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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/diningitsamenitiOOgoul 
 
DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
"Moderation is the silken string running 
 through the pearl chain of all virtues." 
 
DINING AND ITS 
 AMENITIES 
 
 BY A LOVER OF 
 GOOD CHEER 
 
 He that is of a merry heart hath 
 a continual feast" 
 
 'IV'Oh 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 REBMAN COMPANY 
 1123 BROADWAY 
 
sir. 
 
 s^ 
 
 LiBBARY of CONGRESS 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 MAR 6 190f 
 
 ._ Copyright Entry 
 CLASS ^ XXc, No. 
 
 COPY B, 
 
 0*" 
 
 Copyright, 1907, 
 
 By REBMAN COMPANY 
 
 New York 
 
THE DEIPNOPHILIC BRETHREN 
 
 WHO ALL HAVE CONTRIBUTED SO MUCH INTERESTING AND 
 
 EDIFYING LORE, DURING MANY YEARS OF THE PLEAS- 
 
 ANTEST REUNIONS AT THE FESTAL BOARD, 
 
 THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED WITH THE 
 
 DEEPEST FRATERNAL AFFECTION 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The papers embodied in this work were originally- 
 read before an association of professional men who 
 met monthly for diversion and refection, during 
 which were discussed many questions relating to 
 letters, science and art, besides those pertaining 
 to alimentation. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Preliminary parle. ..... 1 
 
 II The role of the senses in the pleasure op 
 
 EATING ....... 18 
 
 III The refectory and its appurtenances . . 34 
 
 IV Fragments on the evolution of cookery and 
 
 GASTRONOMY ...... 46 
 
 V Ancient and modern banqueting . . .66 
 
 VI A CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER . . . .79 
 
 VII Beverages . . . . . . .95 
 
 VIII Fermented liquors . . . . .112 
 
 IX Distilled liquors ...... 127 
 
 X Tea infusion ....... 141 
 
 XI Coffee infusion ...... 156 
 
 XII Chocolate and other broths. . . . 171 
 
 XIII The seasoning of aliments .... 181 
 
 XIV Salty and fatty condiments .... 196 
 XV Of cheese ....... 210 
 
 XVI Of sour condiments ..... 230 
 
 XVII Of pungent and aromatic condiments . . 241 
 
 XVIII Of sweet condiments ..... 264 
 
 XIX Metaphoric uses of sweetness . . . 283 
 
 XX Slang speech ...... 302 
 
 XXI The pleasure of eating and the pleasures 
 
 OF THE TABLE ...... 327 
 
 vii 
 
VlU CONTENTS 
 
 DEIPNOPHILIC MISCELLANIES 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I The dessert ....... 343 
 
 II Anniversary feasts ...... 348 
 
 III Dining clubs ....... 355 
 
 IV Table jests 369 
 
 V Table superstitions ..... 387 
 
 VI Fasting and frugality; luxury and excess . 395 
 
 VII Gluttony ........ 406 
 
 VIII Trencher-friends . . . . . .419 
 
 IX Relations of physical and mental digestion . 428 
 
 X Food allowance to warriors .... 432 
 
 XI Tobacco smoking . . . . . .441 
 
DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 PRELIMINARY PARLE 
 
 " Je prends mon bien partout ou je le trouve." 
 
 The chief subject of these discourses is alimenta- 
 tion of body and mind in its relations to the in- 
 dividual, the family, the community, and the nation. 
 The individual's inquiries into the nature of alimen- 
 tary substances involve the acquirement of a fair 
 knowledge of household science, of the nutritive value 
 of food-stuffs and of the season when they are at 
 their best, besides some notions as to their prepara- 
 tion and service. His ability to enforce salutary 
 rules of hygiene and sanitation, is essential to the 
 well-being of his family and of himself. The health 
 and happiness of families and communities necessarily 
 depend upon the qualities of the chiefs, and the 
 nation that is made up of morally and physically 
 vigorous, well-fed, thrifty communities is likely to 
 enjoy long the blessings of peace and plenty. Im- 
 bued with these ideas, several thinkers expressed, in 
 varying verbiage, the substance of the following 
 aphorism: "The destiny of nations depends upon 
 
 l 
 
2 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 the character of their diet." A moralist once said, 
 substantially, that to dine is the end of human actions : 
 it is to dine that men labor; it is that he too may 
 dine that the cook prepares our food; it is to obtain 
 the aliments needed to sustain life that the sailor 
 exposes himself to storms, that the soldier braves 
 death, that the courtier wields the censor, and the 
 ascetic preaches abstinence. Chiefs of families can 
 have no better guidance, in their preliminary con- 
 sideration of the physical, moral, and intellectual 
 effects of rational alimentation, than that afforded by 
 the precious aphorisms of Anselme Brillat-Savarin, 
 the illustrious author of "The Physiology of Taste," 
 composed to serve as prolegomena to his admirable 
 work. They are here reproduced by way of intro- 
 duction to these sketches; each aphorism appearing 
 in its original form, followed by a translation and by 
 annotations designed to amplify what the Master has 
 expounded so tersely. 
 
 "L'univers n'est rien que par la vie, et tout ce qui vit se nourrit." 
 The universe is naught but by life, and all that lives is nourished. 
 
 Even a casual glance at this aphorism suggests the 
 breadth of views of its sapient author who showed 
 what a clear conception he had of the Creator's grand 
 design of the three kingdoms of nature when, in the 
 second member of the sentence, he said: "tout ce 
 qui vit se nourrit" for he knew well how interdepen- 
 
PRELIMINARY PARLE 3 
 
 dent are the vegetable and animal, and now absolutely 
 necessary the mineral kingdom is to the life of the 
 vegetable and animal. He knew the habits of those 
 carnivorous plants which, though in great measure 
 nourished passively like other plants, feed actively 
 by luring and imprisoning certain insects and other 
 small intruders between their leaves until the bodies 
 are consumed. The mutual nourishment of the vege- 
 table and animal was to him a subject for much re- 
 flection, and he was fully impressed with the correct 
 notion that whilst the vegetable supplies the animal 
 with its needed pabulum, the animal soon restored it 
 to the soil, water, and air, whence the vegetable de- 
 rives its nutrition. He knew that the lowest forms 
 of vegetable and animal organisms obtain their sus- 
 tenance from both kingdoms and are essential to the 
 development of both. These views of the master 
 were afterward fully confirmed by other naturalists 
 who discovered that certain bacteria in the soil are 
 necessary to the growth of higher vegetable organisms, 
 whilst other bacteria are as necessary to the digestion 
 of the food consumed by beast and man; and these 
 modern laborers also discovered that some insects 
 and certain birds carry pollen from plant to plant 
 while absorbing from their flowers the nectar needed 
 as their natural food; omnivorous man taking ad- 
 vantage of whatever is offered for his sustenance by 
 higher vegetables, by aquatic and terrestrial animals, 
 and by mineral substances. 
 
DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 II 
 
 "Les animaux se repaissent; l'homme mange; l'homme 
 
 d'esprit seul sait manger." 
 
 The beasts feed ; man eats; the wise man alone knows how 
 to eat. 
 
 Such nice distinctions pertain essentially to the 
 aesthetics of gastronomy. All deipnophilists know- 
 that repaitre signifies to take nourishment, to feed, 
 to eat. Therefore to feed, which is synonymous with 
 to eat, may strictly be applied to the act of eating 
 whether in the case of lower animals or of human 
 beings. But in gastronomy the distinction between 
 feeding and eating is admitted as justifiable. Surely 
 the manner of feeding of certain lower animals is not 
 pleasing to the sight or hearing of refined persons; the 
 rodentia crunching noisily their hard nutriment; the 
 herbivora browsing, nibbling the grass and chewing 
 the cud; the carnivora growling while tearing and 
 voraciously bolting the bleeding flesh; the omnivo- 
 rous swine grunting while avidly and disgustingly 
 gulping their food. Human creatures there are who, 
 in imitation of these beasts, crunch noisily, brouse, 
 nibble, munch, tear, bolt or gulp ravenously their 
 aliments and even growl or grunt while doing so. 
 Hence it is that such men are styled gormandisers or 
 gluttons. There are also those who eat, as it were, 
 mechanically, distractedly, without regard to the 
 nature of the food, to its taste, or to its nutritive 
 properties. They eat without thinking of, or caring 
 
PRELIMINARY PAKLE 5 
 
 what they are eating. But the wise man, "Vhomrne 
 d' esprit," knows what, when, and how to eat. He is 
 careful of the choice of his food, of its mode of 
 preparation and of its service. He assures himself of 
 its special properties, selects such substances as are 
 known to be of easy digestion at the same time that 
 they are pleasing to the taste and to other senses, 
 consumes them slowly, deliberately and thoughtfully, 
 and thus not only satisfies hunger but gratifies appe- 
 tite and promotes health. 
 
 Ill 
 
 "La destinee des nations depend de la maniere dout elles se 
 nourissent." 
 
 The destiny of nations depends upon the character of their 
 diet. 
 
 These thoughts expressed so briefly may have 
 been suggested by the words of Dr. Kitchiner, who 
 had said: "The destiny of nations has often depended 
 upon the digestion of a prime minister;" or by what 
 appeared in the preface to the third edition, 1804, of 
 the Almanack des Gourmands, namely: "Combien 
 de fois la destinee de tout un peuple n'a-t-elle pas 
 dependu de la digestion plus ou moins prompte d'un 
 premier ministre." 
 
 How often the destiny of a whole people has de- 
 pended on the more or less prompt digestion of a 
 prime minister! 
 
6 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 It is well known that the gravest national and 
 international questions are frequently decided at 
 state dinners; favorably when the entertainment is 
 successful; otherwise, fatally when the ministers or 
 guests are not true lovers of good cheer, or when the 
 digestive function of either is disordered. However, 
 the Master, looking beyond the question of digestion, 
 altered and paraphrased these older aphorisms and 
 suited his version rather to the kind of aliments that 
 may be consumed by the mass of individuals of divers 
 nations, for the version is suggestive of the effect of 
 particular dietaries upon these nations; believing an 
 exclusive vegetable diet to be enervating and an 
 exclusive animal diet brutalising. 
 
 IV 
 
 " Dis-moi ce que tu mange, je te dirai ce que tu es." 
 Tell me what thou eatest, I'll tell thee what thou art. 
 
 This simple paraphrase of the old saw: "Tell me 
 who are thy friends, I'll tell thee what thou art," is 
 eminently adapted to gastronomy. 
 
 However well an individual may succeed in other- 
 wise concealing the defects of his lack of proper early 
 training, he is almost certain to betray them at the 
 dinner table where a pottage of the most delicate 
 flavor makes no impression on his obtuse gustation. 
 He has no appetite for dainties but hungers for the 
 grossest aliments; and any edible substance, provided 
 
PRELIMINARY PARLE 7 
 
 it be plentiful, satisfies this hunger. His mode of 
 eating and also his table manners scarcely ever fail 
 to disclose a coarse, uncouth breeding. 
 
 The proper management of the knife, fork, and 
 spoon, the disposal of the napkin, and a host of other 
 details pertaining to table good manners, learned from 
 childhood in the refined home circle are among the 
 amenities of the dining table and proclaim the true 
 gourmet. 
 
 This aphorism may therefore be lengthened by 
 two words, thus: Tell me what and how thou eatest, 
 I'll tell thee what thou art. 
 
 "Le Createur, en obligeant l'homme a manger pour vivre, 
 l'y invite par l'appetit, et Ten recompense par le plaisir." 
 
 The Creator, in compelling man to eat that he may live, 
 invites him through appetite and rewards him by pleasure. 
 
 How exquisitely well expressed is this appreciation 
 of the compulsion to eat that the creature may live, 
 and how admirably tempered with invitation to the 
 meal through hunger and appetite, and with recom- 
 pense by the attendant sensual gratification! For, 
 it is to the end of conserving the individual and pre- 
 serving the species, as the author substantially says 
 elsewhere, that the Creator designed the sense organs 
 to place the creature in relation with tangible objects 
 and so enable him to satisfy hunger, sustain life, 
 gratify appetite, and enjoy the reward — pleasure. 
 
DIKING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 VI 
 
 "La gourmandise est un acte de notre jugement, par lequel 
 nous accordons la preference aux choses qui sont agreables au 
 gout sur celles qui n'ont pas cette qualite." 
 
 Gourmetism is an act of our judgment by which we accord 
 preference to things which are agreeable to the taste over those 
 which have not this quality. 
 
 Gourmetism seems- a proper rendering of gourman- 
 dise in the sense in which it was used by the older 
 writers on gastronomy. More recent authors have 
 substituted gourmet for gourmand. Thus Fayot 
 wrote: "Gourmand, gourmandise, c'est le pecheur et 
 le peche; le type perfectionne du gourmand c'est le 
 gourmet; I 'extreme oppose honteux, c'est le goulu. ,) 
 The gourmet, he further said, is a prudent eater who 
 knows thoroughly the value of what he eats. 
 
 vn 
 
 "Xe plaisir de la table est de tous les ages, de toutes les con- 
 ditions, de tous les pays et de tous les jours; il peut s'associer 
 a tous les autres plaisirs, et reste le dernier pour nous consoler de 
 leur perte," 
 
 The pleasure of the table is of all ages, conditions, countries, 
 and days; it may be associated with all other pleasures, and 
 remains the last to console us for their loss. 
 
 Although the pleasure of the table is distinguished 
 from the pleasure of eating, both are included in 
 this aphorism as associated with all other pleasures, 
 and as enjoyed to the fullest extent only by true 
 gourmets who, besides gastronomy, represent high 
 
PRELIMINARY PARLE 
 
 refinement in letters, science and art which are the 
 main subjects of their lucubrations at the table. 
 
 VIII 
 
 " La table est le seul endroit ou l'on ne s'ennuie jamais pen- 
 dant la premiere heure." 
 
 The table is the only place where one is never wearied during 
 the first hour. 
 
 The refection proper does not ordinarily last longer 
 than an hour, otherwise, it becomes tedious, for 
 hunger is appeased, and appetite and gustation are 
 gratified; then conversation lingers. It is generally 
 at the end of the last service, when the sweets and 
 the sparkling wines have been consumed, that the 
 dinner is most interesting, for then the real pleasure 
 of the table begins; the tongues are loosened, and the 
 ears are opened to listen to the utterances of the wise 
 and the eloquent. 
 
 IX 
 
 " La decouverte d'un mets nouveau fait plus pour le bonheur 
 du genre humain que la decouverte d'une etoile. 
 
 The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of 
 humankind than the discovery of a star. 
 
 This aphorism, evolved from a saying of the magis- 
 trate Henrion de Pensey, was fully credited to him 
 
 by Savarin, as follows: "M. le President H de 
 
 P , dont Fenjouement spirituel a brave les glaces 
 
 de l'age, s'adressant a trois des savants les plus 
 
10 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 distingues de 1'epoque actuelle (MM. de Laplace, 
 Chaptal, et Berthollet), leur disait, en 1812: 'Je re- 
 garde la decouverte d'un mets nouveau, qui soutient 
 notre appetit et prolonge nos jouissances, comme un 
 evenement bien plus interessant que la decouverte 
 d'une etoile; on en voit toujours assez.' " ... I 
 regard the discovery of a new dish, that sustains our 
 appetite and prolongs our enjoyment, as a much more 
 interesting event than the discovery of a star, for 
 enough of these luminaries are always in sight. 
 
 The Master evidently meant the discovery of a new 
 alimentary substance as well as the discovery of a 
 particularly pleasing new mode of preparation of any 
 dish of food. 
 
 "Ceux qui s'indigerent ou qui s'enivrent ne savent ni boire 
 ni manger." 
 
 Those who feed to surfeit or tipple to saturation know not 
 how to eat or drink. 
 
 The censure of excess implied in these wise words 
 is at the same time an earnest plea for moderation. 
 Assuredly the sottish glutton cannot well enjoy food 
 and drink which, gulped in beastly style, distend the 
 stomach to such a degree as to check the digestive 
 process and so cause distress instead of pleasure. 
 
 The knowledge of how to eat and drink comes of 
 early training, and later from acquaintance with the 
 properties of the divers food stuffs, with the best 
 culinary methods, with the qualities of different bev- 
 
PRELIMINARY PARLE 11 
 
 erages, and with the principles of hygiene. The re- 
 fined deipnophilist eats and drinks slowly, deliberately 
 and moderately, and, with calm reflexion and sound 
 judgment, brings into play all his senses for the en- 
 joyment of the delicacies of the menu. 
 
 The use of strong drink, plain or in the form of 
 cocktails, before eating; that unfortunate survival 
 of an ancient bad habit as detrimental to the digestive 
 function as it is to the whole man; that abominable 
 propoma of old which has marred so many good men, 
 should be abolished from all feasts in these days of 
 greater hygienic enlightenment! 
 
 XI 
 
 " L'ordre des comestibles est des plus substantias aux plus 
 legers." 
 
 The order of the comestibles is from the most substantial 
 to the lightest. 
 
 This maxim bears the stamp of veritable hygienic 
 gastronomy, for after the ostrean whet to appetite 
 comes the substantial pottage followed by the fish, 
 which is in turn followed by nourishing meats, and 
 these by the entrees, the roast, the salad, and the 
 light dessert. Such a meal, taken in moderation, 
 while it satisfies the senses, is easily digested and 
 readily assimilated. 
 
12 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 XII 
 
 " L'ordre des boissons est des plus temperees aux plus fu- 
 meuses et aux plus parfumees." 
 
 The order of the beverages is from the mildest to the strongest 
 and highest flavored. 
 
 Lovers of good cheer cannot fail to be favorably 
 impressed with the wisdom of this dictum which they 
 have so often realised by beginning with the mildest 
 wine to wash down the delicate mollusks served as a 
 whet, and continuing with wines of greater strength 
 and aroma until the service of the sweet, sparkling 
 dessert-nectar imbibed for its great diffusibility and 
 its power to arouse loitering conversation and stimu- 
 late conviviality; cordials and other strong drinks 
 completing the list of beverages which the gourmet 
 knows so well how to use becomingly. 
 
 XIII 
 
 " Pr^tendre qu'il ne faut pas changer de vins est une he>6sie; 
 la langue se sature; et apres le troisieme verre le meilleur vin 
 n'eVeille plus qu'une sensation obtuse." 
 
 To pretend that wines should not be changed is a heresy; 
 the tongue is soon saturated; and after the third glass, the best 
 wine rouses but an obtuse sensation. 
 
 The Master very wisely condemns this oinopotic 
 heres}'-, this irrational notion of drinking continuously 
 only a single kind of wine at a feast, which has long 
 existed in the minds of those who have but little ac- 
 quaintance with the properties of wine; believing that 
 
PRELIMINARY PARLE 13 
 
 intoxication is averted by this deceptive precaution; 
 whereas the imbibition of the same total amount of one 
 wine or of several different wines produces the identi- 
 cal effect. When one wine is used continuously, not 
 only are the tongue's tactile papillse and gustative 
 bulbs saturated by the fluid, but saturation, by the 
 vinous fumes, occurs in the olfactive cells so that the 
 aroma of the wine can no longer be fully enjoyed. 
 The constant tippler or the inebriate does not have 
 any sensual pleasure in drinking, but on the contrary 
 is sorely distressed in mind and body by the toxicity 
 of his frequent copious potations which have so 
 blunted his gustation and olfaction and perverted his 
 understanding as to render it impossible for him to 
 enjoy the differing flavor and savor of divers delicate 
 wines. 
 
 XIV 
 
 " Un .dessert sans fromage est une belle a qui il manque un 
 oeil." 
 
 A dessert without cheese is a belle who lacks an eye. 
 
 In composing this aphorism, the Master made the 
 happy choice of metaphoric language to express in 
 the fewest words his notion that the absence of 
 cheese is to the dessert what the loss of one of her 
 eyes is to a belle. There is also, in the maxim, a 
 latent idea which was then contrary to the current 
 belief that cheese did not assist digestion, but which 
 is now admitted to be correct, for certain cheeses 
 such as the Gorgonzola, Stilton, and several of the 
 
14 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 soft cheeses, are known to contain micro-organisms 
 that do have the property of greatly helping the di- 
 gestion of other food. 
 
 XV 
 
 " On devient cuisinier, mais on nait rotisseur." 
 We become cooks, but are born roasters. 
 
 This is a paraphrase of Cicero's saying: " Nascimur 
 poetce, fimus oratores" — We are born poets, we be- 
 come orators. With regard to the commonly quoted 
 "Poeta nascitur non fit," Professor J. Churton Collins 
 said that "the primary idea came from the utterance 
 of a Roman historian of no note or consequence who 
 was incapable of so immortal a saying, but simply 
 said that 'not every year is a king or a poet born."' 
 
 The art of roasting is surely a natural gift, whereas 
 the principles and practice of general cookery may be 
 learned by study and training. A good cook may 
 never attain high repute as a roaster, and an excellent 
 roaster may never become a professed cook. Hence 
 the later saying — 
 
 " N'est pas rotisseur qui veut. C'est un don du ciel." 
 
 XVI 
 
 " La qualite - la plus indispensable d'un cuisinier est l'exacti- 
 tude: elle doit etre aussi celle du couvie." 
 
 The most indispensable quality of a cook is exactitude: ' it 
 should be also that of the guest. 
 
 This precept is warmly applauded by all lovers of 
 
PRELIMINARY PAKLE 15 
 
 good cheer who regard its violation as a serious 
 breach of duty on the part of the cook as well as that 
 of the invited guest. The bon vivant Grimod once 
 said: "Un veritable gourmand ne se fait jamais at- 
 tendre." This punctuality is surely characteristic of 
 the veritable gourmet, who knows of the habit of 
 exactitude of good cooks, and of the sad conse- 
 quences of the tardy arrival of guests. To be thus 
 belated voluntarily or carelessly is an unpardonable 
 crime of lese gastronomy punishable through the in- 
 gestion of cold victuals or over-done meats, besides 
 the scorn and frowns of the punctual attendants who 
 are suffering for the sin of the delinquent. 
 
 XVII 
 
 "Attendre trop longtemps un convive retardataire est un 
 manque d'egard pour tous ceux qui sont presents." 
 
 To await too long the coming of a tardy guest is a want of 
 regard for all those who are present. 
 
 In a well-regulated household, the host is not likely 
 to await, even for a few minutes, the arrival of tardy 
 comers; every guest being under obligation to abide 
 by unwritten laws of polite society and so be punc- 
 tual to the minute. The diners present should be 
 seated at the time specified in the invitation; other- 
 wise, the host and the dilatory guests are guilty of 
 an unpardonable affront to those who came at the 
 appointed moment, and the belated are guilty of a 
 lack of regard for the host. 
 
16 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 XVIII 
 
 "Celui qui recoit ses amis et ne donne aucun soin personnel 
 au repas qui leur est prepare^ n'est pas digne d'avoir des amis." 
 
 He who receives his friends without giving personal care to 
 the preparation of the repast, is not worthy of having friends. 
 
 A truly hospitable host always bestows much atten- 
 tion to the details of a feast offered to appreciative 
 friends. He begins his labor of love, on the evening 
 before, by writing the menu of the dinner, and on the 
 following morning hands it to the cook with special 
 directions relating to some of the dishes. To the 
 butler he gives due instructions about the table ap- 
 purtenances and the service; then selects the wines, 
 and indicates those requiring a low temperature, and 
 those which are to be gradually warmed. Finally, 
 half an hour before dinner time he casts a last scru- 
 tinising look at the table and at the beverages. 
 Having completed his toilet, he enters the drawing- 
 room and is ready to welcome his guests. He is 
 verily an unworthy host who fails to take such pre- 
 cautions as will assure the comfort and enjoyment of 
 
 his friends. 
 
 XIX 
 
 "La maitresse de la maison doit toujours s'assurer que le 
 cafe est excellent; et le maitre, que les liqueurs sont de permier 
 choix." 
 
 The mistress of the house should always assure herself of the 
 excellence of the coffee; and the master should be equally sure 
 that the beverages are of the choicest. 
 
