, as taste, climate, and circumstances may determine the nature of their food; an assertion which might be supported by irrefragable proofs, and would show the justness of the aphorism: “Tell me what thou eatest, and I will tell thee who thou art.”

Every nation has attributed the origin of agriculture to some beneficent Deity. The Egyptians bestowed this honour on Osiris, the Greeks on Ceres and Triptolemus, the Latins on Saturn, or on their king Janus, whom, in gratitude, they placed among the gods. All nations, however, agree that, whoever introduced among them this happy and beneficial discovery, has been most useful to man by elevating his mind to a state of sociability and civilization.[I-1]