 Although coffee was commonly drunk at different 
 times of the clay during the seventeenth century, the 
 custom of sipping its strong infusion after dinner did 
 
PRELIMINARY PARLE 17 
 
 not become general until the end of the eighteenth 
 century. Then it was that so much attention began to 
 be given to its preparation which was confided to the 
 mistress of the house, who was particular not only to 
 select the best grains but to give great care to their 
 parching, milling and infusing. To the master of 
 the house has alway belonged the scrupulous choosing 
 of the other beverages. 
 
 XX 
 
 "Convier quelqu'un c'est se charger de son bonheur pendant 
 tout le temps qu'il est sous notre toit." 
 
 To entertain a guest is to promote his happiness while he is 
 under our roof. 
 
 Man has long been hospitable even among semi- 
 barbarous peoples; witness the taking of salt, the 
 banquet of Achilles to Hector, the barons of the mid- 
 dle ages in their entertainment of friends, or of foes 
 who happened to be under the sanctuary of their 
 roof. The present civilised nations are no less hos- 
 pitable, for their individual members are ever as- 
 siduous in assuring the happiness of guests. 
 
 These aphorisms, which epitomise, with the skill 
 of a great master, the science of alimentation and the 
 art of dining, could have emanated only from such an 
 excellently trained mind as that of the illustrious 
 deipnosophist who penned them during his seventieth 
 year, after much travel in his own country of France, 
 in Switzerland, and in America; always gathering 
 useful information especially that sort relating to gas- 
 tronomy. 
 
II 
 
 THE ROLE OP THE SENSES IN THE PLEASURE OF EATING 
 
 "The Creator, in compelling man to eat that he may live, in- 
 vites him through appetite and rewards him by pleasure." 
 
 Such is one of the sublime aphorisms of the great 
 deipnosophist who regaled his readers with the vast 
 abundance of gastronomic lore that has prompted 
 the present statement of some of the features of the 
 correlative influence of the senses on the pleasure 
 of eating so admirably traced by the greatest of seers 
 in these lines* 
 
 . . . "The five best senses 
 
 Acknowledge thee their patron; and come freely 
 
 To gratulate thy plenteous bosom; th' ear 
 
 Taste, touch and smell, pleased, from thy table rise; 
 
 They only now come but to feast thine eye." 
 
 True it is that nearly all animated beings are en- 
 dowed with special senses, but to man alone is granted 
 the faculty of cultivating them in a very high degree 
 for bodily nourishment and mental enrichment as well 
 as for other purposes. Forced by hunger to eat for 
 his sustenance, he labored diligently in seeking the 
 necessary aliments which, originally, he had found 
 through the aid of certain lower creatures whose 
 movements he had cunningly espied. The first sense 
 
 18 
 
THE PLEASURE OF EATING 19 
 
 he naturally exercised was that of sight; the second, 
 touch, when with his hand he seized an edible sub- 
 stance and carried it toward a third sense organ 
 which gave him its odor, then greedily thrust it into 
 his mouth to awaken the gustative sense; the clatter- 
 ing of his teeth pleasantly rousing the auditive sense. 
 Thus were the five senses gratified whilst hunger was 
 satisfied; appetite, that is to say, the desire to eat 
 tasty food because so agreeable, being the outcome 
 of that primitive experience. 
 
 It is the high cultivation of the senses that has been 
 to man of such powerful aid in his struggle for ex- 
 istence and that has given him such supremacy over 
 other animated beings. Those whose sense organs 
 are abnormal, whose perceptions are naturally dull 
 or accidentally obtunded, or whose mental faculties 
 are untutored, have little if any real pleasure in eat- 
 ing. Hunger and thirst they feel and brutally ap- 
 pease, but have no true appreciation of, or appetite 
 for, dainty food or for its use in moderation; whilst 
 those of cultured mind and sound body, in the en- 
 joyment of delicacies, bring into play all their senses 
 to enhance the pleasure of eating. This is summed in 
 the aphorism: "The beasts feed, man eats, the wise 
 man alone knows how to eat." 
 
 Ardent lovers of good cheer are too often unjustly 
 decried for sybaritism, for super-sensualism, by the 
 thoughtless; but those who have made sufficient in- 
 quiries into rational deipnophily admit that the wise 
 cultivation of the divine gift of the five senses is not 
 
20 DINING- AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 only essential to the real enjoyment of edibles but 
 is a blessing without which man would be but little 
 above the beast. The pleasure of eating being the 
 reward for the labor of gathering, preparing, serving, 
 and consuming the food, it behooves all eaters to 
 render wholesome aliments appetising and pleasing 
 to the senses. Only such ascetics denounce gour- 
 metism directly or indirectly as did a certain modern 
 writer, who said: "It is bestial to make eating an 
 absorbing object of thought. A man should eat to 
 satisfy hunger, but if he allows his mind to run on his 
 food, he will become a glutton and beast at the cost 
 of his soul." These charges, intended as indirect 
 thrusts at, but not really applicable to, the gourmet, 
 could only have been made by one known to live on 
 black bread and roots, one whose gustative sensibility 
 is blunted and who cares not for goodfellowship. 
 Therefore he could not have realised the import of 
 the judicious use of the senses in the selection and 
 consumption of tasty, wholesome aliments for the 
 preservation of the integrity of body and mind. 
 Otherwise he would have known that the veritable 
 gourmet — who always has a good cook — is never 
 gluttonish but is a dainty eater who does not give 
 more thought to his daily food than necessary to 
 assure himself of the excellence of its quality, and 
 who regards the moderate and reasonable gratifica- 
 tion of appetite and taste as pertaining to human 
 intellect, and the mere satisfaction of hunger as belong- 
 ing to the beastly instinct. The gastrolater being 
 
THE PLEASURE OF EATING 21 
 
 one who makes eating "an absorbing object of 
 thought," who, in brutish style, devours large quan- 
 tities of food, generally regardless of quality, does not 
 become gluttonous for he is a born glutton. 
 
 The activity and interdependence of the senses are 
 singularly well illustrated by the different pleasing 
 sensations enjoyed during a feast given by an ex- 
 perienced amphitryon. 
 
 The visual sense is the first to be gratified. The 
 moment the guests enter the refectory, their sight is 
 gladdened by the brilliantly lighted and richly orna- 
 mented table, the floral decorations on the snow-white 
 cloth, the bright metallic implements, the crystalline 
 drinking vessels, the good taste displayed in all the 
 appurtenances of the well-ordered festal hall, and the 
 congenial company. A new delightful visual im- 
 pression then comes with each service, throughout 
 the repast, to heighten the pleasure of eating. The 
 form and coloring of each platter, the artistic disposi- 
 tion of its contents, and the beauty of the plate on 
 which dainty bits are served, all gratify vision and add 
 to the pleasure felt in the deliberate degustation of 
 the savory meats. The view through clear crystal of 
 the amber hued mellow Xeres, of the rich Burgundy 
 suggestive of liquid garnet, of the ruby of Bordeaux, 
 of the topaz tinted Chateau Yquem, and of the myriad 
 pearly beads ever rising to crown with foam a cup of 
 the sparkling nectar of Aii, may well be counted 
 among the many visual delights of such beatic 
 revellers. 
 
22 DIKING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 The tactile sense, so indispensable to all animated 
 creatures, never fails to take cognisance, in the mouth, 
 of the pungency, consistence and temperature of in- 
 gested aliments. Manual touch, too, is especially 
 gratified by the smoothness of those shapely modern 
 implements for cutting and those for breaking up the 
 food and for conveying it to the mouth where its 
 consistency is more exactly determined by the action 
 of the tongue and teeth. The exquisite tactile sense 
 of the lips and tongue's tip is either supremely grati- 
 fied or painfully roused when the fork, spoon, or 
 food touches these guardians of the mouth which are 
 ever ready to give warning of the too high or too 
 low temperature of liquids or solids. The thermic 
 sensibility of the tongue and mouth was once shock- 
 ingly realised in the case of the voracious Doctor 
 Samuel Johnson at dinner in good company. Feed- 
 ing and talking at the same time with little inter- 
 mission, he crammed in greedily a large scalding 
 mouthful of food which he forthwith disgorged in his 
 plate, saying to a fair neighbor: "a fool would have 
 swallowed that." 
 
 Certain aliments are enjoyed only when very 
 warm and seasoned with pungent condiments. Tepid 
 or cool they give no pleasing sensation. Vegetables 
 are the more succulent and tasty when served very 
 hot, notably the mushroom whose aroma thus height- 
 ened gives almost as much pleasure as its savor. The 
 perfume of the truffle is always delightful even in 
 cold pasties, but is completely developed only by 
 
THE PLEASURE OF EATING 23 
 
 heat. Coffee infusion is most agreeable to smell and 
 taste when served at very near the boiling point. 
 Such aliments as raw mollusks are enjoyable only 
 when very cold. The crispness of some of the cold 
 hors-d'oeuvres, so grateful to the dental tactile sense, 
 is due in great part to the low temperature at which 
 they are served. Crisp crusts also give a very pleas- 
 ing sensation to the teeth. Some red wines, as the 
 Burgundies, those of the Rhone and Gironde, and the 
 heavy vintages of Spain, require a moderate degree 
 of heat to develop their full aroma, whilst the light 
 white wines as well as those of Xeres and Malaga 
 must be cool to be pleasing to the tactile and gustative 
 senses. All sparkling wines need to be very cold. 
 Some northerly gourmets who are fond of very sweet 
 sparkling wines prefer them cooled down to a fraction 
 of a degree above the freezing point. 
 
 The olf active sense, that chief detective, that Prov- 
 ost Marshal of the sensory brigade, gives warning 
 of foul odors which are abhorred because of their as- 
 sociation with bad taste, and signals the most delicate 
 perfumes of savory aliments before they reach the 
 mouth, and enjoys them during and after deglutition. 
 It is clear then that the acts of gustation and olfaction 
 are almost simultaneous, by reason of the close 
 proximity of the end-organs of smell and taste. So 
 far as they relate to gastronomy, Savarin believed 
 smell and taste to be merged into a single sense; 
 saying substantially that man tastes nothing without 
 smelling it, and the nose acts also as an advanced 
 
24 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 sentinel to challenge incoming unknown aliments. 
 He gave some well-known examples of the correla- 
 tion of the two senses, among which is — when the 
 nasal membrane is in a high state of irritation from 
 what is commonly called a cold in the head — taste is 
 much impaired and often abolished while the trouble 
 lasts. In such a case, although the tongue appears 
 to be in its normal state, no savor is detected in what 
 is eaten. 
 
 The just appreciation of the delicate bouquet of 
 good wines is a source of very high gratification to 
 this sense which so quickly discerns and so greatly 
 enjoys it before, during, and after imbibition; this 
 last enjoyment being styled, figuratively, the echo 
 of the sensation. No true gourmet ever things of 
 drinking Madeira or white Port except in the fragile 
 " morning glory" glass, or sparkling wines in other 
 than the shallow, clear Cyprian bowl; in both for 
 the artistic form of the vessels, so pleasing to the eye, 
 in all cases to get the fullest enjoyable effect of their 
 aroma, and in the last, to feast vision with the rising 
 bubbles and the expansive foam. 
 
 The memory of olfaction is worthy of special illus- 
 tration although it is well known that the aroma of 
 a wine may long dwell, as it were, in the mind of the 
 connoisseur. An interesting tale, to this effect, has 
 been told of a distinguished guest who, in discussing 
 with his friends the merits of certain favorite wines, 
 spoke warmly of the super-excellence of one of the 
 Madeiras served from an unlabelled bottle and ven- 
 
THE PLEASUEE OF EATING 25 
 
 tured to tell when, where, and with whom he had 
 tasted the same wine; giving the date of the vintage. 
 Thereupon the host smiled and said that, only a few 
 hours before, the so highly prized wine had been pur- 
 chased for a small coin at a corner shop. So confi- 
 dent of his assertions was the guest that, after parting 
 from the company, he went to the place indicated 
 and bought the whole stock of several dozen bottles 
 of the really valuable wine which proved to be what 
 he had said concerning its characters, its vintage, 
 and its original ownership, and afterward learned by 
 what devious ways it had reached the spicery. Thus 
 his memory of the. tint, aroma, and savor of the wine 
 was rewarded, and he loyally retained possession of 
 this delicious beverage whose original owner had died 
 leaving no heirs. 
 
 Professional wine-tasters use olfaction quite as 
 much as gustation in their tests and do so by slow 
 inhalations because probably they were told that the 
 sense of smell begins in the upper half of each nasal 
 cavity, and that the lingering of vinous fumes in this 
 region of the olfactive cells and abundant twigs of 
 the nerve of smell is, essential to the right appraisal 
 of their qualities. 
 
 The gustative sense, than which there is no more 
 precious gift of the Creator to the creature, is culti- 
 vable to a high state only by man, even from the hum- 
 blest beginnings. It is likely that the first taster, 
 perceiving what is now called sapidity in an odorous 
 object, after bruising it in his mouth, swallowed it 
 
26 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 because good, and finding a second object malodorous 
 and unsavory rejected it because bad or because it 
 failed to cause the pleasing buccal sensation produced 
 by the first. It may be said, therefore, that gustation 
 or taste is the perception as well as the distinction of 
 certain properties of ingested aliments. Perhaps a 
 glance at the derivation of gustation and taste may 
 help to a clear conception of the value of these terms; 
 the one from gustare and the other intensively from 
 tangere and formerly used synonymously with to 
 test, to try, to feel, as appears when Hotspur says: 
 ". . . Come, let me taste my horse who is to 
 bear me like a thunderbolt," and when Toby Belch 
 says to Cesario: "Taste your legs, Sir; put them to 
 motion." 
 
 The French use altogether goti,t, while we have the 
 two words gust and taste to convey the same idea 
 or even different shades of meaning, and base there- 
 upon our stock of qualifyers, etc.; thus from gust 
 come gustation, gustative, gustatory, gustable, gust- 
 ful, gustless, ingustible, disgustible, disgust, disgust- 
 ful, disgusting, and from taste, tasting, tasty, tasteful, 
 tasteless. Other expressions relating also to quality, 
 such as sapidity, saporific, sapid, insipid; savor, 
 savory, unsavory; flavor, flavoring, flavorless, etc., 
 are in great request in gastronomy. 
 
 Strictly, to taste is to test, try, feel with the tongue 
 any alimentary or other substance put into the mouth 
 with a view of ascertaining whether sapid or insipid, 
 good, bad, or indifferent; the perception of these 
 
THE PLEASURE OF EATING 27 
 
 characters being seated in the gustative center of 
 the brain whence is reflected the general sensation of 
 pleasure or displeasure. 
 
 Taste, like many other words pertaining to alimen- 
 tation, is much used figuratively, as in the expressions 
 good or bad taste, or simply its want, in written or in 
 spoken language, and in dress, deportment, art, etc.; 
 the old adage, "De gustibus non est disputandum" 
 being applied to both the original term and its figura- 
 tive usage. For instance, an aliment which is agree- 
 able to one individual may be repugnant to another. 
 A particular work of art may give great pleasure to 
 an uninformed gazer and fail to satisfy the sesthesis of 
 vision of a good judge of such productions. Some 
 forms or combinations of colors which are pleasing to 
 the eyes of the multitude are often offensive to the 
 few whose visual sense is highly cultivated. Certain 
 odors are pleasing to some persons and displeasing to 
 others, as in the case of meeting of an Athenian with 
 a Spartan woman whose hair exhaled the penetrat- 
 ing stench of a rancid unguent shocking to the olfac- 
 tive sensibility of the delicately perfumed Athenian 
 woman whose refined essences were equally repellant 
 to the Spartan woman, so they simultaneously turned 
 away in disgust. 
 
 In gastronomy, taste requires long cultivation, and 
 seldom reaches its maturity before the age of forty, 
 despite refined home surroundings. Except, of course 
 in the case of the fair sex, where is to be found the 
 perfection of daintiness and veritable gourmetism 
 
28 DIKING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 which is of the rarest occurrence in adolescent males. 
 The hunger of youth is imperative and its cry is 
 mainly for quantity. It is well known that many 
 aliments disliked at twenty are relished at forty, 
 and vice versa. The excellence of certain wines, such 
 as those of Burgundy and of Madeira, is scarcely ap- 
 preciated by the young who crave the sweet and 
 sparkling. The gratification of the sense of taste 
 gives the highest attainable pleasure only to the 
 experienced gourmet who is wont to eat and drink, 
 always in moderation, but with the greatest attention 
 and reflexion; and remembers the Master's aphorism 
 to the effect that " Those who feed to surfeit and 
 tipple to saturation know not how to eat or drink." 
 
 The seat of the end-organs of gustation is chiefly 
 at the base and sides of the tongue which are the 
 regions of the caliciform papillae and of their adjuncts 
 the fungiform; the filiform papillae, disseminated upon 
 nearly the whole lingual surface, being purely tactile. 
 However, the concurrence of the tactile and olfactive 
 senses is essential to perfect gustation and to the 
 full enjoyment of delicious aliments.* 
 
 Some experimenters have reached the conclusion 
 that there are but two veritable savors; the sweet and 
 the bitter, while others recognise three additional 
 
 * Besides ramifications of twigs from the glosso-pharyngeal 
 nerve and the lingual branch of the trigeminal, the caliciform 
 papilla? contain the minute gustative bulbs discovered in 1867, 
 by Schwalb and Loven. Thus the chain of specialising bodies 
 in the end-organs of sense is complete, from the retinal rods and 
 cones, the tactile and Pacimian corpuscles, the olfactive cells, 
 to the organ of Corti in the ear. 
 
THE PLEASURE OF EATING 29 
 
 savors, the saline, the alkaline, and the acid; but all 
 reject the idea of acrid savors which really result 
 from the mechanical action of acrid substances upon 
 the tactile papillae of the tongue and indeed upon the 
 whole buccal membrane. They all very properly 
 discard the so-called aromatic savor which belongs 
 exclusively to olfaction. 
 
 Tasty aliments are often designated palatable, 
 although the palate is passive as regards gustation; 
 its office being purely mechanical. It serves as a 
 firmly fixed surface against which the tongue bruises 
 the food to express and diffuse sapid particles for 
 quick action by the saliva without which there would 
 be no gustation. The other parts of the buccal 
 cavity are said to possess no more than tactile 
 properties. 
 
 The only truly gustible aliments are those contain- 
 ing sweet, bitter, saline, alkaline, or acid principles. 
 Hence the free use of condiments of such nature in 
 good cookery, and of pungent condiments in modera- 
 tion to stimulate all the papillae of the tongue. Fats 
 are gustible from their mildly saline principle but 
 generally need an addition of salt or sugar. Bread 
 without salt would be tasteless. Sweet and acid 
 fruits are always enjoyable when sufficiently ripe. 
 Nuts of divers kinds are liked on account of their 
 bitter or acid principle, and their taste is often im- 
 proved by a sprinkle of salt or sugar. Distilled water 
 is insipid but rendered sapid by the addition of a 
 trace of salt or sugar. Wines are gustible by reason 
 
30 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 of the sugar therein contained; it is their aroma that 
 gives the greater pleasure through olfaction. Very 
 dry wines, with but a trace of sugar, act mechanically 
 upon the lingual papillae, and their ethers are enjoyed 
 through the sense of smell. Rum is gustible owing to 
 its sweetness. The love of cocktails and other equally 
 injurious mixed drinks is because of their bitter, 
 sweet, and acid ingredients. Beer would be insipid 
 but for its contained lupuline or other bitter sub- 
 stance. 
 
 Taste, then, with its closely associated olfactive 
 and tactile senses, may be regarded, gastronomically, 
 as the special and general sensation of pleasure or 
 displeasure evoked by the perception and specialisa- 
 tion of the temperature, succulence, sapidity, and 
 perfume of aliments; and figuratively, as a judg- 
 ment of the beautiful, the sublime, and the pictur- 
 esque. 
 
 Since the cooperative influence of the tactile and 
 olfactive senses upon gustation have been shown in 
 the foregoing notes, it remains to be told how audition 
 contributes to the sense of taste and to the pleasure 
 of eating. 
 
 The auditive sense of diners is always attentive to 
 the pleasing click of the knives and forks, is ever 
 charmed by the musical gurgle of the beverages as 
 they emerge from their slender-necked receptacles, 
 and is enraptured by the mellifluous tones of the con- 
 genial guests. In former times, during drinking 
 bouts, the gurgling of decanting wine or the bursting 
 
THE PLEASUEE OF EATING 31 
 
 of the foaming bubbles of ale not being as audible 
 as the soldier liked, he contrived, to better satisfy 
 audition, the clinking of the drinking vessels; and 
 the ceremony is still observed. Iago's song tells of 
 that custom which was very old even in the Eliza- 
 bethan era. 
 
 "And let me the canakin clink, clink; 
 And let me the canakin clink: 
 A soldier's a man; 
 A life's but a span; 
 Why, then, let a soldier drink." 
 
 It is believed that good music, during a banquet, 
 by its pleasing effect on the auditive sense, reflexively 
 stimulates appetite and promotes conviviality. It 
 was, probably, this notion that impelled the great 
 among ancient civilised nations to keep their flute- 
 players and other musicians, and even dancers, in 
 constant action during convivial reunions; thus 
 gratifying the senses of gustation and vision while 
 catering for audition. Music seems to do more than 
 charm the gourmet's audition since they believe that 
 certain sounds, affecting the nerve which goes to the 
 salivary glands, excite an increased flow of saliva so 
 very indispensable to gustation. Here then the in- 
 cident musical sounds serve to heighten the gratifica- 
 tion of the gustative as well as the auditive sense, 
 and offer a sufficient reason why, even in these modern 
 times, musicians are so often kept in action during 
 the period of deliberate degustation and thus check 
 
 
32 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 conversation which is so fatal to the full enjoyment 
 of delicate aliments. Besides their natural fondness 
 for music and on account of its good effect on gustation 
 the majority of gourmets have another reason to de- 
 sire its introduction at banquets, for they know that 
 the act of mastication, by causing tension of the ear- 
 drum, permits a greater appreciation of certain notes. 
 Remotely related to the gustative sense is the quick 
 perception, ready specialisation, and exquisite en- 
 joyment of delicate, varied, and harmonious musical 
 sounds, which together have been designated the 
 savor of sounds; and those endowed with this rare 
 auditory faculty of thus savoring sweet sounds, are 
 sail to possess practically an additional sense. The 
 true gourmet is ever as busy cultivating his senses 
 as the athlete his muscles. 
 
 The last, the most brilliant of all the services at a 
 grand feast, is ushered in with its luscious dainties, 
 sweet ices, fragrant fruits, delicate cheeses, and foam- 
 ing wines, to crown with glory the sensual delight of 
 eating and herald the intellectual pleasure of the table 
 stimulated and intensified by the slow imbibition of 
 wee cupfuls of sable mocha infusion, by the sipping 
 of the nectarean cordials from tiny crystal vessels, 
 and by the leisurely inhalation of delectable nicotian 
 vapors. 
 
 There is not a more beautiful illustration of the 
 Creator's infinite wisdom than his endowment of man, 
 for his preservation and happiness, with these won- 
 derfully correlated and coordinated senses! 
 
THE PLEASURE OF EATING 33 
 
 In closing, as in beginning, the citation is from the 
 dear Master's aphorisms: 
 
 "The pleasure of the table is of every age, condi- 
 tion, country, and day; it may be associated with all 
 other pleasures, and remains the last to console us for 
 their loss." 
 
Ill 
 
 THE REFECTORY AND ITS APPURTENANCES 
 "Let this serve for table talk." 
 
 Ancient and modern festal halls and their appur- 
 tenances merit so much more notice than can be given 
 them in the faint outline of this brief sketch, that the 
 reader is expected to supply the details needed to 
 complete the picture. 
 
 Divers writers on deipnophily, in their very in- 
 teresting expositions of the science of alimentation 
 and the art of dining together with table manners and 
 customs, say that in early European civilisation the 
 refectory was a spacious hall in which were tables of 
 rough, bare boards placed upon trestles: the scats 
 being plain wooden benches, hence banquet to signify 
 a convivial assembly: and that such was the hall 
 styled ph Hit ion where the Spartan philitia or phei- 
 ditia was served. They further say that, for a very 
 long scries of years, the Lacedemonians and Greeks, 
 in their pristine simplicity, had sat at table to eat, 
 but that after their Eastern conquests, becoming 
 luxurious, they adopted the Persian custom of re- 
 clining on couches to enjoy the dainties served at the 
 board: that Inter the Romans, in imitation of the 
 Greeks, likewise reclined on couches while eating: 
 
 34 
 
THE REFECTOEY 35 
 
 that neither in Athens nor in Rome does it appear 
 that much attention was given to the decoration, 
 ventilation, or illumination of the refectories, except 
 in the great halls of wealthy epicureans; and that the 
 much travelled Archestratus must have brought 
 about, in Athens, some improvements in these par- 
 ticulars, as afterward in Rome probably did the 
 renowned Lucullus whose ample dining halls were 
 said to be airy, richly decorated, brilliantly lighted 
 and contained splendid tables inlaid with ivory, tor- 
 toise shell, and other precious materials, or made of 
 citron wood or' of dappled maple. 
 
 After the degradation of Rome, semi-savagery was 
 rife and table luxury ended, whilst grossness in feed- 
 ing, in taste and in deportment prevailed, and the 
 revival of rational epicurism did not occur until the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century. 
 
 Modern writers who have described the banqueting 
 halls of ancient England, where the knights and their 
 followers were wont to feed on huge haunches of 
 venison and quaff great tankards of ale, speak of the 
 table as it was prepared for the daily refection during 
 the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, specifying: 
 A bare board on trestles, a bench to sit upon, tan- 
 kards for the ale, goblets for the wine, wooden plates 
 for the food, the tranchoir of bread, the salt, the knife, 
 the spoon. Such was the prevalent style of setting 
 the table for a feast throughout Europe until the reign 
 of King Charles IX when his mother Catherine suc- 
 ceeded in reforming table-dressing, at the French 
 
36 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Court, and made it correspond in character to the 
 service of the delicacies which she required to satisfy 
 true gourmetism. From that time, much more at- 
 tention was paid to the refectory and its appur- 
 tenances, and during the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries many ornamental devices were introduced 
 for the embellishment of the table and for the grati- 
 fication of guests. But at this day, in the civilised 
 world, the ornamentation of the refectory and of the 
 table is very much simpler and incomparably superior 
 in comfort and true elegance to all that was accom- 
 plished during and long after the enlightened era of 
 the fourteenth Louis. 
 
 These preliminary outlines of the sketch naturally 
 lead to a glance at the first garment used in England 
 and France for the adornment of the table, namely, 
 the napery; which, however, was used in Rome during 
 the first century of the Christian era, as told by 
 Martial: 
 
 "Let this woollen cloth protect your splended citron 
 table. On mine a dish may be placed without doing 
 harm." 
 
 But the table cover was in use long before the 
 Romans by their masters in gastronomy, letters, sci- 
 ence, and art, as it appears in the "Sojourner" of 
 A.ntiphanes : 
 
 "Hither I come and bring a table setter, 
 Who shall soon wash the cloths and trim the lamps, 
 Prepare the glad libations and do everything 
 Which to his office may pertain." 
 
THE REFECTORY 37 
 
 Perhaps the earliest attempt, in the middle ages, 
 to clothe the naked table was that made in the twelfth 
 century when a woollen cloth was spread upon it to 
 serve in part for wiping the diners' grimy hands. 
 Much later, the table cloths were of silk variously 
 colored and embroidered, and still later were made of 
 white linen. 
 
 Small napery, for wiping the hands, was in use be- 
 fore the time of Domitian, and the fact is mentioned 
 by Martial in the fifty-ninth epigram * of his eighth 
 book: "The servants lose cups and spoons, and many 
 a napkin is warmed in the secret folds of his dress." 
 Hay's metrical version is as follows : 
 
 "He'll make the servants hunt for spoons; and clap 
 His napkin in his breeches, not his lap." 
 
 The first napkins used in France are said to have 
 been given by the city of Rheims in 1380, to Charles 
 VI on the occasion of his coronation. The table nap- 
 kin, then regarded as a royal luxury, soon became 
 a necessity and an ornament when suitably disposed 
 upon the dining table, so the folding of napkins began 
 to be viewed as one of the nice features in the art of 
 decorating the table which, at length, was made so 
 much of that in the year 1662 was published an elab- 
 orate treatise on the subject, with the title "La 
 Plissure des Serviettes." In that work, it is said, are 
 given minute directions for folding napkins in scores 
 of different forms representing particular vegetables, 
 
 * "On a one-eyed thief." 
 
38 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 fishes, birds, hares, and other beasts. This task, in 
 private families, was generally assigned to the butler 
 who ever took much pride in the endeavor to surprise 
 and amuse the guests by his excellent models of many 
 forms of vegetable and animal life in white linen. In 
 large establishments, this artistic work was confided 
 to an expert who devoted to it nearly all his time. 
 
 This sketch will permit only a passing reference to 
 the modern refectories and table dressing of the great 
 clubs or of all the homes of the opulent and tasteful 
 in Europe and America, with their brilliant electric 
 illumination as contrasted to the air-fouling candle 
 light or gas jet, or the smoky oil lamps of ancient 
 times. But some of the appurtenances of these festal 
 halls are such as to merit a little closer scrutiny. 
 
 Many of the sideboards, chairs and tables of the 
 present time are superb monuments of highly artistic 
 designing and skilful artisanship, often made of 
 precious woods and susceptible of the highest polish, 
 especially the table which is generally left bare until 
 wanted for use when its smooth, glossy surface is 
 protected by a layer of thick felt or of asbestos cloth 
 over which is spread the richest damask napery. 
 This snow-white texture is then very simply dec- 
 orated with a few sparsely strewn green sprigs and 
 pink flowers, which appeal pleasingly to the visual 
 sense so often and so long before offended by the pre- 
 tentious pieces montees, epergnes, candelabra, and other 
 undecorative decorations, all of which sham orna- 
 ments only serving to encumber the table and ob- 
 
THE REFECTOBY 39 
 
 struct the view of opposite diners. The other mate- 
 rials of adornment for the table, agreeable to sight, 
 delightful to taste, useful and truly ornamental, are 
 the cold hors-d'wuvre, and fresh and preserved fruits 
 placed upon shallow silver, porcelain, or crystal re- 
 ceptacles suitably disposed amidst the green sprigs. 
 On the right of each cover are placed the drinking 
 vessels; in the center is a richly decorated plate, 
 styled the "stand plate," which is not removed until 
 the service of the fish; on the right side of this plate 
 are the knives, and on its left are the forks, whilst the 
 spoons are in front. The smaller napery, folded in 
 divers attractive forms, each containing a tiny loaf, 
 is placed on the stand plate. 
 
 Anent other dinner plates, a few words will suffice 
 to suggest the accessories needed to complete this 
 part of the picture. It is evident that some kind of 
 plate serving as receptacle for food taken at table, 
 has been in use from remote antiquity, if the speci- 
 mens exhibited in museums are genuine. One of 
 these was seen in the collection of archaic pottery of 
 one of these museums. It is a neatly decorated 
 earthen -ware object, in bright coloring and good 
 design, of the form and size of an ordinary dinner 
 plate, taken from the ruins of an ancient Central 
 American city and supposed to be pre-Columbian. 
 Some glass plates found in Cyprus are said to date 
 back several thousand years. Such plates doubtless 
 were made also by those skilful glass workers, the 
 Sidonians of old. Metal dishes and plates were used 
 
40 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 in early times at the tables of the wealthy and were 
 of silver or of gold, elaborately ornamented, as were 
 the spoons and goblets many of which were lavishly 
 given away by profligate hosts to the guests at the 
 close of entertainments. The baser metals too were 
 largely employed in the production of food recepta- 
 cles. Pewter plates are still to be found in old rural 
 dwellings, and tin plates are in daily use in certain 
 public institutions. Wooden plates were in general 
 use even among the opulent during the fourteenth 
 century and later. The modern thin wooden plates, 
 thrown away after the meal, are often found very 
 convenient to ruralising city bumpkins. Dinner 
 plates of earthen-ware were unknown in France and 
 England in the fifteenth century; the nobility using 
 silver dishes and plates, and the common people 
 placing their cut of meat upon a roundish slice of 
 bread. 
 
 None but a lettered Mandarin is likely to be able 
 to tell how long since the Celestial Empire began to 
 produce vases and plates of porcelain. It is not 
 much more than two centuries that Europeans con- 
 trived to make fine porcelain, but they have since 
 excelled the Chinese in the form and decoration of 
 plates and of other utensils; witness the exquisite 
 products of Florence, Sevres, Limoges, Vienna, Dres- 
 den, Berlin, Derby, Bristol, Plymouth, Lowestoft, 
 Worcester, and Lambeth. American potters have 
 lately entered the lists and will soon become fair com- 
 petitors in the ceramic art. 
 
THE KEFECTOBY 41 
 
 The richness of decoration of porcelain plates in 
 actual use among the affluent is such as to constitute 
 the most attractive feature in the ornamentation of 
 the table, as pleasing to the eye as it is charming to 
 the mind. Grimod, in his interesting article on porce- 
 lain, said: "Of all the objects which contribute to the 
 decoration of a table, porcelain is perhaps that which 
 most agreeably flatters the eye, because to its extreme 
 neatness are added elegance in form and brilliancy in 
 coloring, to charm sight and enliven imagination." 
 
 Another enthusiast's view of the pleasing effect of 
 beautiful porcelain upon the sesthesis of refined diners 
 is here reproduced from Lady Morgan's sketch of a 
 dinner prepared by the famous chef Careme at Baron 
 
 Rothschild's villa. : 
 
 ..... "The dining room stood apart from the 
 house, in the midst of orange trees; it was an elegant 
 oblong pavilion of Grecian marble, refreshed by foun- 
 tains that shot in the air scintillating streams, and the 
 table, covered with the beautiful and picturesque des- 
 sert, emitted no odor that was not in perfect con- 
 formity with the freshness of the scene and the fervor 
 of the season. No burnished gold reflected the glar- 
 ing sunset, no brilliant silver dazzled the eye; porce- 
 lain, beyond the price of all precious metals by its 
 beauty and its fragility, every plate a picture, con- 
 sorted with the general character of sumptuous sim- 
 plicity which reigned over the whole, and showed how 
 well the masters of the feast had consulted the genius 
 of the place in all." 
 
42 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 In thinking of cutting implements, there inevitably 
 comes to the mind the idea of a sharpened stone with 
 which the early man skinned the animals he had killed 
 with a stick of wood, of the bronze knife with which 
 his ascendant in cunning and ferocity slaughtered 
 beast and man, of the tempered iron weapon with 
 which the next, more valorous, man overcame his 
 neighbor of the bronze edge-tool, and of the keen 
 sword and dague of the civilised warrior as his table 
 cutlery. In the polite society of less than three hun- 
 dred years ago each diner used his own pocket knife 
 to cut up the food on his plate; the heavy cutlery 
 being in the kitchen where the carving was done with 
 large knives adapted to the purpose, but the carving, 
 of a deer or a boar roasted whole, was often done on 
 the table upon which the "Chevalier trenchant" 
 would leap, do his work, jump off and disappear. 
 Fine table cutlery was not in fashion until the begin- 
 ning of the eighteenth century ; but to the nineteenth 
 belongs the achievement of simplifying the process 
 of steel making on truly scientific principles. The 
 cutlers of England, France, Germany, and America 
 have ever since been able, at comparatively little 
 cost, to supply the demand for the best table knives 
 with ivory, mother of pearl, enamel, silver, or gold 
 handles. Silver and gold fruit knives of the most 
 exquisite designs are of much older date. 
 
 The fork is apparently a modern innovation, for 
 it is not mentioned in the writings of early times, nor 
 is it included in the specification of the useful objects 
 
THE KEFECTOKY 43 
 
 placed upon the dinner tables of the Barons of old, 
 ending with "the^knife, the spoon," without the least 
 semblance of a suggestion of anything like a fork, 
 which utensil seems to have been invented in Florence 
 or Rome, and, as a novelty, brought to France by 
 Catherine de Medicis. It is strange that such an in- 
 dispensable implement to the table was not anciently 
 suggested by Neptune's trident from which was prob- 
 ably evolved the furca used by the Romans as a 
 weapon and also as an instrument of punishment. 
 From this furca came the Italian forcone,, pitchfork, 
 and forchetta, little fork, and the French fourche, with 
 its diminutive fourchette. The first forks were two- 
 pronged and of wood or iron. Long afterward a 
 third prong was added, and still later these forks were 
 made of ivory, silver, or gold, with four prongs and of 
 more graceful form. At present, oyster and fish forks 
 of peculiar designs are made of the precious metals 
 as are other sorts intended for divers purposes. 
 
 Concerning spoons something may be told besides 
 the mouldy horse-chestnut that they were not evolved 
 from the bill of the ornithorhynchus horridus, or of 
 the duck, or of other spoon-billed fowl, but from a 
 bit of wood like a Chinese chop-stick with the broad- 
 ened end, or from a shovel-like wooden implement, 
 such, probably, as that used by Turks in eating 
 pilau, or from a shell, as its Latin name cochleare, 
 spoon, implies. The well-known fact is that spoons 
 have been in general use ever since the cunning mother 
 of Jacob learned to make lentil puree, and perhaps 
 
44 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 long before that event which she thought would be so 
 advantageous to her promising son, for the contents 
 of the flesh pots of Egypt, probably during many ages 
 anterior to Jacob, had to be stirred and eaten with 
 some kinds of ladles or spoons. Professor Maspero, 
 director of the Cairo Museum, has catalogued spoons 
 of horn, ivory, and other substances, some of which 
 are supposed to have been used, many thousand 
 years ago, for extracting unguents and perfumes from 
 their receptacles. One of the archaic glass spoons 
 unearthed in Cyprus has the precise form and size 
 of the modern dessert spoon. It is clear, from the 
 foregoing statement, that wood, horn, ivory, glass, 
 iron, bronze, pewter, silver, and gold, have long been 
 used in forming this implement so necessary for the 
 service and for the ingestion of some fluid and semi- 
 solid aliments. 
 
 Of the early use of drinking vessels, the writer will 
 strive to adhere closely to the subject, and therefore 
 will not begin with a history of the material universe 
 and dissert lengthily lest he be in a similar position to 
 that of the lawyer pictured in Racine's only comedy, 
 "The Pleaders," wherein the Judge, after listening to 
 the prolonged, irrelevant erudition of that attorney 
 all about a stolen capon, said to him : " Sir, please pass 
 on to the deluge." Nevertheless the writer is bound 
 to say that, originally, man, not being possessed with 
 any kind of drinking vessel, was wont to quench his 
 thirst after the manner of beasts, but finding this 
 inconvenient used his hand as a dipper ; then had re- 
 
THE REFECTORY 45 
 
 course to a molluskan shell or some other concave 
 object; and that it was very long before he discovered 
 the properties of plastic clay and so produced the 
 first sun-baked drinking cup. The writer will now 
 pass on to the post-diluvian period and make brief 
 reference to the ancient silver and golden goblets 
 ornamented with rich gems; to the ornate Egyptian 
 drinking cups of glass; to the exhumed Cyprian 
 glass goblets, irridescent with age; to the crystal 
 and myrrhine cups out of which the Romans drank 
 their luscious Setine and Falernian wines ; and lastly 
 say a word on the splendid productions of the glass- 
 blowing establishments of England; of France, where 
 Baccarat sent forth such marvelous ware ; of Bohemia ; 
 of Venice, where Salviati's works became so justly 
 renowned; and of America, which has made such 
 long strides toward the improvement of cast, pressed, 
 cut, and engraved glass vessels, clear or tinted, and 
 of the most graceful forms. 
 
 An electrically illuminated refectory with its com- 
 fortable chairs and ample table whose snowy napery 
 is decorated with green sprigs and pink flowers, rich 
 porcelain, brilliant glass and silver-ware, is a truly 
 great joy to the visual sense of all guests, whose other 
 senses are to be gratified in the highest degree in 
 correspondence with the splendor of the ornaments 
 which have so gladdened their sight, especially when 
 the feast is graced by the presence of ladies, whose 
 daintiness, cheerfulness, and spirited conversation 
 add so much to the pleasures of the table. 
 
IV 
 
 FRAGMENTS ON THE EVOLUTION OF COOKERY AND 
 GASTRONOMY 
 
 "The destiny of nations depends upon the character of their diet." 
 
 Embrionicly an aquatic being, man was wont to 
 live near the shores of lakes or of streams from which 
 he could assuage his thirst after the fashion of his 
 poor relation the four-footed beast. His aliments 
 were simple, but fairly varied. The first edible ob- 
 jects that attracted his attention were probably 
 mushrooms, which are so nourishing as to have been 
 commonly called vegetable beef by modern rustics. 
 Until the sylvan man found the security of a cave, 
 he necessarily led an outdoor life; climbing trees by 
 night for protection against predacious beasts, and 
 descending by day to procure food and drink. His 
 nails were hard and long, fit for digging up the truffle 
 discovered for him by a gluttonous, grunting, pachy- 
 dermatous relative. After long observing the meth- 
 ods and apparent delights of this bulbophagous pur- 
 veyor, he added the newly found bulb to his diet of 
 more accessible fungi, grasses, roots, nuts and sweet 
 fruits. Thus, for ages before he became ichthy- 
 ophagous, he was a gastrodic lachanophagist. Being 
 migratory by nature and adventurous by inclination, 
 
 46 
 
COOKEEY AND GASTRONOMY 47 
 
 for lack of the better means of transportation evolved 
 since his time, he followed on foot and on terra firma, 
 the course of the smaller streams to the valleys of the 
 great rivers, and finally reached the sea coast where 
 he was able to add mollusks, crustaceans, and some 
 of the larger fish to his meagre fare. Having always 
 tasted in the raw state the animal food obtained 
 from the lakes, the rivers, and the sea, he began to 
 experiment with the flesh of small warm-blooded 
 beasts, which for a long period he ate raw.* He had 
 already made weapons of offense and defense, as 
 shown in the portraiture of Haeckel's man. 
 
 In time, fire was discovered, in all likelihood by 
 an accident occurring to a small boy, the scion of a 
 lineal ascendant from a far ancestor of the Neander- 
 thal man, cousin of the first Spy man; this ancestor 
 having ascended from pithecanthropus erectusrf who 
 
 * The cannibals of the South Sea Islands originally ate their 
 "long-pig" in the raw state — "long-pig" being human flesh 
 and "short-pig" pork. Raw flesh of different beasts is even now 
 eaten, not only by savages but by rustics of several European 
 nations. Wadd relates that Calif Merwan II could never ap- 
 proach a sheep without wrapping his hand in the corner of his 
 robe and tearing out the kidney, which he instantly devoured, 
 and then called for a clean habit. When he died ten thousand 
 greasy vests were found in his wardrobe. 
 
 It is recorded that Richard Cceur de Lion, being ill, longed 
 for a dish of pork, and that, as none could be obtained, a young 
 Saracen was cooked and served to him as roast pig, which he 
 greatly enjoyed, without having discovered the fraud, and was 
 ever after very fond of roast pig. 
 
 The heart of the murdered Marechal d'Ancre, prime minister 
 of Louis XIII, having been cut away, was thrown among the 
 people, several of whom seized and devoured portions of it in 
 the raw state. 
 
 t Pithecanthropus erectus. — In September, 1891, Dr. Eugene 
 Dubois, a surgeon of the Dutch troops stationed in central 
 
48 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 sprang from the X generation — in progressive scale 
 of evolution — of chimpanzee who ascended from a 
 distant successor of orang who is a far away, erect and 
 aristocratic relation of gorilla, who . . . That 
 irrepressible small boy — the homologue of the mis- 
 chievously enterprising small boy of to-day and of 
 his congeners forever— while playing with two sticks 
 of dry wood found that they soon acquired a pleasant 
 warmth which, however, increased very rapidly with 
 friction, and, to his amazement, caused ignition of 
 the tinder which burned his hands; the absence of 
 superfluous garments accounting for his escape from 
 incineration. (His was the first case of burn to be 
 recorded.) He then quickly flung away in affright 
 and pain the enkindled sticks, which caused a con- 
 flagration in the brush that carbonized the smaller 
 quadrupeds and converted the larger into roasted 
 venison which some elder savages found to be tooth- 
 some. Such, doubtless, was the earliest beginning of 
 cookery. Later attempts, on a seemingly rational 
 basis, were made, judging from the reports of explor- 
 
 Java, found in the left bank of the river Bengawan, embedded 
 in rock one meter beneath the level of the lowest water mark in 
 the dry season, a molar tooth; one month later he discovered, 
 on the same plane of this stratum, a cranium; and nearly a 
 year thereafter, a thigh bone, and finally another tooth; all 
 belonging, he said, to the same animal which he linked between 
 the gibbon and the first Spy man, and which he named pithe- 
 canthropus erectus. Attention was called, in America, to Dr. 
 Dubois' discovery of this ape-man or man-ape by the late Pro- 
 fessor O. C. Marsh, who published two interesting papers on the 
 subject; the first in the February, 1895, number of the American 
 Journal of Science, and the second in the June, 1896, number of 
 the same Journal. 
 
COOKERY AND GASTRONOMY 49 
 
 ers of cave dwellings. Other explorers assert that 
 quasi systematic cooking of food was practised by 
 remote ancestors of troglodytes not long after the 
 accident that happened to the aboriginal promethean 
 gamin who invented fire, was a roaster by chance 
 and consequently the precursor of all cooks, on whose 
 escutcheon he should be represented in the act of 
 rubbing his two sticks. . . . 
 
 Savages and semi-civilised tribes still feed on raw 
 mushrooms, acorns, nuts, dates, and other fruits, 
 and resort to cooking only when they are able to se- 
 cure the larger game, then they feed to repletion like 
 the wild carnivorous beasts. . . . 
 
 Since beasts feed, men eat, but men of genius alone 
 know how to eat, the science of gastronomy belongs 
 to the highest state of civilisation, and seems to have 
 arisen in the Orient. . . . 
 
 How much the Chinese, Hindoos, Assyrians, or 
 Egyptians * may have contributed to early deip- 
 nosophic lore is not known to ordinary mortals, but 
 perhaps the question is answerable by the pandits 
 in Oriental history, linguistics and customs. Several 
 ancient and modern knights of the quill have, how- 
 ever, asserted that the Greeks of Attica gleaned from 
 
 * "When the Egyptians made an expedition against Ochus, 
 King of Persia, and were defeated, and the King of the Egyptians 
 taken prisoner, Ochus treated him with great humanity, and 
 invited him to supper. There was a very splendid preparation 
 made; the Egyptian laughed at the idea of the Persian living so 
 frugally. ' But if you wish,' said he, ' O King, to know how happy 
 kings ought to feast, permit those cooks, who formerly belonged 
 to me, to prepare for you an Egyptian supper.' . . . Ochus 
 was delighted at the feast. . . ." (Athenseus, Book IV). 
 
50 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 the Persians their notions of luxury and especially 
 of better cookery, about which Archestratus wrote a 
 poem bearing the title of Gastrologia or Gastronomia, 
 now sometimes called the Greek Almanack des 
 Gourmands, but lost among the many literary treas- 
 ures that have perished through the vandalism and 
 savagery of the illiterate. 
 
 The only knowledge extant of the writings of this 
 Archestratus is derived from Athenseus, the great 
 compiler of Greek and Roman deipnology * 
 
 Prior to the Persian wars, Greek fare was plain and 
 even gross, judging from the early history of the 
 nation and from the Homeric and other writings. 
 During the time of the republic "an Athenian feast 
 was regarded by neighboring nations as a homely 
 entertainment," and it is said that Pericles and other 
 great men, when meeting at a friend's house, were 
 each followed by a slave bearing provisions for his 
 master's use — a veritable picnic. By the by, the 
 origin of the term picnic was supposedly traced to the 
 facetious Athenian gamins by a castaniculturist of the 
 Joe Miller character and literary acumen, who did 
 
 * For his poem on gastronomy, Berchoux seems to have re- 
 ceived the inspiration from what he could learn of Archestratus' 
 work through Athenseus, the Greek grammarian, native of Nau- 
 cratis in lower Egypt, who nourished during the third century 
 of the Christian era, and of whom Bayle speaks as follows: "He 
 was one of the most learned men of his time; he had read so 
 much and remembered so many things that he could justly be 
 called the Varro of the Greeks. Of all his works there remains 
 only the one bearing the title of The Deipnosophists — the sophists 
 at the table — in which he introduces a certain number of learned 
 men of all the professions, who discourse of an infinity of subjects 
 at the festive board of a Roman citizen named Laurentius." 
 
COOKERY AND GASTRONOMY 51 
 
 not seem to be aware that those Greek feasts for 
 which each guest furnished his share of the comesti- 
 bles, bore the name of eranos, i. e., picnic. Neverthe- 
 less, here is the interpretation of the would-be 
 philologic chestnut gatherer: "Pericles had a slave, 
 a native of Nicomedia, known to have a sour dispo- 
 sition and a bitter tongue, on which account he was 
 nicknamed the picrous Nicomedian. When the 
 master sallied forth to some feast, accompanied by 
 his slave, the street urchins of Athens, who had little 
 respect for rank, less for age, and none for name, 
 were in the habit of saying, ' there goes old Peric with 
 his Pic Nic carrying grub to the feast.' In time, 
 whenever each guest conveyed his share of food to a 
 meal, this feast itself came to be called a picnic, just 
 as the term banquet is now applied to a feast, although 
 originally banquette was the small bench on which 
 the guests sat." . . . 
 
 The Lacedaemonian kopis differed from the eranos 
 regarding the source of supply of the food and the 
 character of the guests. This kopis was an officially 
 provided feast at the expense of the city; all, even 
 sojourning foreigners, were invited to take part in 
 the feast in which no other than goat's meat was 
 served, each guest receiving a little loaf made of 
 meal, oil, and honey, a newly made cheese, a slice of 
 paunch, some black pudding, beans, sweet-meats, and 
 dried figs. The aiklon differed from the kopis as to 
 the source of its supply which was individual and not 
 official. It consisted in the distribution of loaves 
 
52 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 of bread and slices of meat; an attendant following 
 the servant who distributed the portions, and, pro- 
 claiming the aiklon, gave at the same time the name 
 of the host. . . . The dessert of the phiditia — 
 the common supper of the Spartans — was called the 
 epaiklon and consisted of meal steeped in oil, sweet- 
 meats, etc. 
 
 By their wars, the Athenians enriched their native 
 stores with exotic germs of knowledge and civilisa- 
 tion. With this civilisation came great luxury which 
 could be supported only by the wealth they acquired 
 from vanquished enemies. . . . 
 
 The Romans, who emulated the Greeks in some of 
 their learning, few of their virtues, many of their 
 vices, and all of their luxury, were never gastronomes 
 such as were the refined Athenians, but relied more 
 on the quantity than on the quality and delicate 
 preparation of aliments. They copied servilely the 
 Greek orgies, and their banquets consisted of a vulgar 
 profusion in meats as well as wines, and those wines 
 were generally sophisticated. Both Greeks and 
 Romans were in the habit of mixing their wines, not 
 only with honey, but with spices, with the juices of 
 aromatic herbs, and with other substances.* . . . 
 
 Certain foreigners, crassly ignorant of this coun- 
 
 * A drinker of unmixed wine was called by the Greeks acrato- 
 potes, just as now a drinker of raw liquor, he who drinks his 
 "two fingers" of "whiskey straight," is called a soaker, a toss- 
 pot, or a tank. 
 
COOKERY AND GASTRONOMY 53 
 
 try's customs, having sneeringly attributed the in- 
 vention of mixed drinks to the Americans, it is 
 high time to traverse their gratuitous assumption. 
 Besides, the mixed drinks of America are assuredly 
 more palatable than could possibly be to us, anything 
 like the ancient mixtures of wine, honey and spices, 
 or the modern concoctions wrongly styled American 
 drinks and served at European cafes. There is not 
 the least adumbration of a doubt that mixed drinks 
 similar in effect to mulled-wine, sherry-cobbler, san- 
 garee, vermuth, absinth, mint-cream, anisette, kiim- 
 mel, curagoa, maraschino, chartreuse, Benedictine, 
 and other cordials, brandy-smash, gin-phizz, whiskey- 
 sour, John-Collins, horse-neck, eye-openers,* cock- 
 tails of brandy, gin, or whiskey, mint-julep, punch, 
 Tom-and-Jerry, spiced-rum, hot apple-toddy, egg- 
 nogg, and many other compounds of like character, 
 were in great vogue long ages before the most remote 
 ancestors of father Christopher, the discoverer, and 
 Vespuccio, the pirate, had undertaken to teach their 
 grandsires the ancient art of ovi suction. . . . 
 
 A feast without intellectual converse and witticism 
 must be dull in the extreme and bear a close resem- 
 blance to the beastly feed of savages. The ancients 
 were so attentive to the details conducive to con- 
 viviality that, besides story telling, they introduced 
 vocal and instrumental music, and even dancing as 
 
 * Marcus Aufidius Lurco was surely one of the early advocates 
 of the "eye-opener," for Horace has it that 
 
 "Aufidius first, most injudicious, quaff 'd 
 Strong wine and honey for his morning draught." 
 
54 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 parts of the entertainment. During their feasts the 
 Athenians often discussed the derivation of words, 
 among other things, and some of them were especially- 
 fond of punning upon these words (the punsters, 
 though tolerated, were not in good intellectual odor) 
 and of relating humorous anecdotes of which they 
 had an abundant fund. This habit of word study, 
 indulged by men of culture and leisure, seems to have 
 been one of the chief factors in the purification of 
 Attic Greek. However, despite the intellectual part 
 of Grecian banquets, which should have sufficed for 
 rational amusement and for preventing evil proceed- 
 ings, the wealthy too often descended to a degree of 
 debauchery which has left an indelible blot on the 
 character of that once great nation. At some of the 
 banquets, hired courtesans danced in a state of nudity 
 in presence of the drunken guests. Athenseus gives 
 a full account of such an orgie during the marriage 
 feast of Caranus, a wealthy Macedonian. Since his- 
 tory has always been known to repeat itself, it may 
 be remembered that such a scene was enacted not very 
 long ago in a megalopolis, the morals of whose denizens 
 are not below the general average. 
 
 The private feasts which succeeded the frugal phi- 
 ditia of the early Greeks were often on a grand and 
 extravagant scale in imitation of the Persian ban- 
 quets. The wealthy Persians were wont to celebrate 
 their birth-days by feasts, at each of which were served 
 
COOKERY AND GASTRONOMY 55 
 
 an ox, an ass, a horse, and a camel, roasted whole. 
 This clearly proves the modern barbecue * — an abbre- 
 viated transmogrification, by the by, of de la barbe a 
 la queue, from the beard to the tail — to be a very old 
 and gross way of entertaining, a sort of gormandising 
 vandalism.! There is no knowing where the Per- 
 sians themselves learned the trick of roasting large 
 animals, unless it were through the legend of the pre- 
 historic lad who set a prairie on fire and smoked and 
 grilled all, both great and small. . . . 
 
 In speaking of the extreme luxury of the Persians, 
 Xenophon tells of men who travelled great distances 
 to find pleasant food and drink for the King, and of 
 ten thousand of his subjects who were always busy 
 contriving new and nice dishes for him; besides, he 
 offered prizes of large sums of money to those who 
 would invent new pleasures. Despite the magnificence 
 displayed in the ostentatious kingly banquets, there 
 sometimes seemed to be method in this splendor and 
 even perhaps some economy, for among the thousand 
 victims sacrificed every day for a feast, there were 
 many horses, asses, camels (probably disabled ani- 
 mals), oxen, stags, sheep, ostriches, geese, and cocks; 
 a moderate portion being served to each of the King's 
 mess-'mates, so that there was no waste. . . . 
 
 *' * This is said to be an absurd bit of pseudo-philology. How- 
 ever that may be, si non vero e ben trovato, for it is quaintly 
 humorous. 
 
 f Prince Henry (Henry IV, part I) speaks of fat Jack as " that 
 roasted Manningtree ox with a pudding in his belly." ... It 
 was apparently the custom at that time to serve a roasted ox 
 at the Manningtree fair. 
 
56 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 This record of the Persian fondness for horse and 
 camel eating may prove interesting to those who 
 remember the abortive attempt, made about forty 
 years ago, to introduce hippophagy in this country 
 as an economic measure. To the Yankee this was 
 suggestive of glanders, anthrax, actimycosis, and other 
 vile pestilences, and his vision, olfaction, gustation, 
 and digestion, unlike the Persian's, rebelled against 
 any dainty dish having a horsy odor or savor, such as 
 horse-tail soup, a horse rib roast, collop, or steak, or 
 a filet chevalique aux champignons. The French, 
 however, were glad enough to devour spavined, far- 
 cied, and emaciated steeds during the siege of Paris 
 and to eat even worse kinds of flesh.* . . . 
 
 The hippophagic proposition did excite many 
 sardonic horse laughs with more than ordinary facial 
 spasms followed by no little pharyngeal disturbance, 
 when a learned essay on the subject was perused by 
 Castanish gourmets. By the by, since the horse is 
 not a laughing being owing to absence of the neces- 
 sary muscle and nerve elements — a horse laugh can 
 in no way be connected with that amiable, friendly 
 beast, for it means precisely a hoarse laugh ; horse and 
 hoarse having long been used indifferently to express 
 the adjectival idea of the laughter of an individual 
 who might at the time be suffering from laryngeal 
 distress, who could, if he would, laugh hoarsely, or 
 
 * Hippophagy is now common on the continent of Europe, 
 and has of late years been reintroduced into our country to sup- 
 ply some foreign immigrants of the poorer classes. 
 
COOKEKY AND GASTRONOMY 57 
 
 who, perchance, should have a naturally hoarse 
 voice. . . . 
 
 Herodotus says that the Greeks who entertained 
 Xerxes and fifteen thousand men of his army at sup- 
 per were all utterly ruined, and to one of them, 
 Antipater, such a meal had cost four hundred Attic 
 talents — equal to four hundred thousand dollars, 
 modern coinage. Ephippus writes that when Alex- 
 ander the Great gave an ordinary supper to a few 
 friends, sixty or seventy, the banquet cost one hun- 
 dred minse — equal to eighteen hundred dollars; 
 about twenty-six dollars for each individual. Cleo- 
 patra gave Antony an entertainment with all the 
 dainties of the time, served on golden dishes inlaid 
 with precious stones; all other appurtenances be- 
 ing in keeping with her ideas of splendor. When 
 Antony expressed astonishment at the magnificence 
 displayed, she presented him with all the golden dishes 
 and goblets, and invited him to sup on the next day 
 when she prepared a much more sumptuous feast 
 for him and his officers and friends, again giving them 
 all that was on the table * 
 
 Some of the givers of banquets in ancient times 
 showed largess by presenting to underlings not only 
 the food that was not consumed, but the dishes, 
 goblets, and other utensils. But often, particularly 
 when common soldiers were among the guests, many 
 things, not given, disappeared. This prestidigitative 
 tendency is not very uncommon even in the present 
 
 * For one of these feasts a roasted ox was served. 
 
58 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 time; although the individuals of that ladronic spe- 
 cies are not many. Nevertheless cigarettes, cigars, 
 sterling forks and spoons do occasionally find their 
 way into the recesses of the habiliments of these 
 pampered cleptomaniacs. 
 
 Much more time and space would be required, even 
 to make only brief allusions to the many banquets 
 of old that are described by Athenseus alone, than 
 can be devoted to these prolegomenary items, the 
 real purpose of which has been to trace the progress 
 of gastronomy from the moment of the discovery of 
 the effect of fire upon alimentary substances to the 
 use of electricity in cooking; from the period when 
 man lived on nuts and roots to the instant of the in- 
 vention of the last dainty dish; from the time when, 
 in imitation of the beast, he drank water directly 
 from its source, to the day when he luxuriously sipped 
 the most delicate wine from the frailest of Salviati's 
 glass. 
 
 Gastronomy as a science does not seem to have 
 begun until the time of the Syracusan deipnographic 
 poet, Archestratus, who first used the term and 
 created a school of gastronomy. His disciples soon 
 spread his admirable principles among the elect of 
 civilised nations. The masses never could become 
 and are never likely to be gastronomes. 
 
 The modern gastronome has often been called 
 epicurean as a sort of term of reproach, implying un- 
 due luxury and license, or even debauchery. It is, 
 
COOKEKY AND GASTRONOMY 59 
 
 however, well known to scholars that although Epi- 
 curus believed the summum bonum of man's life to be 
 pleasure, he evidently meant rational pleasure, for, 
 as says one of his biographers, "he was endowed with 
 sublime wit and profound judgment, was a master of 
 temperance, sobriety, continence, fortitude, and all 
 other virtues, and was not a patron of impiety, glut- 
 tony, drunkenness, luxury, and all kinds of intem- 
 perance, as the common people believed him to be." 
 The same apologist in speaking of self immolation in 
 case of great bodily suffering, says: Epicurus, " leav- 
 ing others to become examples of that rule, with 
 admirable patience and invincible magnanimity, en- 
 dured the tortures of the stone in the bladder, and 
 other most excruciating diseases for many years to- 
 gether, and awaited till extreme old age put out the 
 taper of his life." ... He surely was not fav- 
 ored with euthanasia for which so many mortals 
 pray! Epicurus, the friend of Archestratus, was a 
 gastronome, a deipnophilist, in the sense that he loved 
 to enjoy the good things of this earth, but in modera- 
 tion. . . . True gastronomes commit no excesses. 
 
 . . . Gastronomy, deipnophily, should never be 
 confounded with gastromania, gastrolatry, deipno- 
 lotry, polyphagia, or sybaritism, any more than oino- 
 phily and oinosophy need be confounded with poly- 
 oinia or oinolatry. . . r 
 
 The debauched glutton is never particular about 
 the kind or quality of food and drink ; quantity only, 
 if it can be obtained gratis, will satisfy his morbid 
 
60 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 craving. The typical polyoinic and gastrolatric para- 
 site is tersely characterized by the iambic Archilochus 
 as follows : 
 
 " Faith but you quaff 
 The grape's pure juice to a most merry tune, 
 And cram your hungry maw most rav'nously, 
 And pay for't — not a doit. But mark me, Sirrah! 
 You come not here invited as a friend. 
 Your appetite is gross; your god's your belly; 
 Your mind, your very soul, incorposed with gluttony, 
 Till you have lost all shame." 
 
 Such is Bailey's metrical version of the satyre. 
 
 Some modern bards, too, have recorded their pro- 
 test against excess and their advocacy of pleasure in 
 moderation; thus Pope has it that 
 
 "Pleasures, or wrong or rightly understood, 
 Our greatest evil, or our greatest good." 
 
 And Byron: 
 
 "Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, 
 There is no sterner moralist than pleasure." 
 
 Savages take only one meal each day, or when they 
 can get it, but nearly all the civilized nations have 
 long been in the habit of taking four, five, and even 
 six daily refections; two of these in the morning, one 
 at about noon, one in the afternoon, one in the even- 
 ing, and sometimes a sixth late at night. The first 
 breakfast in the rural regions of almost all countries 
 is generally at daybreak, the second is taken in the 
 
COOKERY AND GASTRONOMY 61 
 
 fields or about at eight o'clock, while the principal 
 repast is at noon, and the supper at sundown. 
 
 The first morning meal was called acratismos by the 
 Greeks and consisted of crusts of bread soaked in pure 
 wine. The Roman prandiculum, a very light meal, 
 was often taken at an early hour, so is that indulged 
 in by tropical and other nations, comprising a small 
 cup of black coffee and a biscuit, taken on rising or 
 even in bed. A meal taken in haste is by the vulgar 
 called a snack, for they snatch any morsel that may 
 be at hand and eat it hurriedly. 
 
 The second morning meal was called ariston by the 
 Greeks and is the counterpart of the Roman jentacu- 
 lum, of the Italian colezione, of the Spanish almuerzo, 
 of the French dejeune a la fourchette, of the German 
 frilhstiick, and of our breakfast. 
 
 The third or noon meal was the deipnon of rural 
 Greeks and the prandiifrn of the Roman people. It 
 is the pranzo of the Italians, the refaccion or comida 
 de medio dia of the Spanish, the diner of the French 
 peasants, the mittagessen of the Germans, and our 
 luncheon (the English tiffin) which, a wit says, is 
 "a base ingratitude to breakfast and a premeditated 
 insult to dinner." 
 
 The fourth or afternoon meal was the esperisma 
 of the Greeks, corresponding to the merenda * of the 
 Romans and modern Italians, the colacion of the 
 Spanish, the gouter or goute of the French, the nach- 
 
 * Merenda, from meridies (Plautus) because it was originally 
 a mid-day meal. 
 
62 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 mittag-essen of the Germans, and our collation or 
 five o'clock tea. Collatio was employed by medieval 
 monks to denote an assembly for the reading of holy 
 writ after the evening meal and was subsequently 
 applied to the meal itself. 
 
 The fifth or evening meal was the deipnon of urban 
 Greeks, the prandium of the Roman knights, and is 
 the desinare of the Italians, the comida of the Spanish, 
 the diner of the French, the diner of the Germans, 
 and our late dinner. 
 
 The sixth or night meal was also called deipnon* 
 or, when a sumptuous feast estiama by the Greeks 
 it was the costly epulum, or the plain ccena or cena, 
 the cenula~\ (Cicero), the cena brevis (Horace), the 
 cena lautissima (Pliny, Jr.), of the Romans, and is 
 the cena of the Italians, the cena of the Spanish, the 
 souper or soupe of the French, the abendessen or 
 nachtessen of the Germans, and our late supper. 
 
 It is remarkable that the Greek language, so rich 
 in words, should not have possessed more special 
 terms to designate the different and differing repasts. 
 The first, acratismos, clearly indicates that the essen- 
 tial part of that breakfast is pure wine; but the sec- 
 ond, ariston, is applied to the mid-day meal as well 
 as to the breakfast; whilst deipnon was used for all 
 the meals, but eventually for what is now known as 
 the late dinner. The Romans, too, used the one 
 
 * After supper came the symposium or drinking bout and 
 orgie. 
 
 f The petits soupers in vogue during and after the reign of 
 Louis XIV may have been suggested by the cenula of Cicero. 
 
COOKERY AND GASTRONOMY 63 
 
 term prandium for all their meals, but finally to denote 
 dinner. The cena was at first taken at noon, but after- 
 ward at night. The modern dinner from disnare, a 
 contraction of disjejunare, to break a fast, is used 
 quite as arbitrarily as were the ancient terms, for 
 dinner is a refection which may be in the morning, 
 at noon, at night, or at any moment that is judged 
 necessary to cease fasting. The savage like the wild 
 beast eats when he is hungry or when he can obtain 
 food; civilised man every four, five or six hours. . . . 
 
 The number and the hour * of meals must vary 
 even in the same country to be in accord with the 
 occupation or to suit the convenience of different 
 classes of a community. The following anecdote 
 may serve as an illustration: 
 
 After his first term of service, a legislator from a 
 distant part of the country, on returning to his fire- 
 side, was closely catechised by his youthful son and 
 heir, concerning the climate of the District of Colum- 
 bia, the character of the- public buildings of Washing- 
 ton City, the state of health of the President and his 
 family, and the nature of the habitations and habits 
 of the denizens of the Capital. Among the scores of 
 queries were the following: At what hour do the 
 people dine? At noon. And the M. C? At 1 p. m. 
 And the Senators? At 2 p. m. And the Supreme 
 Judges? At 3 p. m. And the Cabinet members? 
 
 * One of the alleged reasons for taking the principal meal 
 late at night among the ancients was based upon the belief that 
 "the moon promotes digestion, since it has putrefying properties; 
 digestion depending upon putrefaction." 
 
64 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 At 5 p. m. And the President? The President — the 
 President — oh, he does not dine until the next day. 
 Toward the close of the last century a humorist said 
 that the Parisians, by dint of retarding their dinner 
 hour, will end by dining on the next day * 
 
 These "chestnuts" were very old fifteen hundred 
 years ago, only the places and names have often been 
 changed as demanded by circumstances. . . . 
 
 The deipnophilist is a lover of good dinners. The 
 gastronome is a deipnophilist who has a profound 
 knowledge of good cheer. An accomplished gastro- 
 nome is a gourmet in its broadest sense, a deipnoinoso- 
 phist. Formerly the term gourmet was employed to 
 signify exclusively an oinosophist, a wine-taster able 
 to pronounce quickly upon the age and quality of 
 any vintage, but modern deipnophilists apply the 
 word gourmet to him who is well versed in the quali- 
 ties of food as well as drink. The French occasionally, 
 
 * In the fifteenth century, the dinner hour, among the French 
 nobility, was at eight in the morning. The King, Louis XII, 
 afterward changed it to mid-day. The courtiers, however, 
 dined at nine or ten a. m., and supped at five or six p. m. This 
 custom was observed also during the reign of Francis I, as shown 
 by the following verses of an old poet quoted in the Nouvel 
 Almanack des Gourmands, 1827: 
 
 " Lever a cinq, diner a neuf , 
 Souper a cinq, coucher a neuf, 
 Fait vivre d'ans nonante-neuf." 
 
 Another change in meal hours occurred in the reign of Henry 
 IV, when dinner was at eleven a. m., as it was also in the time of 
 Louis XIV, while under Louis XV the dinner was at two p. m., 
 and this observance was continued until the revolution, when 
 breakfast was at nine and dinner at four. 
 
COOKEKY AND GASTRONOMY 65 
 
 instead of gastronome and gastronomie, use the ex- 
 pressions gourmand and gourmandise *, but these 
 terms are translatable only into gluttony and glutton, 
 which are never tolerated by true gourmets. Savages 
 are not and cannot be gastronomes, neither can no- 
 madic or semi-civilised tribes be gastronomes. Mod- 
 ern rustics are not gastronomes. Young urban 
 adults are not gastronomes because their minds are 
 directed toward other channels of learning and their 
 activity demands quantity rather than quality of 
 aliments. The science of gastronomy is acquired 
 only by mature men after long experience, and im- 
 plies a thorough knowledge of the quality of beverages 
 and other alimentary substances and of cookery. 
 Therefore the true gastronome should be versed in 
 natural history, physics, organic chemistry, and 
 domestic and political economy, each playing its 
 part in private as well as in public feasts. . . . 
 
 * Deipnophilus suggests the term gourmetism — in French 
 gourmetise or gourmetisme — to take the place of gourmandise. 
 
ANCIENT AND MODERN BANQUETING 
 
 "The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of 
 mankind than the discovery of a star." 
 
 Although the evolution of alimentary science and 
 culinary art was indicated in the preceding essay, it 
 seems proper that a few additional notes on the sub- 
 ject appear at the beginning of this disquisition, and 
 although the definitions of science and art have been 
 reduced to two words each, i. e., to know and to do, 
 it may be said that alimentary science is the theoreti- 
 cal knowledge of the properties and of the prepara- 
 tion of 'edible substances, and that culinary art is 
 such masterly skill in the treatment and coction and 
 service of these substances as to render them pleasing 
 in a high degree to the senses of consumers. 
 
 There is good reason to believe that alimentary 
 science was evolved from observation of the dietetic 
 habits of lower animals. It is likely that, originally, 
 man lived on materials similar to those which he saw 
 the more docile of the herbivora in the act of eating; 
 that incidentally he tasted the raw mushroom and 
 liked it, quenching his thirst from the turgid udders of 
 a mother ewe; that he further varied his diet by learn- 
 ing, from other animals, the uses of divers grasses, 
 bulbs, grains, nuts, and sweet fruits; and that he 
 
 66 
 
ANCIENT AND MODERN BANQUETING 67 
 
 continued to live as a strict vegetarian with dilated 
 intestines and a big belly until he became acquainted 
 with a few more of his co-denizens of the plains and 
 forests, particularly the ichthyophagous and sarcoph- 
 agous beasts from whom he learned to devour fish 
 and flesh au naturel. This habit was undoubtedly 
 transmitted to many generations of men down to the 
 South Sea Islanders, who liked short-pig but regarded 
 missionary long-pig raw as the greatest of relishes. 
 Even at the present time many men prefer to eat 
 raw, heated, sun-dried, or smoked rather than cooked 
 meats. Such consumption of flesh seems more like a 
 perversion of gustation than an evidenec of savagery. 
 Savarin gives the following examples: When certain 
 sportsmen — who are always provided with salt and 
 pepper — happen, in the month of September, to kill 
 fat figpeckers, they pluck and season them, and each 
 fastens to his hat a bird so prepared and after a 
 suitable time eats it; declaring that thus sun-cooked 
 it is very much better than fire roasted. A Croatian 
 cavalry officer, dining with him in the year 1815, 
 said: "There is little need of so much preparation 
 as you make here for me. When in the field we feel 
 the pangs of hunger, we kill the first beast at hand, 
 cut out a piece of its flesh, season it with salt which 
 we always have in the sabretasche, place it under the 
 saddle of the horse, mount, gallop a while, and then, 
 with this meat, regale ourselves like princes." 
 
 The facetious Samuel Butler told of the common 
 diet of Huns in these few lines : 
 
68 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 " And though his countrymen the Huns, 
 Did stew their meat between their bums 
 And th' horses' backs o'er which they straddle, 
 And every man ate up his saddle." * 
 
 Assuming this theory to be correct, it follows 
 that the earliest cooks were roasters. Such per- 
 haps were the thoughts of Savarin when he para- 
 phrased Cicero's saying, " Nascimur poetce, fimus 
 oratores," we are born poets, we become orators, into 
 "we become cooks but are born roasters." The too 
 frequent realisation of the fact that many good cooks 
 are bad roasters and vice versa, has long been a cause 
 of great vexation of spirit and of rank offense to the 
 gustation of true gourmets whose gorges rise in re- 
 bellion against over-done roasts and ill- concocted 
 and badly served aliments. 
 
 It is clear that man long remained in ignorance of 
 the art of cookery, whose evolution unquestionably 
 was from the accidental discovery of the burning 
 property of fire; the roasting or, per (mis) chance, the 
 carbonisation of flesh exposed to the action of great 
 heat having been one of the first effects observed. 
 
 It can scarcely be told how long man continued to 
 live on raw food, on roasts and grills, or on parboiled 
 meats before he learned how to make soups and 
 stews. The cooking of food among the early Greeks 
 was generally the office of slaves, but on special oc- 
 casions the master gave particular attention to the 
 preparation and service of the meats. A fair example 
 
 * Hudibras, Part I, Canto ii, lines 275-278. 
 
ANCIENT AND MODERN BANQUETING 69 
 
 is found in the Iliad where it is related that, a great 
 fire having been kindled, Achilles himself made ready 
 and roasted the spitted meats and carved and served 
 them to his Trojan guests, whilst Patrocles distributed 
 the bread. 
 
 The boiling of food does not appear to have become 
 a part of cookery until the action of hot water upon 
 animal and vegetable substances was revealed, in all 
 likelihood, by the accidental fall of an animal or of 
 a delicate plant into the pool of some hot spring. It 
 was probably after observing a marked change in 
 the appearance, consistence, and taste of the scalded 
 animal or plant that man used the artifice of filling a 
 gourd with water and placing it on hot embers to 
 secure full ebullition. But the speedy destruction of 
 the inflammable gourd must naturally have induced 
 that embryonic chef de cuisine to coat the next gourd- 
 ish utensil with plastic clay and eventually to con- 
 struct out of pure clay all the vessels designed for 
 this sort of cookery. From these primitive experi- 
 ments probably was evolved the artistic pottery 
 which ornaments the modern palaces. The Hindoos 
 of past ages were such lovers of boiled aliments that 
 they styled their cooks soup makers, but this sort of 
 cooking was rare amongst other nations notwith- 
 standing these very early beginnings and the biblical 
 record of the flesh pots of Egypt, and of self denying 
 Jacob's puree of lentils. Speaking of pottages it 
 may be interesting to note the result of the researches 
 of the erudite hellenist Madame Dacier who said that 
 
70 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 she had not been able to find the slightest reference 
 to the boiling of meat in any of the Homeric writing. 
 This view, however, has been contested by the asser- 
 tion that there is, in these Homeric compositions, very 
 distinct reference to the boiling of food. . . . 
 
 It is well known that the higher development of 
 culinary art arose in Persia, and that it was from the 
 luxurious Persians that the Greeks got their best 
 notions of cookery and of banqueting which they im- 
 parted to the Romans who soon disseminated the 
 newly acquired information throughout their posses- 
 sions. But compared to modern banquets in the 
 character of the food, its preparation, and its service, 
 and in the quality and quantity of the wines, the best 
 of the Grecian and Roman feasts were crude, coarse, 
 vulgarly profuse, and needlessly extravagant; almost 
 always ending in shameless debauchery. These or- 
 gies were long indulged by gluttonous revellers despite 
 the good example given by Mithacus, Numenius, 
 Hegemon, Philoxenus, Acticles, Tyndaricus, and, in 
 the time of Pericles, by Archestratus — author of the 
 lost poem on gastronomy and the art of giving a ban- 
 quet — who had visited many distant parts and coun- 
 tries in quest of information relating to alimentary 
 science and culinary art. . . . 
 
 Roman, like Grecian luxury, the result of conquest, 
 was carried to the greatest excess among the wealthy. 
 It was in the time of Sulla that Lucullus and Hor- 
 
ANCIENT AlSiD MODERN BANQUETING 71 
 
 tensius became so noted for their extravagant feasts 
 in which was displayed the most reckless expenditure 
 of ill gotten sesterces; two of the most costly dishes 
 consisting one of the brains of five hundred peacocks, 
 the other of the tongues of as many nightingales. 
 Cleopatra's sentimental pearl cocktail though no 
 more ridiculous in extravagance than the brain and 
 tongue ragouts, is offset in absurdity by the hundred 
 pound note eaten in a sandwich by a lady out of con- 
 tempt for an elderly adorer who had laid the note on 
 her dressing table 
 
 It was early in the first century that Apicius squan- 
 dered the equivalent of five millions of our dollars for 
 the maintenance of his kitchen and finally poisoned 
 himself lest he starve to death on a remaining million. 
 Martial tells in a few words the story of that deluded 
 Roman's profligacy and death: 
 
 "You had spent, Apicius, sixty millions of sesterces 
 on your belly, but you had still left a loose ten millions. 
 In despair at such a reduction, as if you were con- 
 demned to endure hunger and thirst, you took, as a 
 last draught, a dose of poison. No greater proof 
 of your gluttony than this, Apicius, was ever given by 
 you." 
 
 Caligula, in his short reign, is said to have been as 
 great a spendthrift as his predecessors and to have 
 expended a sum equal to fifty thousand dollars for a 
 single banquet. In the beginning of the third cen- 
 tury the deboshed guzzler Heliogabolus gave a supper 
 which cost one hundred thousand dollars. . . . 
 
72 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 A mixture of Roman civilisation and barbaric pro- 
 fusion, says Baudrillart, signalises the feasts during 
 the early centuries of the middle ages. Sidonius 
 Apollinaris, speaking of the repasts of Theodoric II, 
 King of the Visigoths, affirms that in those feasts there 
 was a union of Greek elegance and Gallic abundance. 
 In the ninth century this barbaric prodigality was 
 rife among the Franks. The feudal Barons were 
 proverbially hospitable even to those whom they op- 
 pressed. In their castles were vast kitchens where 
 enormous joints were roasted. Their cellars were well 
 garnished with casks of wine and beer, and their 
 drinking vessels were colossal. In the twelfth cen- 
 tury, further says Baudrillart, extravagance was so 
 great that the expenditure incurred to celebrate the 
 nuptials of Eleanore and Louis le jeune nearly ex- 
 hausted the public treasury and, in 1243, at the mar- 
 riage banquet of Cincia, daughter of Raymond, 
 Comte de Provence, to Richard of Cornwall, brother 
 of Henry III of England, thirty thousand dishes were 
 served ■ 
 
 With few exceptions, the grossest feeding, even 
 among the wealthy classes, continued in vogue down 
 to the sixteenth century when dainty good cheer 
 was introduced at Rome where some of the elect of 
 nearly all civilised nations were aggregated. Each 
 ambassador to the Papal Court took with him his 
 chief cook who soon vied with others to give his mas- 
 ter's guests the best and most savory of dinners with 
 
ANCIENT AND MODERN BANQUETING 73 
 
 libations of the choicest wines of his country. By- 
 exchange of views and cookery receipts on the part of 
 the men with the masters' sanction, it was not long 
 before the official dinners consisted of the best dishes 
 of all the countries represented in the Eternal City 
 whose high clerics were already noted as lovers of 
 
 delicate aliments.* 
 
 From Rome, polyethnic good cheer passed into 
 France, where it made a beginning in the time of 
 Catherine of Medicis and of Henry IV, but it was not 
 until the reign of Louis XIV f and particularly of 
 Louis XV that cookery and gastronomic nomenclature 
 attained great perfection, ever since which Paris has 
 been acknowledged the gastronomic center of the 
 world. The names given by the French to many 
 culinary utensils, to divers preparations of aliments 
 and to their service were adopted by other nations 
 and not a few of them are now in use. Even the bill 
 of fare, which in France was termed carte, became 
 menu, and this word was soon taken up at nearly all 
 pretentious English and American hostelries, and the 
 majority of comestibles catalogued in bills of particu- 
 lars of the fare took French names. It may be of in- 
 
 * Each country had and still has its favorite drink and dish 
 which are generally palatable. This is so well known by travel- 
 lers that, almost invariably, on arriving in a town not before 
 visited, they call for the wine and dish of the country and are 
 seldom disappointed. 
 
 f Louis XIV was a large feeder. He has been known to eat 
 at a single meal, four plates of different soups, a whole pheasant, 
 a partridge, a copious plate of salad, some roast mutton, two 
 good sized slices of ham, a fair share of pastry, and then fruit and 
 preserves. He was particularly fond of hard boiled eggs. 
 
74 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 terest to inquire into the reason or rather unreason 
 for the employment of the term menu which, origi- 
 nally, was used solely as an adjective, as menus 
 plaisirs, etc., but perverted into a substantive for a 
 kitchen term applied to what are now called giblets 
 and other bits of fowl sold for stews — une fricassee de 
 menus. The word was afterward used by intendents 
 to designate the bill of fare — u le menu d'un repas, 
 c'est le detail de ce qui le compose." In some restau- 
 rants, the word carte is still used to mean a list, on a 
 sheet of cardboard, indicating the name and price of 
 each article of food that the restaurateur is ready to 
 supply. Carte du jour is a special bill of fare. Carte 
 a payer is no longer in use and is replaced by the 
 shorter term V addition. 
 
 "An honest Londoner, being presented at a Paris- 
 ian restaurant with a bill of fare containing one hun- 
 dred and ninety dishes, returned it to the waiter, 
 saying he had made a mistake and brought him a bill 
 of lading." (Wadd) 
 
 The celebrity of the French cuisine is due in great 
 part to the restaurateurs, the first of whom opened 
 his restaurant in Paris near the close of the third 
 quarter of the eighteenth century. In our country 
 the most noted restaurateurs until a score of years 
 ago were French, Swiss, and Italian, and many of 
 their native pupils have since attained the highest 
 rank as caterers to the refined taste of members of 
 
ANCIENT AND MODERN BANQUETING 75 
 
 the cultured classes at their homes or clubs where the 
 best cooks are employed 
 
 Good cookery in France was interrupted by the 
 Revolution, but from the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century the greatest impulse was given to scientific 
 cookery and rational gastronomy, fostered by Ber- 
 choux's admirable poem La Gastronomic, published 
 in the year 1800, and by Comet's clever satiric poem 
 bearing the title of L'Art de diner en ville (1810), but 
 more particularly by the annual publication of 
 Grimod de la Reyniere's Almanack des, Gourmands, 
 which first appeared in 1804, and by Anselme Brillat- 
 Savarin's Physiologie du'Gout, the greatest work ever 
 penned on the subject, and Delille's charming verses 
 on coffee, beginning with: 
 
 " II est une liqueur au poete bien chere, 
 Qui manquait a Virgile et qu'adorait Voltaire: 
 C'est toi, divin caf6, dont l'aimable liqueur, 
 Sans alterer la tete, epanouit la coeur!" 
 
 Among the eminent lovers of good cheer in those 
 times were Cambaceres, the prime minister of Bona- 
 parte and host at all the official banquets, de Cussy, 
 Doctor Castaldy, of the famous jury degustateur, 
 Rossini, the operatic composer, Camerani, noted for 
 his invention of a delicious pottage, Louis XVIII, 
 the Due d'Escars, and many other bons-vivants who 
 subscribed to Savarin's aphorism: "The animals 
 feed, man eats, the man of wits alone knows how to 
 
76 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 eat," and believed that the true art of dining has for 
 its object not merely the satisfaction of hunger but, 
 through moderation, the assurance of health as well 
 as the gratification of the senses 
 
 After the occupation of Paris in 1814 and 1815 by 
 the Allies, many of the best cooks followed their 
 "friends the enemies" and so the capital was tem- 
 porarily bereft of the services of those culinary artists; 
 and lovers of good cheer deplored their absence, but 
 it was not long before some of them returned, or others 
 sprang up to fill the places of the deserters. The 
 emigration of so many French cooks to England gave 
 that country — after France — supremacy in good 
 cheer, but cookery and gastronomy did not really 
 decline in France, as the English imagined. Among 
 the new epicures in England who began to forsake 
 venison and roast beef for dainty French dishes pre- 
 pared by the imported chefs, were King George IV, 
 the Duke of York, the Duke of Beaufort, the Duke of 
 Montrose, Lord Southampton, Lord Chesterfield, 
 Lord Wilton, Lord Brougham, the Marquis of Hert- 
 ford, Sir William Stanley, Sir William Curtis, and 
 others of the wealthy classes, nearly all of whom gave 
 banquets at which were present from ten to thirty 
 guests and often greater numbers. 
 
 The ancients had at their feasts from five to five 
 hundred guests, except of course in the case of military 
 banquets wherein many thousands were regaled. 
 Weddings were frequent occasions among the opulent 
 
ANCIENT AND MODERN BANQUETING 77 
 
 for the most lavish display of rich ornaments besides 
 a great profusion of edibles and wines, At the mar- 
 riage banquet of Caranus the Macedonian, twenty 
 guests were entertained after a style which exceeded 
 all the extravagance of the time ; carrying away with 
 them quantities of provisions, golden vessels and other 
 precious gifts. . . . The wisdom of choosing a 
 few congenial guests for the rational enjoyment of a 
 delicate repast was urged by Archestratus, as shown 
 in the following extract from the poem of that great 
 epicurean, rendered into English verse by Disraeli: 
 
 "I write these precepts for immortal Greece, 
 That round a table delicately spread, 
 Or three, or four, may sit in choice repast, 
 Or five at most. Who otherwise shall dine 
 Are like a troop marauding for their prey." 
 
 Now, for informal repasts, with intimate friends, 
 to test some particular dish or wine, the diners are 
 few, not exceeding four — the partie carree 
 
 Long custom among civilised nations has decreed 
 that the number of persons at a dining table should 
 not exceed twelve, which permits general conversa- 
 tion, at least during the first hour of the feast. With 
 the aid of the round table, however, twenty diners are 
 made comfortable in every particular, notwithstand- 
 ing Varro's saying that the guests should ordinarily 
 be of the number of the graces and never exceed that 
 of the muses. The Romans usually entertained nine 
 
78 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 guests, three on each of their three couches; hence the 
 name triclinium given to the dining room. Varro's 
 adage was repeated by de Cussy and other modern 
 writers. 
 
 With our present facilities, even at our homes, it is 
 not difficult to provide for the comfort of twenty-five 
 guests at dinner. The writer had the pleasure, on 
 many occasions, to dine at the home of a good friend 
 who, with his charming wife, frequently entertained 
 their sixteen grown children at dinner and often had 
 five or six guests besides. It is scarcely necessary 
 to say that no pains were spared in the choice 
 of the comestibles or in the ensurance of their ex- 
 cellence and service, and in the attention given to 
 the wines. This was rendered easily practicable by 
 a well-filled exchequer which permitted the best uses 
 of modern appliances and conveniences with a lesser 
 number of servants than in the olden time. . . . 
 
 It now only remains to give an example of feasting 
 in the latter part of the nineteenth century, which 
 will be done in the next paper. 
 
VI 
 
 A CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER 
 " Dis-moi ce que tu mange, je te dirai ce que tu es." 
 
 This collop is intended as an example of the present 
 style of feasting on truly sound principles, among 
 persons of refinement, in marked contrast to the 
 banquets of ancient times, and to those orgies of 
 modern Trimalchian wights endowed with more 
 wealth and vulgarity than mind and gentility. It 
 is also suggestive of the progress of gastronomy in 
 the nineteenth century, and of moderation as essen- 
 tial to the real pleasure of eating and drinking and 
 to the veritable pleasure of the table. 
 
 Long custom having decreed that the Christmas 
 dinner be eaten in the privacy of the family circle, 
 this particular dinner had to be given on the eve of 
 Christmas, that there might be no delay in the cele- 
 bration of the advent of an old college friend just 
 returned from his travels in foreign lands. 
 
 The host wrote to him as follows : 
 
 Nea Kastana, December 
 
 Dear Ned — The note announcing your arrival filled me with 
 joy and prompted me to ask you to await my coming to take 
 you to luncheon at our Club where I shall give directions for the 
 preparation of a feast in honor of your safe return among your 
 
 79 
 
80 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 comrades, who will be delighted to welcome you at dinner on 
 Saturday the eve of Christmas. I propose, my precious poetic 
 pandit, a polymathic assembly of some of our college mates, to 
 consist of Arthur, the renowned delineator of the good, the 
 beautiful, and the true on canvas; of honey-tongued William the 
 eminent expounder of the law; of Edward, the distinguished 
 designer of palatial edifices and grand monuments; of George, 
 who builds gigantic bridges and portrays cyclopean construc- 
 tions; of Robert, the exact man of numbers, whose nocturnal 
 habits lead him to star-gazing; of Frederick, whose poems 
 are of the living, but mute and inanimate productions of the 
 soil; of Richard, the lover of animal life, who talks so much of, 
 and so kindly to, the beasts of creation; of Charles, the beloved 
 healer of men; of Henry, the patient analyst of all natural and 
 artificial products; and of Samuel, who, like the miser, almost 
 worships the wonderful things of the mineral kingdom. 
 
 Half an hour after you shall have received this you may ex- 
 pect to see and embrace your much attached and devoted 
 friend, Albert X 
 
 Each person referred to in Albert's letter received 
 a note of invitation couched in language adapted to 
 his individuality and expressing with cordiality the 
 request to meet an old friend at dinner. The trans- 
 cription of only one of these missives will be sufficient. 
 
 Nea Kastana, Monday 
 
 Dear Arthur — The lad who, after study hours, always found 
 time to scribble verses, has attained great distinction as a poet 
 and is about to be readmitted to our fraternal fold. It is there- 
 fore fit that we celebrate with becoming circumstance the return 
 of the penitent prodigal who had deserted us a score of years 
 ago. On Saturday, Christmas eve, at seven o'clock, will you do 
 me the great pleasure to dine at the Club with us and certain 
 congenial spirits with whom we were wont to consort in bygone 
 days and who are still dear to us? 
 
 Your faithful and affectionate friend, 
 
 Albert X 
 
A CHEISTMAS EVE DUSTNEB 81 
 
 Ten minutes before the appointed time the host 
 and the poet arrived in the reception room adjoining 
 the spacious, well- decorated and electrically lighted 
 refectory, and five minutes afterward all the other 
 guests were at hand to exchange salutations and to 
 give expression of the warmest welcome to the guest 
 of honor. No propoma such as vermuth, embittered 
 sherry, or cocktail was served, because the ante- 
 prandium habit of such drinking had long ago been 
 decreed a gastronomic heresy and fatal stroke to 
 gustation and digestion by the Fraternity in solemn 
 conclave. On the stroke of seven the company was 
 comfortably seated at an ample round table whose 
 snow white cloth was sparsely strewn with green leaves 
 and fragrant flowers, and upon which were a few 
 small shallow dishes containing crisp hors-d'oeuvres. 
 There were no candelabra or other objects likely to 
 obstruct the view of opposite diners. The drinking 
 vessels were of the clearest crystal, the plates simply 
 but richly decorated, and the bright silver implements 
 of the highest artistic design. These and all the other 
 needful accessories served to charm vision and pro- 
 mote appetite. The refection, though simple, con- 
 sisted of the daintiest edibles with wines of corres- 
 ponding excellence; the details of the fare being given 
 on cards placed before the diners 
 
 After the slow degustation of a few middle sized 
 plump, succulent mollusks, a libation of the delicious 
 wine of La Tour Blanche was proposed in hearty 
 welcome of the Fraternity's poet who responded in 
 
82 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 touching accents of affection; ending with the charm- 
 ing Odyssean couplet: 
 
 " Here let us feast, and to the feast be join'd 
 Discourse, the sweeter banquet of the mind," 
 
 just in time for the service of a clear green turtle 
 soup. I see, he said, by the appearance and flavor 
 of this delicious pottage, that I shall have to beg 
 leave to talk of, and ask questions about, our good 
 cheer, and trust it may be allowable among old 
 friends. 
 
 Yes, said the host, you may talk of the food 
 and of whatever else you will favor us with. Our 
 motto for this festive occasion shall be, "ratio et 
 oratio." . . . 
 
 Until the discovery of this new world, resumed 
 the poet, the transatlantic gourmets could never 
 have had the faintest idea of such a soup as we have 
 sipped with so much pleasure, or else volumes would 
 have been written on the many uses to be made of 
 that amphibian creature who so instinctively selected 
 for its habitat the tropical waters and pebbly beaches 
 of our blessed hemisphere. Had the Vikings visited 
 our southern shores a thousand years ago, they 
 surely would have prevented us in, and robbed us of 
 the glory of the invention of the dainty clear 
 soup 
 
 Since, however, the Spaniards were the first ex- 
 plorers to enjoy green turtle stews, said the law-giver, 
 
A CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER 83 
 
 let us quaff a cup of Amontillado in memory of the 
 old soldier of the low countries, Pedro Ximenes, to 
 whom we owe the excellence of this wine which the 
 Rhenish vines its ancestors could never have yielded 
 in their cold and bleak home. Emigration seems 
 sometimes as beneficial to vegetable as it so often is 
 to animal life. No better illustration could be given 
 than in this case of the transplantation by Ximenes 
 of these vines which originally produced a detestably 
 sour wine, and which throve so well in the warm, 
 genial climate and soil of southwestern Spain where 
 their fermented juice gave the mellow, nutty Xeres so 
 agreeable to the cultivated palate 
 
 The vegetable kingdom, said the phytophilist, has 
 afforded man great enjoyment through the vine, but 
 it has done much more by giving him pleasant shelter 
 and many luxuries. The history of art and architec- 
 ture may well begin with this same vegetable king- 
 dom, for, how wonderful is the architecture of the 
 tree that flowers and fructifies, feeds, drinks, and is 
 permeated by its nutrient current through a system 
 of minute channels! How delightful and profitable 
 the contemplation of the development of the shrub, 
 the vine, the grasses, and the many other plants, of 
 their fertilisation by insects; of the carnivorous 
 plants; and of even more primitive organisms! . . 
 
 The engineer and architect concurred in all that 
 was said in favor of the vegetable kingdom, since from 
 
84 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 that source so much information is derived relating 
 principally to solidity, tension, form, curves, etc., 
 in their adaptation to artificial constructions of many 
 kinds, as well as to ornamental art. . . . 
 
 Only think, said the artist, of the infinite tints of 
 the flowers as suggestive of artificial coloring! 
 
 Are there not, said the zoophilist, striking exam- 
 ples, suggestive of house building, in the mollusks and 
 crustaceans, and in the turtle who, besides, is endowed 
 with an excellent natatory and fair ambulatory appa- 
 ratus so well adapted to his amphibious existence? 
 May not observation of the fishes of the sea have 
 suggested ship building, notably the mollusk nau- 
 tilus? May not the sight of some molluscan shell 
 have suggested the form of the pyramids? Is there 
 not also in the armadillo's armored castle a sugges- 
 tion of the coat of mail and even of the fortifica- 
 tion? 
 
 Ye who speak so well of the glory of the vegetable 
 and animal kingdoms should not slight the mineral 
 without which they could not exist, said the metal- 
 losophist. Could the great pyramids of Egypt have 
 been built to last so long were it not for the mineral 
 kingdom which came first in the order of creation? 
 Have not mountains and rocks suggested form, 
 solidity, and grandeur? May not the idea of the arch 
 have arisen from man's contemplation of natural 
 bridges, and that of church spires and other towers 
 from the lofty monoliths standing sentinel like in the 
 mountainous regions of many countries? Are there 
 
A CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER 85 
 
 not many stony and metallic monuments, constructed 
 by man, in which the vegetable kingdom did not come 
 in aid even by way of scaffolding? Do not the prin- 
 cipal materials of many tools and other objects used 
 in constructions belong to the mineral kingdom? 
 Are not many rich mineral colorings employed in the 
 arts? Whence come the gold and silver used in pay- 
 ment for labor? There surely would be no vegetable 
 or animal kingdom without water and air, the last 
 two minerals to appear on this earth; and man could 
 not be without water which makes up about seventy 
 per centum of his constituent parts, as you may 
 be told by our eminent brethren the chemist and 
 biologist 
 
 Ah! said the poet, it seems to me that the man 
 of earth has prevailed only so far as relates to the 
 order of appearance of his kingdom which, however, 
 was not completed until the vegetable came in to pro- 
 duce coal, and the animal to make chalk. The vege- 
 table kingdom required the aid of both the mineral 
 and animal for its completion, and both mineral and 
 vegetable are essential to the perfection of the animal. 
 Each has its special office which it cannot perform 
 without the help of the other two; such interdepen- 
 dence being consequent upon their identical origin. 
 Our star-gazer will tell you that all things in the uni- 
 verse have a common source in the atoms of matter 
 which is one; the properties of individual entities 
 depending on the infinite combinations and arrange- 
 
86 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 ments of these atoms. However all this may be, we 
 are agreed that the true story of nature even as told 
 in these times is the grandest of epics and that the 
 descriptions of its phenomena form so many cantos 
 in the sublime poem! 
 
 The fish was a superb specimen of the sparus ovis 
 (sheepshead) boiled and served with a delicious coulis 
 of prawns and granulated white potatoes. The head 
 was reserved for the biologist who believed that even 
 sheepsheads- are subject to the exquisitely painful 
 affection styled the toothache, and said that he had 
 reached this conclusion by often finding carious teeth 
 in this fish's jaws, which he had been in the habit of 
 preserving and leisurely examining after having en- 
 joyed the soft parts 
 
 The greedy monster lives on mollusks, principally 
 clams and mussels, said the zoologist, and doubtless 
 the hard shells often injure his teeth. This probably 
 accounts for their frequent carious condition and the 
 consequent toothache 
 
 The head is the most delicate part of the fish 
 which, said the biologist, is best boiled with three 
 or four clams to every pound of fish — the clams are 
 not to be served. We are eating sheepshead very 
 late in the year for they begin to migrate in the latter 
 part of September, but the ichthyopoles have been 
 following them in their onward course for the past 
 three months and still bring a few to market. . , 
 
A CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER 87 
 
 I have never tasted such a fish on the other side 
 of the Atlantic, nor have I ever heard it named in 
 England, France, Spain, or Italy, said the artist, 
 and, in my belief, it is equal, if not superior to the 
 turbot 
 
 The sargus, so much prized by the Greeks, said 
 the zoosophist, although placed in the same family, 
 does not at all correspond to our sheepshead, for, this 
 sargus was said to be like a mullet to none of the 
 species of which the American fish in question bears 
 the slightest outward resemblance. ..'... 
 
 Perhaps, interposed the barrister, our inter- 
 preter of the heavenly constellations will tell us what 
 particular kind of fish was intended to be repre- 
 sented in the zodiacal sign of pisces 
 
 The Dutch, answered the emule of Arago, would 
 insist that they should be herrings, the Normands, 
 that soles have the first right, the Italians, turbots; 
 but we are sure that they should be sheepshead which 
 are the best and handsomest of all the finny tribe. 
 
 I think, said the chemist, that a draught of 
 this unequalled wine of Montrachet would serve well 
 as an irrigator of the parched throats of the learned 
 brethren who, in their praises of the sparus ovis, seem 
 to have delayed too long the imbibition of the very 
 wine best suited to the gastric coction of this most 
 delicate morsel 
 
88 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Do first munch an olive as a preparation to the 
 full enjoyment of this electronoid juice of the luscious 
 margarodic berries of Gaul, said the metallosophist. 
 
 Yes, said the host, or a bit of this crisp celery, 
 or a few parched almonds, either of which, having the 
 desired effect, may suit the proclivities of some of the 
 fraternity. 
 
 Well, my dear Albert, you are determined to give 
 us new sensations even with your entrees, for this is, 
 to me, a novel way to dress, cook, and serve the 
 thymic body of the lamb, and this special mode of 
 preparation is well worthy to be styled sweet bread. 
 The appearance of the shallow concave bit of pastry 
 in which each portion is served gladdens the eye and 
 invites appetite, whilst the delicate taste of the con- 
 tents is more than enticing to the imbibition of your 
 exceptionally good wine 
 
 To a Gasterean disciple who, for so many years, 
 has not breathed the pure, invigorating air of this 
 land of liberty without licence, nor tasted our whole- 
 some, juicy, tender meat, it was thought that a fillet 
 of blue-grass fed beef would be to you next to a new 
 gastronomic sensation, said the host. . . . Here 
 it is, garnished with fresh mushrooms and accom- 
 panied by the succulent vegetables we have all so 
 greatly enjoyed at this club 
 
A CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER $9 
 
 0! ye illustrious gourmets, said the barrister, 
 forget not the Grand Master's thirteenth aphorism 
 in effect that to drink a single wine throughout din- 
 ner is a heresy, for it soon saturates the tongue and, 
 after the third glass, even the best wine fails to 
 give pleasure and only rouses the obtusest gustative 
 sensation 
 
 Hence, said the artist, the sudden appearance of 
 the ruby juice of the famous grapes of Chateau Mar- 
 gaux, of precisely the right age and warmth for your 
 appreciative palates, and a sure antidote for any 
 deleterious ptomain that may be lurking in the mush- 
 rooms, although our profound trio, the analyst, the 
 healer of men, and the scrutiniser of all vegetable 
 organisms affirm that the particular agaricin of these 
 individual fungi is absolutely innocuous, still it is 
 not impossible that a few poisonous intruders may 
 have escaped detection, therefore, as a pleasant pre- 
 caution, I hear them say, "Take thy wine." . . . 
 
 The entremets which has just been served is of 
 rare excellence, said the poet, and gives me a deli- 
 cious sensation. It is the first time I have eaten 
 celery prepared after this style. The very dark 
 brown, almost black sauce in which it is immersed, 
 is truly the work of an able culinary artist. 
 
 Our chef, said the host, is very fond of giving 
 us such surprises. The sauce is of his own invention, 
 as is the mode of treatment of the celery. . . , 
 
90 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 The true chef, said the analyst, takes great pride 
 in his profession and is a master in the science and 
 art of alimentary chemistry 
 
 We abolished in our feasts all entremets sucres, 
 such as sorbets, etc., except in summer, ever since our 
 old master so erudite in physic, philosophy and deip- 
 nosophy, now so full of years, experiences, and anec- 
 dotes, spoke so much against taking sweets between 
 courses at dinner. It is needless to rehearse his 
 humorous but sound arguments against these entre- 
 mets sucres, by which we were so well convinced. 
 But he was fond of the coup du milieu. Some of you 
 may remember also how much he decried tobacco 
 smoking after the sorbet as a vile foreign usage which 
 we should never adopt, for, he said, it so blunts the 
 sensitiveness of the gustatory nerve filaments as to 
 impede all enjoyment of the dainties which are to 
 follow. Therefore we are not going to ask you to 
 smoke at this moment. However, the fraternity has 
 consented, on your account, to depart from our rule 
 and give you this moderately sweet entremets whose 
 principal constituent ingredient is the pulp of the 
 pomelo, known as grape fruit. It is prepared by 
 isolating the pulp of the fruit and adding not more 
 than a dessertspoonful of maraschino; the whole 
 being placed in little crystal cups and suitably iced. 
 
 Your genius, dear Albert, for taking advantage of 
 the first as of the last opportunity of enjoying the 
 dainties of the time, and your aptitude for their right 
 
A CHRISTMAS EVE DIN NEB 91 
 
 selection are almost as boundless as your broad 
 studies of things that were, even before history or 
 the advent of man. It seems likely that, one of these 
 days, you will discover some petrified ragout contain- 
 ing the bones of unknown birds and mammals to 
 which, doubtless, will be given a name even longer 
 than that of the fricassee mentioned by Aristophanes 
 in his "Ecclesiazusae." Your excellent fish was the 
 last of the season, your new entrees were of the high- 
 est order of excellence, your delicious entremets sucre 
 new to me, and now I see a seasonable bird, also new 
 to me, that promises marvels, for the flesh of the 
 ruddy duck, as I now taste it, gives to my gustation 
 a sensation of pleasure never before enjoyed. Verily it 
 needs no other accompaniment than the simple fried 
 hominy so nicely served with each portion, and I 
 believe that any sweet jelly would be marring to its 
 
 delicate flavor 
 
 No wine, my dear friend, is more suitable to this 
 course of our dinner than that of Madeira, said the 
 host, therefore, let us drain a tiny cup of the first 
 good vintage of 1864 to the frequent degustation of 
 the ruddy duck 
 
 A plain lettuce salad was served with Camembert 
 and Gorgonzola cheeses after the birds. 
 
 I imagine, said the poet, from the diminutive 
 portions of the lettuce, that you have taken Horace's 
 wise hint: 
 
 "Lactuca innatat acri 
 Post vinum stomacho," 
 
92 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 and that you have added the cheese to ensure the 
 salad's digestion 
 
 Oh! thou megalornithosophist, said the botanist, 
 do tell our wayfaring brother all about the great 
 gastronomic discovery of the ruddy duck made during 
 his foreign peregrinations. 
 
 This delicate little bird, said the zoosophist, 
 appears in the market early in November, and its 
 natural history name is erismatura rubida. Although 
 known and described, by Wilson, as early as 1814, 
 very little notice was taken of it by sportsmen until 
 about fifteen years ago, partly on account of its small 
 size which is about that of our teal. It is vulgarly 
 called partridge-duck owing to its short wings and 
 mode of flight. The ruddy part of the name needs no 
 comment. It is admitted to the aristocratic nessaic 
 circle of red-heads and canvas-backs, and picnics with 
 them as a dwarfish poor relation and in the capacity 
 of purveyor for, being a bold diver, it contributes 
 largely to the feast of those of its elegant cousins who 
 are not gifted with a genius for plunging to the depths 
 of the Chesapeakean estuaries and uprooting the deli- 
 cate Vallisneria spiralis commonly known as wild 
 celery from which these three species of ducks derive 
 their exquisite flavor. It is said that an aristocratic 
 amphibian, the terrapin, also feeds on the roots of 
 the Vallisneria. This duck was not found in our 
 markets nor was its excellence known to us until the 
 year 1890, when one of the fraternity told us that in 
 
A CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER 93 
 
 November of that year he had found several ruddy 
 ducks among the canvas-backs and red-heads which 
 he had shot on the Chesapeake and that, being in 
 experimental mood, he ordered one of the smallest 
 ducks to be broiled for breakfast and liked it so well 
 that he had another roasted for dinner and thought it 
 quite as rich in flavor as the red-head. He afterward 
 learned that other sportsmen had already made the 
 same experiment with like result. Epicures now 
 pronounce this bird equal in taste to its two popular 
 cousins. 
 
 There are many other delicacies in store for you, 
 dear absentee, said the artist, that have been dis- 
 covered during the score of years since your desertion, 
 and if you had your deserts you would have no dessert, 
 but you will not be deserted by the deserving fra- 
 ternity nor deprived of the pleasure of enjoying the 
 coming delicious dessert which will deserve the keenest 
 attention after the disservice of all appurtenances to 
 the prior services 
 
 Plum pudding, said the host, is commonly the 
 chief part of the dessert at this time of the year, but 
 since the ordinary plum pudding would be rather 
 heavy and out of keeping with our light dinner, I 
 have provided a plum pudding glace which doubtless 
 you have tasted in foreign parts and which, as you 
 know, is of easier digestion than the rich hot pudding 
 of old. It is accompanied with a few dishes of petiis 
 fours, some of which may remind you of the sweet 
 cheese cakes anciently so much in esteem at Syracuse 
 
94 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 and Athens. With these sweets, let us drink to the 
 new-found brother the wine that, by virtue of its 
 diffusibility, soon wakens the dormant spirit of humor 
 at this period of a refection 
 
 I am fully in accord with the French, said the 
 poet, that champagne wine should be drunk last, 
 and that it should be moderately sweet. Dry spark- 
 ling wines are not agreeable to me. Our people who 
 use dry champagne generally drink it early in the 
 dinner, but this is a heresy; at least, it does not 
 accord with Savarin's twelfth aphorism to the effect 
 that the order of beverages should be from the mildest 
 to the most diffusible, strong, and highly flavored. 
 
 After the fruit and the service of coffee infusion, 
 liqueurs, and cigars, the special orations began. 
 
 The host called upon each in turn, beginning with 
 the guest of honor who had the privilege of delivering 
 a second oration at the close of the feast. The 
 speeches were of things too many to mention, but of 
 such a character as was expected from these men of 
 true refinement and high culture. At eleven of the 
 clock the assembly adjourned and each returned to 
 his home to slumber peacefully and dream of the joys 
 of the evening so well spent with the companions of 
 his youth. 
 
VII 
 
 BEVERAGES 
 " Stay me with flagons." 
 
 All men whose potations are mild, few and so un- 
 like those of the acratopotic Scythians and Thracians 
 of old, will hail with satisfaction the protests herein 
 made against hard drinking, and the preachments in 
 favor of moderation. The tendency of the thought- 
 less to the occasional intemperate use of wholesome 
 beverages may be due to the fact that man is ushered 
 into the world not with hunger, but with thirst, 
 which is manifested as soon as he has filled his lungs 
 with air. At his birth the gigantic infant Gargantua 
 shouted stentoriously some drink, some drink, 
 SOME DRINK. Pantagruel, his son, a chip of the 
 old block, afterward King of Dipsodes, was born at a 
 time of great drought and hence was harassed by an 
 insatiable thirst. His name Panta, from the Greek, 
 meaning entirely, and gruel, from the Hagarenic 
 tongue, signifying dry — so sayeth the illustrious 
 etymonist, Alcofribas Nasier 
 
 The first cry of every new-born babe is to make 
 known its thirst, and the first word the child learns to 
 express a need is "dink." Therefore it is meet that 
 liquid take precedence over solid aliments in all 
 
 95 
 
96 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 special dissertations on gastronomy. The beverages 
 used by man are: 1, water, 2, milk, 3, oil, 4, the 
 juices of fruits and sap of trees, 5, fermented liquors, 
 6, distilled liquors, 7, tea infusion, 8, coffee infusion, 
 9, chocolate and other broths. Blood is not included 
 in this list because it is only very exceptionally used 
 as a beverage. It is said, however, that the Huns 
 were in the habit of drinking the blood of their horses, 
 and that the Ostjaks of the Obi valley were very fond 
 of reindeer and bear blood, which they drank while 
 still warm. The fresh and warm blood of the ox is 
 now drunk by a few misguided invalids who go to 
 slaughter houses for the purpose. The blood of hu- 
 man victims was once drunk by some cannibals and 
 savage warriors. 
 
 I. WATER. 
 
 What is water? It is melted ice, says the Alaskan. 
 It is liquefied snow, says the Alpan. It is the home of 
 the finny tribe, says the fisherman. It is for navi- 
 gation, says the mariner. It is the mother of steam, 
 says the engine-driver. It is the father of mortar, 
 says the mason. It is the only thing in which to boil 
 potatoes, says Bridget. It is the great cleanser of 
 foul linen, says the laundress. It is the best wash for 
 dirty bottles, says Tom. It is to help grind my grain, 
 says the miller. It is to give me large crops, says the 
 farmer. It is to dilute milk, says the dairyman. 
 It is a powerful extinguisher, says the fireman. It 
 
BEVERAGES 97 
 
 is to dissolve sophisticating agents, says the publican. 
 It is to allay thirst after a drinking bout, says the 
 sot. It is Adam's ale, the most nutritious of all foods, 
 says the son of temperance. It is a sovereign remedy 
 for all distempers, says Dr. Sangrado. It is the uni- 
 versal solvent, says the pharmacist. It is a great 
 conveyor of nitrogen to the earth, says the agricul- 
 turist. It is H 2 0, the compound being a limpid, 
 nearly taseless fluid that solidifies at 32° F. and boils 
 at 212° F., says the chemist. It is all these things, 
 every one will surely say, besides being one of the last 
 minerals to appear on this earth; it is the chief in- 
 gredient of all organisms, the most potent quencher 
 of thirst, the joy of the tea drinker, the last resource 
 of the wine-bibber, and the delight of the swimmer. Is 
 it not therefore very natural that it should take the 
 first rank among alimentary substances? It was 
 honored by primitive peoples, notably the Aryans, in 
 the form of a sort of cult, and by the Hindoos who to 
 this day are periodically purified in sacred lakes, 
 rivers, and pools, as are Mohammedans of other 
 countries who make their pilgrimage to Mecca's well 
 where they bring and spread many diseases including 
 cholera. . . . The innumerable " mineral waters " 
 were from time immemorial, and even now are sup- 
 posed by many over-credulous mortals to possess 
 almost magical powers over all human ails, for there 
 still lingers in many minds a relict of the ancient be- 
 lief in the water of life and the fountain of youth. . . . 
 Man learned to drink water as soon as his lips and 
 
98 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 mouth were something more than a suctorial appara- 
 tus, and drank just enough to assuage his thirst. 
 He was then too much like the instinctive beast to 
 commit excesses in drink. But later he descended 
 many degrees and his perversity led occasionally to 
 a state of shocking inebriety 
 
 It does not appear that the family garde-vin was 
 transferred to the ark, and it seems that when the 
 hydropotic skipper Noah had a thirst, he was obliged 
 to open a porthole, dip a bucketful of water with 
 which to satisfy his craving without the consolation 
 of a little spirit and loaf sugar. After the waters of 
 the freshet had subsided he had to wait much more 
 than a year before he could harvest his crop and brew 
 the new wine of which he imprudently drank more 
 than was good for a patriarch of his advanced years 
 and high respectability. In consequence of this in- 
 discretion he suffered the tortures of the gout with 
 violent inward cramps; he was also afflicted with hor- 
 rid nightmares, and daily visions of snakes, water- 
 rats, and grinning apes ... all of which got 
 one of his sons into serious trouble. 
 
 Some of the good people of old occasionally "went 
 back" on water. Timothy's advice is a fair example: 
 " Drink no longer water but a little wine for the stom- 
 ach's sake." This is often quoted by wine bibbers, 
 who also cite Burton's saying that water drinking is 
 a common cause of melancholy, in endeavoring to 
 excuse their excesses 
 
 The poet Talfourd wrote the following verses to 
 
BEVERAGES 99 
 
 give expression of his high appreciation of the power 
 of water as a thirst quencher : 
 
 " Tis a little thing 
 To give a cup of water; yet its draught 
 Of cool refreshment, drained by fevered lips, 
 May give a shock of pleasure to the frame 
 More exquisite than when nectarean juice 
 Renews the life of joy in happiest hours." 
 
 But of all the water consumed on this globe, man 
 and beast get a comparatively small share as shown 
 by the following admirable rendition by Cowley of 
 the beautiful lines of Anacreon: 
 
 "The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, 
 And drinks and gapes for drink again; 
 The plants suck in the earth, and are 
 With constant drinking fresh and fair." 
 
 The common people of Rome drank hot water, 
 often to excess. Afterward, the use of iced water as 
 a beverage was in fashion among the wealthy, and 
 silos were constructed for the preservation of ice in 
 great quantity, as mentioned by Seneca the philoso- 
 pher (50 A. D,). . . . Water is now frequently 
 drunk to great excess, notably by some periodical 
 hard drinkers of spirits who, between times, seem to 
 have an insatiable thirst and often drink daily from 
 fifteen to twenty-five large glasses of iced-water, of 
 ice water, or of snow water. 
 
 An ancient bard sang the praises of water in the 
 following quaintly humorous verse, which is Englished 
 by Francis Mahoney in his Reliques of Father Prout. 
 
 L0F& 
 
100 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 L'Eloge de VEau. 
 
 " II pleut! il pleut enfin! 
 
 Et la vigne alteree 
 
 Va se voir restauree 
 Pas un bienfait divin. 
 De l'eau chantons la gloire, 
 
 On la meprise en vain, 
 C'est l'eau qui nous fait boire 
 
 Du vin! du vin! du vin! 
 
 "C'est par l'eau j'en conviens 
 
 Que Dieu fit le deluge; 
 
 Mais ce souverain Juge 
 Mit le mal pres du bien! 
 Du deluge l'histoire 
 
 Fait naitre le raisin; 
 C'est l'eau qui nous fait boire 
 
 Du vin! du vin! du vin! 
 
 "Ah! combien je jouis 
 
 Quand la riviere apporte 
 Des vins de toute sorte 
 
 Et de tous les pays! 
 
 Ma cave est mon armoire — 
 A 1' instant tout est plein; 
 
 C'est l'eau qui nous fait boire 
 Du vin! du vin! du vin! 
 
 " Par un tems sec et beau 
 Le meunier du village, 
 Se morfond sans ouvrage, 
 
 II ne boit que de l'eau; 
 
 II rentre dans sa gloire 
 
 Quand l'eau rentre au moulin; 
 
 C'est l'eau qui lui fait boire 
 Du vin! du vin! du vin! 
 
BEVERAGES 101 
 
 "Faut-il un trait nouveau? 
 
 Mes amis, je le guette; 
 
 Voyez a la guinguette 
 Entrer ce porteur d'eau! 
 II y perd la memoire 
 
 Des travaux de matin; 
 C'est l'eau qui lui fait boire 
 
 Du vin! du vin! du vin! 
 
 " Mais a vous chanter l'eau 
 
 Je sens que je m'altere; 
 
 Donnez moi vite un verre 
 Du doux jus du tonneau — 
 Ce vin vient de la Loire 
 
 Ou bien des bords du Rhin; 
 C'est l'eau qui nous fait boire 
 
 Du vin! du vin! du vin!" 
 
 Wine Debtor to Water. 
 
 (F. Mahoney.) 
 
 Rain best doth nourish 
 
 Earth's pride, the budding vine! 
 Grapes best will nourish 
 
 On which the dewdrops shine. 
 Then why should water meet with scorn, 
 
 Or why its claim to praise resign? 
 When from that bounteous source is born 
 
 The vine! the vine! the vine! 
 
 Rain best disposes 
 
 Earth for each blossom and each bud; 
 True, we are told by Moses 
 
 Once it brought on "a flood." 
 But while that flood did all immerse, 
 
 All save old Noah's holy line, 
 Pray read the chapter and the verse — 
 
 The vine is there! the vine! 
 
102 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Wine by water-carriage 
 
 Round the globe is best conveyed; 
 Then why disparage 
 
 A path for old Bacchus made? 
 When in our docks the cargo lands 
 
 Which foreign merchants here consign, 
 The wine's red empire wide expands — 
 
 The vine! the vine! the vine! 
 
 Rain makes the miller 
 
 Work his glad wheel the livelong day; 
 Rain brings the siller, 
 
 And drives dull care away : 
 For without rain he lacks the stream, 
 
 And fain o'er watery cups must pine; 
 But when it rains, he courts, I deem, 
 
 The vine! the vine! the vine! 
 
 Though all good judges 
 
 Water's worth now understand, 
 Mark yon chiel who drudges 
 
 With buckets in each hand; 
 He toils with water through the town, 
 
 Until he spies a certain "sigh," 
 Where entering, all his labour done, 
 
 He drains thy juice, O vine! 
 
 But pure water singing 
 
 Dries full soon the poet's tongue; 
 So crown all by bringing 
 
 A draught drawn from the bung 
 Of yonder cask, that wine contains 
 
 Of Loire's good vintage or the Rhine 
 Queen of whose teeming margin reigns 
 
 The vine! the vine! the vine! 
 
 "As plenty of water is one of the greatest additions 
 to the pleasantness of any place, the Koran often 
 speaks of the rivers of paradise as a principal orna- 
 
BEVERAGES 103 
 
 ment thereof; some of these rivers, they say, flow with 
 water, some with milk, some with wine, and others 
 with honey, all taking their rise from the root of the 
 tree Tuba — the tree of happiness. . . . Concern- 
 ing this tree they fable that it stands in the palace 
 of Mohammed, though a branch of it will reach to 
 the house of every true believer; that it will be laden 
 with pomegranates, grapes, dates, and other fruits 
 of surprising bigness, and of tastes unknown to mor- 
 tals. So that if a man desire to eat of any particular 
 kind of fruit, it will immediately be presented him, 
 or if he choose flesh, birds ready dressed will be set 
 before him according to his wish. They add that the 
 boughs of this tree will spontaneously bend down to 
 the hand of the person who would gather of its fruits, 
 and that it will supply the blessed not only with food, 
 but also with silken garments, and beasts to ride on 
 ready saddled and bridled, and adorned with rich 
 trappings, which will burst forth from its fruits; 
 and that this tree is so large, that a person mounted 
 on the fleetest horse would not be able to gallop from 
 one end of its shade to the other in a hundred years." * 
 
 n. MILK. 
 
 The most ancient of the lacteous fluids used by 
 adult man as a beverage is unquestionably cocoanut 
 milk, as proved beyond cavil by the aged Brother 
 
 * Preliminary Discourse to the Koran, by George Sale, Sec- 
 tion iv. 
 
104 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 who, during the fourth assembly of this Club, put an 
 end to a spirited discussion by accounting for the milk 
 in the cocoanut, discovered, as he said, by an affec- 
 tionate mother anthropoid ape that had run dry and 
 was obliged to bottle-feed her promising infant on 
 this vegetable milk, sterilised by nature and sure never 
 to cause cholera infantum, worms, or the sprue. 
 There are other vegetable milks, but they are not all 
 potable since, in certain cases, the fruit does not con- 
 tain a sufficient quantity to satisfy man or simian, 
 but some of them are unfailing topical remedies for 
 warts, pimples, and other stigmata, except the cow- 
 tree (arbol de leche) which is indigenous of South 
 America and furnishes a nourishing beverage to man. 
 The mineral kingdom does sometimes supply man 
 and beast with milk, such as milk of lime for internal 
 and external use, milk of magnesia for small boys, 
 and milk of sulphur for little dogs. The earth itself 
 seems to give off milk, for, the good book speaks of a 
 certain land which was flowing with milk and even 
 with honey. Coleridge seems to have discovered a 
 new kind of milk, saying: 
 
 <( For he on honey-dew hath fed, 
 And drunk the milk of Paradise." 
 
 There could be no better illustrations of the mis- 
 chiefs often caused by too little or too much of any- 
 thing than the following : Deficient lactation was the 
 source of great distress to a certain fond simian 
 mother. Her milk-fever was intense, then came a 
 
BEVERAGES 105 
 
 milk-leg, and finally the source v of supply was drained, 
 much to the injury of the infant who at first suffered 
 the tortures of unappeased thirst. On the other hand, 
 galactorrhea, from excessive secretion, has led to 
 uncounted evils, as in the case of the Goddess whose 
 flight could be traced by the milk which flowed from 
 her, and for the loss of which she did shed many hot 
 tears. Hence the saying weep not for spilled milk. 
 It appears that in this divine lacteal incontinence the 
 milk was not really lost, since the elements of all 
 things are conserved in nature's wise economy — or 
 as says Ovid, borrowing the idea from Pythagoras, 
 "Omnia mutantur nihil interit," for all its globules 
 were converted into stars, while the watery constit- 
 uent mingled with her tears caused the universal 
 deluge from which Noah escaped to drown his grief 
 in the milk of the grape, for, has not the learned 
 Doctor Sangrado, by finally adding wine to his cus- 
 tomary aqueous drink, tacitly acknowledged that wine 
 is the milk of old age? 
 
 The ancients, those inveterate wine-bibbers, used 
 very little milk as a beverage,* and generally 
 converted it into cheese, which increased their de- 
 sire for drink. Polyphemus, however, drank great 
 draughts of his ewes' milk and relished it until he 
 
 * A pandit gives as the main reason why the Greeks did not 
 generally use milk as a beverage, that the working people were 
 too filthy to think of ever washing the vessels into which it was 
 poured, and in consequence it soured so soon as to be fit only 
 for converting into cheese. 
 
 In 1416 (B.C) Aristseus is said to have taught the Greeks 
 how to clot milk. 
 
106 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 had tasted the good wine which Ulysses gave to put 
 him in better humor. Circe was more generous with 
 the milk of her cattle and her gifts of other dainties 
 were abundant 
 
 Romulus and Remus are still represented in marble 
 enjoying their matutinal lacteous sorbitium from the 
 udders of a she-wolf 
 
 The Cretans believed that Jupiter was suckled by 
 a sow and therefore venerated the pig as a sacred 
 animal of whose flesh they never would eat. 
 
 Dogs' and sows' milks are not much used nowa- 
 days, but the milk of the cow, ewe, goat, and ass, in 
 Europe and America, of the bison in North America, 
 of the buffalo in Africa, of the camel in Persia, of 
 the mare in Tartary, of the reindeer in Lapland, of 
 the llama and vicuna in South America, and of the 
 yak in the Pamirs and in Tibet, have been and are 
 still used largely to drink as well as to make butter 
 and cheese. 
 
 There are several kinds of metaphoric human milk 
 among which may be mentioned: "adversity's sweet 
 milk," which is the philosopher's; "the milk of 
 human kindness," which was not agreeable to the 
 tyrant; "moral mush and milk," which was nauseous 
 to a certain high cleric; and sundry other species not 
 yet defined. 
 
 III. OIL. 
 
 Oil is drunk, not to quench thirst, but as a sort of 
 fuel, by some northerly nations to maintain animal 
 
BEVERAGES 107 
 
 heat; and melted butter, the oil of milk, by Egyp- 
 tians, Nomadic Arabs, and other Eastern people to 
 supply combustible material for their well-nigh desic- 
 cated bodies 
 
 Athenseus (Epit. B, ii, C. 17) says that Alexander 
 the Great found, in Asia, "a fountain of oil." Was 
 this intrepid warrior the real discoverer of petroleum, 
 was he the first to "strike oil?" The historian does 
 not say, however, that this flowing oil was fit even for 
 a military cuisine, although it might then have been 
 used as fuel. . * ., . 
 
 The amount of oil and blubber taken each day by 
 an Eskimo would, to say the least, seriously sicken 
 the average white man if it were possible for him to 
 ingest as much at home, even if his gorge did not rise 
 at their sight or odor. 
 
 Except medicinally, oil drinking in civilisation is 
 uncommon. The doses of castor oil occasionally ad- 
 ministered to hearty laborers would be dangerous to 
 ordinary mortals. Extraordinarily large quantities 
 of olive oil have been ingested with medicinal intent, 
 as in the case of a man subject to nephritic colic for 
 which he was in the habit of drinking half a pint of 
 this oil at a time and three such doses in the course 
 of the day. To another individual three pints of 
 sweet oil were given by mouth within twenty-four 
 hours. . . . 
 
 It is said that when the Allies entered Paris every 
 drop of oil disappeared from the street lamps, and that 
 even tallow candles suddenly became scarce. 
 
108 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Vodka cocktails flavored with train oil seem to be 
 relished by some creatures, while others prefer plain 
 liquefied rancid butter which they drink "straight." 
 
 "En fantaisie comme au gout, 
 Chacun recherche son ragout," 
 
 as the aged Gallic female ejaculated when she was 
 surprised in the act of osculating her favorite galac- 
 tophoric bovine crony. This statement of cow 
 kissing, though in true, inflated, pedantic, John- 
 sonian style, is excelled by Ruskin's paragraph re- 
 lating to style to the effect that in his youth, when he 
 imagined that he was doing fine writing, he would 
 have expressed himself in these terms: "The abode 
 in which I probably passed the happiest moments of 
 my existence is in a state of inflammation." In 
 after years when he had learned to write, the same 
 idea was expressed in the following simple manner: 
 "The house in which I was born is on fire." 
 
 IV. FRUIT JUICES AND SAP. 
 
 The juices of many different kinds of fruit are much 
 used as cooling beverages either pure, or mixed with 
 sweetened water, mainly in warm climates. The 
 abundant juice of the cocoanut, though to us insipid, 
 is drunk in the tropics to quench thirst when cool 
 water is not accessible. In the West Indies there are 
 many fruits which contain a great amount of delicious, 
 cool, sweet juice which is sucked, or drunk without 
 admixture to the satisfaction of the thirsty wayfarer. 
 
BEVERAGES 109 
 
 The juice of the watermelon, equal to the eau- 
 sucree so much liked by the Latin races, possesses 
 a delicious flavor of its own to which blacks and bears 
 give ample testimony by their extreme fondness for 
 this forbidden fruit, which they are so sorely tempted 
 to eat that they generally fail to resist the temptation, 
 despite traps and spring-guns. 
 
 In the West Indian sugar estates the fresh juice 
 of the cane is drunk as a luxury by the planters and 
 their friends. 
 
 The sap of the sugar maple is also used as a dainty 
 beverage in northerly climes, sometimes with the 
 addition of spirits. It is probably the free flow of 
 sap from an accidental wound that gave rise to the 
 extravagant statements about the mythical fountain 
 tree. 
 
 The well known "grape cure" consists not merely 
 in eating the fruit but in drinking its freshly expressed 
 juice. Many deluded Americans have crossed the 
 Atlantic to get, at great inconvenience, what they 
 could so easily have obtained at home. 
 
 The juices of the pineapple, orange, lemon, lime, 
 gooseberry, and many other fruits, are mixed with 
 sweetened water to form what is called the sherbet* 
 
 *The word sherbet — sorbet in French — is supposed to be 
 derived from sorbitium, juice, drink, from sorbere, to sip, to suck 
 (hence to absorb), and has been traced to the Persian shorba, 
 shorma, broth, soup; to the Kourdish sciorba, with the same 
 meaning as the Persian; to middle Irish scrubaim, to sip, scruban, 
 pottage, scrubog, a mouthful of liquid ; to the Lithuanian scrubti, 
 screbti, also surbti, surpti, sulpti, to sip, to suck, scruba, soup; 
 to old Slavonic scrubame, broth; and to the Illyrian ciorba, soup. 
 
110 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 In the Levant, fruit juices are often preserved in a 
 concentrated form, with sugar, in closed vessels, and 
 are mixed with water only a moment before they are 
 drunk. Such is the common way in which sherbet 
 is used in Turkey. Sherbet is often sophisticated with 
 wine, brandy, or some other alcoholic liquor, so that 
 the drinker is likely soon to feel its effect. This must 
 have been of sufficiently frequent occurrence in 
 Algeria to attract the French satyrist's notice, for, in 
 the comic opera of the Caide, the unsteady steps and 
 incoherent utterance of Ali Baba caused the grave 
 accusation of vinous inebriation to be made against 
 him. His defense was that he had not tasted a drop 
 of wine, but that his exhilaration was due only to a 
 moderate amount of a mild and deliciously sweet 
 sherbet called parfait amour. The character of Ali 
 Baba was admirably portrayed by the great actor 
 Menehant in Nea Kastana more than forty years 
 since. 
 
 At a grand banquet in Chestnutville about thirty- 
 eight years ago a strict temperance man spent no 
 little time in wearying the guests by denouncing 
 tobacco smoking and "wine-bibbing," and concluded 
 by saying that he was proud to acknowledge his utter 
 ignorance of the taste of wine or spirits. The Phari- 
 saical tone of the speech aroused the unholy spirit of 
 revenge in the breast of one of the company, who 
 insinuatingly said that on the particular festive occa- 
 sion the teetotaller would surely be so gracious as 
 to depart from his rule of abstention and join the rest 
 
BEVERAGES 111 
 
 in drinking the health of the guest of honor if only by 
 sipping a few drops of a mild wine, but he obstinately 
 refused until lemonade was suggested. This, he said, 
 I have no objection to drink for it is a harmless bev- 
 erage. Allow me, then, said the mischief-maker, to 
 prepare the temperance drink. Retiring for the pur- 
 pose, he returned in a few minutes with a " schooner" 
 of lemonade, not with a "stick" but with a "club" 
 in it. After the first mouthful the cold water man 
 exclaimed — I have never before had such excellent 
 lemonade, so deliciously flavored. Continuing to gulp 
 the liquor, he became unduly garrulous and rose to 
 tell a funny story. Everybody laughed, not, how- 
 ever, at the story. His thirst increasing, he called 
 for more lemonade, and a second schooner with two 
 "clubs" therein was forthcoming. On further im- 
 bibition he smacked his lips, cleared his throat, and 
 began a new temperance speech, with hiccup accom- 
 paniment, at the close of which he said that the com- 
 pany did not seem gay, and gave example of jollity 
 by singing a comic song. Having finished the second 
 schooner, he called for more, but before the third 
 glass could be brewed he was snoring and helpless, 
 and was the only guest who had to be carried home. 
 
VIII 
 
 V. FERMENTED LIQUORS 
 
 "Wine cheers the sad, revives the old, inspires 
 The young, makes weariness forget his toil." 
 
 Ye true gourmets, whose refined taste and love for 
 all dainty things are such as to render you adverse 
 to polyoinia and foes to wine-guzzlers, ancient and 
 modern, let us continue our discussion on beverages, 
 and begin with some historical fragments on those 
 drinks which art has rendered so palatable. 
 
 Fermented liquors, obtained as they are from the 
 products of nature which contain starch or sugar, 
 constitute many varieties of the artificial beverages 
 used by man. The discovery of fermentation,* like 
 that of many other very desirable objects, was un- 
 doubtedly accidental and it does not seem possible 
 to determine the precise time when its employment 
 began. It is, however, highly probable that the 
 discoverer of the effect of heat upon alimentary 
 substances did indoctrinate his first born into the 
 mysteries of cookery and that the lad, endowed with 
 an indagating turn of mind, wishing to improve on his 
 
 * The term fermentation — contracted from fervimentation 
 which is derived from fervere, to boil — appears to have been 
 coined by Van Helmont in the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 112 
 
FERMENTED EIQUOES 113 
 
 respected sire's methods, made experiments toward the 
 perfection of the culinary art, that he invented boiling 
 of food, that he drank some of the soup, that, after- 
 ward, neglecting the surplus for a few days, he found 
 it in such a state of foam as to be unfit for use, that in 
 a few more days he strained therefrom a clear liquid 
 which he drank and which made him glad, and finally 
 that he discovered the frothing, without artificial 
 heat, of the sap of trees and the juices of fruits which 
 yielded a better beverage. 
 
 An idea of other primitive ways in which fermenta- 
 tion has been obtained may be formed from the 
 following : 
 
 The Araucanians, says Girardin, before having had 
 any relations with other nations, made the fermented 
 drink now called chicha of maize. As soon as the 
 grain was harvested, the women of the tribe sat in 
 circles, and each taking a few grains of the maize 
 chewed them for a time and spat the whole in an 
 earthen vessel. A sufficient quantity of the corn thus 
 treated was allowed to ferment. The resulting strong 
 liquor was then drunk to inebriation by the men. 
 Captain Cook, during his third voyage, witnessed a 
 similar performance in the Island of Tonga, i. e., the 
 preparation of the drink known as Kava-kava which 
 consisted in the mastication, by young women, of the 
 root of the piper meihysticum; the product being spat 
 in calabashes and allowed to ferment. The free 
 Indians of French Guyana use a drink called Pivory 
 made of mashed cassava bread mixed with water 
 
114 DINING- AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 and fermented; and another called chiacoar made of 
 corn-bread fermented in water. The bousa or bouza 
 of Nubia and Abyssinia is fermented bread in water, 
 while the bousa of Central Africa is fermented rush 
 nut, cyperus esculentus. Nearly all savages seem to 
 have found means to make intoxicating beverages. 
 The Chinese from time immemorial have drunk a 
 liquor made from rice fermentation, and the Tartars 
 have long been in the habit of drinking fermented 
 mare's milk, while many semi-civilised nations have 
 employed almost as crude and revolting methods of 
 obtaining by fermentation their intoxicating bever- 
 ages as those already described. 
 
 The principal fermented liquors now used are: 1, 
 Hydromel, 2, Fermented Milk, 3, Fermented Sap, 
 and Fruit Juices, 4, Cider and Perry, 5, Beer, 6, Wine. 
 
 1. HYDROMEL. 
 
 Honey mixed with water and allowed to undergo 
 vinous fermentation is the beverage known as hy- 
 dromel, metheglin, or mead; aromatic substances 
 being sometimes added thereto. It has been much 
 used in northern countries and was a favorite drink 
 in Poland,* Russia, and Scandinavia, and throughout 
 Asia ages ago. In Greece the Phrygian hydromel 
 was the most highly esteemed of all. During the 
 middle ages, metheglin was largely used as a beverage 
 in England and Wales, but beer has since taken its 
 place except in some rural districts. Hydromel is 
 
 * Poland boasted of at least fifty sorts of mead. 
 
FERMENTED LIQUORS 115 
 
 said to be the first fermented beverage known to 
 man. 
 
 2. FERMENTED MILK. 
 
 The nomadic tribes of Tartary and Asiatic Russia 
 sub] ect mare's milk to fermentation to make the drink 
 known as koumys or tchigan. In Siberia the koumys 
 receptacle, made of birch bark, is transmitted from 
 father to offspring and acquires a value proportionate 
 to its antiquity. The same people use also cow's 
 milk for fermentation, and call the drink airen. The 
 Kirghiz make, with the yak's milk, a drink of the 
 same sort, and in northern Siberia the reindeer's milk 
 is used for the purpose. 
 
 The beverage called kephir, in the northern Cau- 
 casus, is fermented cow's, ewe's, or goat's milk. The 
 enzyme producing the peculiar fermentation is called 
 kephir; the botanical name of the bacterium being 
 diospora caucasica. In the market the dry ferment 
 is also called kephir grains or kephir fungus. 
 
 In this country a large quantity of cow's milk, 
 diluted and sweetened with cane sugar, and fermented, 
 is consumed under the name of koumys. The per- 
 centage of alcohol in koumys is from one to one 
 and a quarter which is not as much of this alcohol as 
 is contained in buckwheat cakes. 
 
 3. FERMENTED SAP AND FRUIT JUICES. 
 
 The fermented sap of the maple, birch, sycamore, 
 and the date, cocoa, and divers other palms, of the 
 sagus vinifera, arenga saccharifera, of the agave or 
 
116 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 maguey, banana, sugar-cane, and the juices of cherries, 
 gooseberries, oranges, and many other plants and 
 fruits under the name of each plant or fruit, have been 
 ranked as wines, as sycamore wine, palm wine, 
 banana wine, maguey wine or pulque, elderberry 
 wine, orange wine, gooseberry wine, etc. At present 
 the term wine is applied mainly to fermented grape 
 juice. 
 
 In the East and West Indies, in East Africa, and 
 in Brazil, the fermented sap of the jaggery, wild date, 
 palmyra, cocoanut, arenga, raphia vinifera, burity, 
 and other palms, is known under the name of palm 
 wine or toddy from which arrack is obtained by dis- 
 tillation. In this country a mixture of spirits and 
 sweetened hot water is commonly called toddy, as 
 brandy or whiskey toddy. 
 
 4. CIDER AND PERRY. 
 
 The fermented juice of apples is said to have been 
 first used as a beverage by the Egyptians, and then 
 by the Hebrews, who called it shekar, which, how- 
 ever, had no meaning except that of the fermented 
 juice of fruits other than that of the grape. The early 
 Christians Hellenised it into sikera and Latinised it 
 into sicera, but these terms failed to change the orig- 
 inal shekar. Surely, cider conveys no idea of apples, 
 while the fermented juice called perry suggests some- 
 thing made of pears. In these times we hear of pear 
 cider, why not then apple cider? Nevertheless, the 
 
FERMENTED LIQUORS 117 
 
 term sicera, with slight orthographic changes de- 
 manded by varying idioms, is accepted by modern 
 nations, who agree that it shall mean fermented apple 
 juice; as cidre, in French; sidra, in Spanish; cidra, in 
 Portuguese; cidro, in Italian; cider, in German, which 
 is also apfel-wein. The Greeks, Romans, Iberians, 
 Celts, and Gauls, all called cider apple or pear wine. 
 In post-classic Latin the word pomun was used to 
 designate all kinds of round fruits, but was later em- 
 ployed to specialise the apple, hence cider was named 
 pomatium and perry piratium. Since apples and pears 
 are indigenous of, and cultivated only in, temperate 
 regions, it is not likely that they were raised in Pales- 
 tine or lower Egypt; therefore shekar could not have 
 been made of apples or pears unless these were im- 
 ported in quantities so great as to induce the utili- 
 sation of the surplus in the brewing of this drink, or 
 unless the sorb-apple was cultivated in the highlands 
 of Palestine and used in the preparation of shekar. 
 
 Prior to the thirteenth century beer was the popular 
 drink in the north of France, and the use of cider did 
 not become general until the fourteenth century. 
 Later it became known in England, Germany and 
 Russia. The cider in highest repute in after years 
 seems to have come from the Island of Jersey. Be- 
 sides lending its name to an American State, Jersey 
 bequeathed its reputation for good cider to that 
 State which soon became famous for the "light- 
 ning" spirit distilled from fermented apple juice. 
 Ciders of different countries contain, in volume, from 
 
118 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 1.17 to 7.40 per centum of alcohol. American ciders 
 contain from 4 to 5 per centum of alcohol. 
 
 The pear yields much more juice and saccharine 
 matter than the apple and therefore a stronger 
 beverage, which contains from 6 to 8 per centum of 
 alcohol. Perry, poiree, is used in France to adul- 
 terate and fortify some veiy light wines, and is even 
 sometimes sold as wine; and highly sparkling perry 
 is often called champagne cider, although a cham- 
 pagne cider is made of apples. 
 
 5. BEER. 
 
 Fermented watery infusion of malted grain with 
 the addition of some preservative principle such as 
 oak bark, the leaves of certain trees, bitter roots, or 
 wild herbs, was in use as a beverage many years ago. 
 It is supposed to have been invented in 1996 B. C. 
 According to Herodotus and other historians, beer 
 was the most common drink among the Egyptians, 
 who called it held, and was regarded as a gift of Isis 
 and Osiris. At first malted wheat was infused and 
 fermented, and later barley. The Greeks, who learned 
 its value from the Egyptians, called it oinos crithes, 
 wine of barley, and also zythos or bryton. 
 
 In The Deipnosophists of Athenseus, Book X, 67, 
 the following occurs: ". . . Aristotle, in his book 
 on drunkenness . . . says there is a peculiarity 
 in the effects of the drink made of barley, which they 
 call pinos, for they who get drunk on other intoxicat- 
 ing liquors fall on all parts of their body; they fall 
 
FERMENTED LIQUOKS 119 
 
 on the left side, on the right side, on their faces and 
 on their backs. But it is only those who get drunk 
 on pinos, beer, who fall on their backs, and lie with 
 their faces upward. . . . The wine ... of 
 barley is by some called brytos, ... as say 
 Sophocles, Archilochus, and Aeschylus. But Hel- 
 lanicus in his Origins says . . . 'they drink 
 bryton, beer, made of roots, as the Thracians drink 
 it made of barley.' And Hecataeus, in the second 
 book of his description of the world, speaks of the 
 Egyptians, and saying that they are great bread eat- 
 ers, adds 'they bruise barley and make a drink of it.' 
 And, in his voyage round Europe, he says that the 
 Paeonians drink beer made of barley, and a liquor 
 called parabie made of millet and coniza. And they 
 anoint themselves, he adds, with oil made of milk." 
 
 Pliny asserts that the Gauls called beer cerevisia 
 or cervisia, Ceres wine. In old French it was known 
 as cervoise and its present Spanish name is cervesa. 
 It is said that beer drinking became general, not only 
 in Gaul, after Domitian had caused all the vineyards 
 of that country to be destroyed, but throughout the 
 continent of Europe. Beer was then, and for a long 
 time thereafter, aromatised as already mentioned, by 
 bitter roots, etc., as the use of hops does not appear 
 to have 9 been known until about the ninth century 
 when they were cultivated in Germany, and it seems 
 highly probable that they were used to aromatise 
 
120 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 and preserve beer. Credit is, however, given to the 
 alchemist, Basilius Valentinus, who lived in the fif- 
 teenth century, as the first author to make mention 
 of this expedient. Hops were first brought into Eng- 
 land from the Netherlands in the year 1524. They 
 are first mentioned in the English statute book in 
 1552. . . 
 
 A fat, grave, oracular, stolid brytopotist of old, 
 while smoking his long-stemmed clay pipe, was in the 
 habit of repeating, always with a chuckle and a know- 
 ing leer, to the frequenters of a certain beer house, 
 his favorite drinking aphorism to the effect that the 
 ingestion of the smallest amount 'of spirits is to be 
 regarded as excessive, while too much beer is just 
 enough. 
 
 6. WINE. 
 
 Although the fermented juices of many fruits and 
 plants are often called wines, the term, from time 
 immemorial, has been restricted to fermented grape 
 juice. 
 
 The words oinos, and oine, vine, are of doubtful 
 etymony. The Latins derive their word vinum 
 from vitis, vine, and many modern nations have 
 adopted the Latin root; as the French, vin; the Ital- 
 ian and Spanish, vino; the Portuguese, vinho; while 
 the German and Russian use the w, wein, wino. 
 
 The following from Book II, I, of Athenseus may 
 not be without some interest. 
 
 "Nicander of Clophon says that wine, oinos, has 
 its name from Oeneus: 
 
FERMENTED LIQUORS 121 
 
 'Oeneus pour'd the juice divine 
 In hollow cups, and call'd it wine.' " 
 
 And Melanippides of Melas says: 
 
 " 'Twas Oeneus, master, gave his name to wine." 
 
 But Hecatseus of Miletus says that the vine was 
 discovered in Aetolia; and adds, "Oresteus, the son 
 of Deucalion, came to Aetolia to endeavor to obtain 
 the kingdom; and while he was there, a bitch he had 
 brought forth a stalk; and he ordered it to be buried 
 in the ground, and from it there sprang up a vine 
 loaded with grapes. On which account he called 
 his son Phytius. And he had a son named Oeneus, 
 who was so called from the vines: for the ancient 
 Greeks, says he, 'called vines, oinai. Now Oeneus 
 was the father of Aetolus.' But Plato in his Cratylus, 
 inquiring into the etymony of the word oinos, says 
 that it is equivalent to oionous, as filling the mind, 
 nous, with oiesis, or self-conceit. Perhaps, however, 
 the word may be derived from onesis, succour. For 
 Homer, giving as it were, the derivation of the word, 
 speaks nearly after this fashion — And then you will 
 be succour' d (oneseai) if you drink. And he, too, 
 constantly calls food oneiata, because it supports us." 
 
 THE MYTHICAL ORIGIN OF WINE. 
 
 Achilles Tatius in his romance "The loves of Civ- 
 topho and Leucippe," * tells the following story of 
 the origin of wine. 
 
 * Rev. Rowland Smith's translation. 
 
122 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 "Once upon a time, mortals had no such thing as 
 wine, neither the black and fragrant kind, nor the 
 Biblian, nor the Maronsean, nor the Chian, nor the 
 Iacarian; all these they maintain came originally 
 from Tyre, their inventor being a Tyrian. A certain 
 neat-herd (resembling the Athenian Icarius, who is 
 the subject of a very similar story) gave occasion to 
 the legend I am about to relate. Bacchus happened 
 to come to the cottage of this countryman, who set 
 before him whatever the earth and the labors of his 
 oxen had produced. Wine, as I observed, was then 
 unknown; like the oxen, therefore, their beverage 
 was water. Bacchus thanked him for his friendly 
 treatment and presented to him a 'loving cup' which 
 was filled with wine. Having taken a hearty draught, 
 and becoming very jovial from its effects, he said — 
 whence, stranger, did you procure this purple water, 
 this delicious blood? It is quite different from that 
 which flows along the ground, for that descends into 
 the vitals, and affords cold comfort at the best ; where- 
 as this, even before entering the mouth, rejoices the 
 nostrils, and though cold to the touch, leaps down 
 into the stomach and begets a pleasurable warmth. 
 To this Bacchus replied — 'This is the water of an 
 autumnal fruit, this is the blood of the grape/ and 
 so saying he conducted the neat-herd to a vine, and, 
 squeezing a bunch of grapes, said, 'here is the water, 
 and this is the fountain whence it flows.' Such is the 
 account which the Tyrians give as to the origin of 
 wine." 
 
FEBMENTED LIQUORS 123 
 
 To this legend is added the following note about 
 Maronsean wine. "The wine of the most earthly- 
 celebrity was that which the minister of Apollo, Maron, 
 who dwelt upon the skirts of Thracian Ismarus, gave 
 to Ulysses. It was red and honey-sweet; so precious 
 that it was unknown to all in the mansion save the 
 wife of the priest and one trusty house-keeper; so 
 strong, that a single cup was mixed with twenty of 
 water; so fragrant, that even when thus diluted it 
 diffused a divine and most tempting perfume."* 
 (See Odyssey, Book IX.) 
 
 Although the vine flourished in Persia south of 
 the Caspian Sea, wine was not made on the spot, and 
 the Persian kings obtained this beverage from Tyre 
 and its vicinity. 
 
 It is said that wine was made and used in the coun- 
 try now known as France more than two thousand 
 years ago. An old legend is to the effect that Brennus 
 brought a sprig of vine from Rome to Gallia 390 years 
 B. C. and there planted it. The story is admirably 
 told by the illustrious songster Beranger, and skil- 
 
 * From the results of an investigation as to the use of fer- 
 mented drinks by pre-historic peoples, M. G. de Mortillet con- 
 cludes that the lake dwellers of Clairvaux in the Jura, and of 
 Switzerland, show that the neolithic people of Central Europe 
 had a wine made from raspberries and mulberries; and the 
 dwellings of Bourget in Savoy and various stations in the Alps, 
 that the use of this wine continued through the Bronze age. 
 On the southern slope of the Alps the relics of the dwellings 
 between the pre-historic and the proto-historic ages reveal the 
 use of another fermented liquor, prepared from the dogwood. 
 Traces of the use of wine from grapes are found in the terra- 
 mares of the plain of the Po, going as far back as the earliest 
 bronze age. (Popular Science Monthly, April, 1898.) 
 
124 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 fully done into English verse in Francis Mahoney's 
 Reliques of Father Prout. That charming Gallic 
 troubadour sang also the praise of Cyprian wine; 
 his refrain being — "Le vin de Chypre a cree tous les 
 dieux." 
 
 If the Persians and Greeks made so much of their 
 nauseously sweet wines, and if Horace gave such 
 celebrity to his favorite Falernian wine, surely Shaks- 
 peare did as much for shirris sack (a corruption of 
 Xeres sec, dry sherry) which was greatly esteemed by 
 amateurs toward the end of the sixteenth century, as 
 exemplified in Henry IV, Part II, (which, says 
 Malone, was composed in 1598) Act IV, Sc. II, 
 where Falstaff, after parting from Prince John, who, 
 knowing his ways, had nevertheless promised to speak 
 better of him than he deserved, laments the sobriety 
 of this demure young prince who could not even be 
 made to laugh, "but that's no marvel, he drinks no 
 wine:" and ends his soliloquy with a short disserta- 
 tion on sack, only a part of which need be here quoted 
 as a reminder. . . . 
 
 "A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in 
 it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all 
 the foolish, and dull and crudy vapors which environ 
 it: makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of 
 nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes; which delivered 
 o'er to the voice, which is the birth, becomes ex- 
 cellent wit. The second property of your excellent 
 sherris is, the warming of the blood, which, before 
 cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which 
 
FERMENTED LIQUOES 125 
 
 is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the 
 sherris warms it, and makes it course from the in- 
 wards to the parts extreme. It illumineth the face, 
 which as a beacon, gives warning to all the rest of 
 this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital 
 commoners, and inland petty spirits, muster me all 
 to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up 
 with his retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this 
 valour comes of sherris. ... If I had a thousand 
 sons, the first human principle I would teach them, 
 should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict 
 themselves to sack." 
 
 Another wine used in Shakspeare's time was the 
 charneco, so named, says Staunton, from a village 
 near Lisbon, where it is made. The following occurs 
 in Henry VI, Part II, Act II, Scene III: 
 
 " And here, neighbor, here's a cup of charneco." 
 
 That inexhaustible theme, the gladdening effect 
 of wine upon man will long continue to be sung as it 
 has been from Homer to Doctor Bushwhacker, who 
 says: "I have a theory that certain wines produce 
 certain effects upon the mind. I believe, sir, that 
 if I were to come in upon a dinner-party about the 
 time when conversation had become luminous and 
 choral, I could easily tell whether Claret, Champagne, 
 Sherry, Madeira, Burgundy, Port, or Punch had been 
 the prevailing potable. Yes, sir, and no doubt a 
 skilful critic could determine, after a careful analysis 
 of the subject, upon what drink, sir, a poem was 
 
126 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 written. Yes, sir, or tell a claret couplet from a 
 sherry couplet, sir, or distinguish the flavor of Port 
 in one stanza, and Madeira in another, from internal 
 evidence, sir." * 
 
 * " The Sayings of Doctor Bushwhacker." 
 
IX 
 
 VI. DISTILLED LIQUORS 
 
 "Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish, 
 And wine unto those that be of heavy hearts." 
 
 That colorless, limpid, volatile distillate with allur- 
 ing aroma and seductive savor, poetically styled 
 spirit of wine, technically named ethylic alcohol, 
 chemically formulated C 2 H 5 OH, and physically stated 
 as having a gravity of 0.793 at 60° F., as boiling at 
 173° F., as burning without smoke, and as freezing at 
 200 degrees below zero, is the basis of many exhilar- 
 ating and intoxicating beverages, and a powerful 
 solvent. 
 
 Of Arabic origin, the word alcohol (kuhul) was em- 
 ployed to signify the impalpably pulverised black 
 sulphide of antimony used to stain the eye-lids and 
 lashes of belles of the period, and for the " make up " 
 of actors in ancient Arabian pantomimes, vaudevilles, 
 and comic operas. Down to the close of the eigh- 
 teenth century the term was intended to designate 
 any principle attenuated by pulverisation or sublima- 
 tion, and the expression to alcoholise, used until 
 recently, meant to cause extreme attenuation of any 
 powdered or liquid substance; as "alcoholised sul- 
 phides, alcoholised spirit of wine." Alcoholisation 
 
 127 
 
128 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 was not intended to convey an adequate idea of the 
 effects of the spirit of wine on those young men who 
 periodically indulge their fancy for rubric urban 
 decoration. 
 
 Alcohol has, of late, been applied as a generic term 
 to those neutral principles composed of carbon, hy- 
 drogen, and oxygen, combinable with acids with the 
 elimination of water. It was Boerhaave who de- 
 tached the term alcohol from its original meaning by 
 applying it to the purest inflammable principle re- 
 duced to its highest degree of simplicity. . . . 
 
 Speaking of the spirit of wine Berthelot says that 
 in the thirteenth century the term spirit was confined 
 to volatile agents alone, such as mercury, the sul- 
 phurets of arsenic, and ammoniacal salts; that as to 
 the appellation water of life (eau-de-vie) this name 
 was given during the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
 turies to the elixir of long life; that it was Arnauld de 
 Villeneuve who in 1309 employed it for the first time 
 to designate the product of distillation of wine; and 
 that the elixir of long life had nothing in common with 
 our alcohol. Villeneuve, after the alchemist Ray- 
 mond Lully, spoke of alcohol, quinta essentia, as the 
 supreme cordial of the human body, and made known 
 its medicinal properties. It is written that Rhazes, 
 who was born in 860 A. D. and died in 930, knew the 
 properties of alcohol which he called ardent water. 
 Berthelot and other writers assert that distillation 
 was invented in Egypt in the course of the early 
 centuries of the Christian era; stills (alembics) being 
 
DISTILLED LIQUOKS 129 
 
 described with precision in the works of Zosimus, 
 the alchemist, who lived in the latter part of the third 
 and beginning of the fourth century. 
 
 The supposed words of the antiquarian Polidore 
 Virgil are not here quoted, although they appear to 
 trace the beginning of distillation to the foundation 
 of the Roman Empire, because they are contained 
 in the fourth chapter of the ninth book of a recent 
 edition, and there is no such book in "De Rerum 
 Inventoribus" published in 1499 with only three 
 books, and because the ninth book may have t>een 
 added by some editor. It may, however, be that the 
 subject of this fourth chapter is to be found in the 
 third or other books of the original editions which 
 were not accessible to Deipneus. However, assuming 
 the ninth book to have been written by good Father 
 Polidore, it is clear that, in the matter of distillation 
 and early spirit drinking, the Egyptians and Romans 
 are thrown quite into the shade by the statement of 
 the learned, venerable, and never-to-be-forgotten 
 historian of Saharampur to the effect that distilla- 
 tion was known in the very mists of time, soon after 
 the evolution of anthropus primogenitus. This veridi- 
 cal historian goes on to say that not very long after 
 the remote period of the ascent of homo cogitans 
 from pithecanthropus erectus, advantage was taken 
 by his immediate successors of their observation of 
 the condensation of aqueous vapor from clouds, and 
 one of them invented an apparatus for the artificial 
 production of vapor and by that means, besides find- 
 
130 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 ing the properties of steam, discovered alcohol in 
 fermented sap, and distilled and drank enough of it 
 to make him more than glad. The process of distilla- 
 tion and the pleasant effects of the product soon be- 
 came generally known and were transmitted from 
 generation to generation until finally, to take a drop 
 in the morning as an eye-opener, another at noon as a 
 provocative of appetite, and a copious draught at 
 night as a soporific, was considered salubrious and 
 was highly recommended by publicans throughout 
 the Orient. It was then that the Hindoos of high and 
 low castes were wont to delight their palates, warm 
 their entrails, and stimulate their brains to such ex- 
 tremes that they had to be warned through the sacred 
 ordinances of Manu against the offense of inebriation, 
 and even the twice-born were often urged to avoid 
 the tempting spirit of wine. It is no wonder that 
 these God-fearing people could not well resist the 
 temptation of spirit-drinking since water was never 
 of prime quality in their region of the globe, and 
 moreover was declared unsanitary by their leading 
 Bacteriologists, and since they had the choice of 
 thirteen different kinds of throat curetting rum, and 
 whiskey highly charged with fusel oil and other 
 searching, scratchy, peppery essences, which doubt- 
 less they imbibed straight, in cocktails, or sparingly 
 diluted with club soda. 
 
 Valuable information on the history of distillation 
 may be obtained by consulting a paper entitled 
 "Historical notes on Alcohol" by Professor James F. 
 
DISTILLED LIQUORS 131 
 
 Babcock in "New Remedies" for November, 1880, 
 with further annotations by one of the editors; also 
 a digest of Marcelin Berthelot's article on "The dis- 
 covery of alcohol and distillation" in "The Pharma- 
 ceutical Journal and Transactions," February 4th, 
 1893, and the papers, on this interesting subject, of 
 C. E. Pellew, M. D. in " Appleton's Popular Science 
 Monthly" for June and July, 1893. 
 
 In a private letter, an illustrious pandit says "The 
 crude methods alluded to in the first note on page 
 359 (Annotations to Professor Babcock's article), 
 second column, were no doubt merely practised for 
 physical experimental purposes, but no practical use 
 was made of the product. While I allow that it is 
 possible that the Hindus knew distilled spirits quite 
 early, it will be found that we cannot go back beyond 
 about 910 A. D. for any positive statement. I now 
 hold that the term Kohala, to which I was the first 
 to draw attention, and which means a distilled spirit, 
 is undoubtedly borrowed from the Arabic Kuhl or 
 Kuhul, black sulphide of antimony or lead." * . . . 
 
 Alcohol used in moderation, suitably diluted or in 
 the form of wines or malt liquors, is a delightful 
 beverage and valuable medicinal agent, but when 
 taken intemperately causes the saddest ravages. 
 The inebriated individual is often loquacious, foolish 
 and extravagant, he is sometimes combative, he loses 
 his self-control, his head swims, he totters, perhaps 
 falls in a state of insensibility, or becomes ravingly 
 * Dr. Charles Rice. 
 
132 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 delirious, and from a shock may suddenly recover 
 his senses. This is briefly and admirably stated by 
 the great delineator of human character, in the case 
 of Michael Cassio who, much to the surprise of Iago, 
 quickly passes from wild inebriation into moralisa- 
 tion on the ill effects of excessive potation — "0 that 
 men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal 
 away their brains!" . . . Continued excessive 
 use of alcohol surely leads to seriously damaging 
 effects upon the tissues and organs of the body. 
 The dipsomaniac who begins dissipation at an early 
 age is not likely to survive long the ill consequences 
 of the poison, a part only of which is destroyed in the 
 economy while the remainder is eliminated unchanged 
 to tease and irritate the emunctories. Three or four 
 large potations of rum, whiskey or gin, say of half a 
 pint each, in rapid succession, produce the gravest 
 effects, and, in some cases, even sudden death. A 
 man twenty-six years of age was recently reported to 
 have dropped dead after drinking twenty-seven 
 glasses of whiskey. . . . 
 
 The habitual drinker's nose often betrays him, but 
 every red-nosed man is not necessarily to be regarded 
 as a wine or spirit drinker. An amusing instance of 
 such an error was in the case of an eminent physician 
 who had never tasted wine or spirit but who had a 
 huge nose, fiery red as Bardolph's upon which fat 
 Jack saw a flea stick and said it was a black soul burn- 
 ing in hell fire. This excellent man and conscientious 
 doctor was one day prescribing for a woman who 
 
DISTILLED LIQUORS 133 
 
 asked that she be allowed something strong to drink, 
 when he said no — nothing but cold water, not a drop 
 of whiskey, of which you have had more than enough. 
 — Bad cess to ye, Dachter, it never was cauld wather 
 made yer nose so red I . . . 
 
 It should be noted that hard drinkers prefer the 
 crude, strong liquors containing a liberal proportion 
 of amy lie and caproic alcohols. Some of them form 
 the habit of drinking pure methylic alcohol (wood 
 spirit) which is very poisonous to the uninitiated. 
 Varnishers often drink the wood spirit of shellac var- 
 nish after causing precipitation of the shellac by the 
 addition of some water. Other sots even drink the 
 "Kerosene oil" of lamps. In museums it has be- 
 come necessary to add divers nauseous substances 
 to the. alcohol used for the preservation of specimens 
 to prevent its consumption by bibbing subordinates. 
 The dipsomaniac will drink anything having the sem- 
 blance of alcohol. 
 
 For an excuse to take more alcohol as counter 
 poison, heavy drinkers are wont to utter the old adage 
 "Take the hair of the dog by whom you are bitten." 
 The exact age of this tipplers' proverb does not ap- 
 pear to be known, but it was in common use nearly 
 two thousand years ago, and is quoted by Athenseus 
 (Epit. B. II, C. 20) from Antiphanes, who says: 
 
 "Take the hair, it is well written, 
 Of the dog by whom you are bitten. 
 Work off one wine by his brother, 
 And one labor with another.'' 
 
134 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 The principal strong alcoholic beverages now in 
 use are: 1. Brandy, 2. Rum, 3. Whiskey, 4. Gin, 
 5. Arrack, 6. Vodka, 7. Sake, 8. Samshoo, 9. Tepache, 
 10. Aguardiente, 11. Arza, 12. Bland, 13. The many 
 cordials. 
 
 1. Brandy, contracted from brandy-wine, from the 
 old French brandevin, the German brantwein, all 
 meaning burned wine, now commonly called eau-de-vie 
 which, distilled from wine, contains forty-eight to 
 fifty-five per centum of ethylic alcohol with the right 
 proportion of an added essence that gives it what is 
 called its bouquet. Among the component parts of 
 cognac essence are the cenanthic and pelargonic ethers. 
 The best brandies are distilled from white wines, and 
 the city of Cognac has long enjoyed a high reputation 
 for its brandies which are commonly called cognac 
 for short, just as champagne is used to designate 
 the wines of Champagne. Of the many other bran- 
 dies in use, only a few of the best known need now be 
 mentioned, such as plum, peach, pear, and apple 
 brandy often called apple jack or Jersey lightning. 
 
 Fine champagne eau-de-vie is surely one of the best 
 
 of stomachics after a good dinner and is always 
 
 suggestive of Johnson's epigram — "claret for boys, 
 
 port for men, and brandy for heroes." Boswell in 
 
 his life of Johnson renders it as follows: 
 
 "Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who 
 aspires to be a hero must drink brandy." 
 
 Hot Jersey lightning toddy with a baked apple 
 therein is not a bad winter night drink. . The brandy 
 
DISTILLED LIQUORS 135 
 
 cocktail with its sweet, sour, and bitter flavorings is 
 one of the enormities of national drinks which has 
 become known to our transatlantic cousins, but which 
 they have not yet learned to render palatable. O! 
 ye confiding traveller, never do you commit the in- 
 discretion of ordering any kind of cocktail in a foreign 
 cafe! ... To speak of cocktails is remindful of 
 the short conversation between a New Yorker and a 
 Londoner who asked — Ave you the hentail in Ha- 
 merica? — No, said the Gothamite, but we have the 
 cocktail. — 0, ah, quite so, indeed! 
 
 " Punch is a strong weak 
 And a sour sweet drink." 
 
 For it was long ago that the following formula was 
 given for a good punch, requiring brandy to make 
 it strong, water to make it weak, sugar to make it 
 sweet, lemon to make it sour. 
 
 2. Rum, distilled from molasses or from cane juice, 
 with its seventy-five per centum of alcohol, makes 
 the most quarrelsome and pugnacious kind of drunk. 
 This is probably why the word rum is popularly used 
 to designate any sort of intoxicant, rum drinking 
 having the meaning, among plain people, of the use 
 of any spirit, and rum-shop, a tavern. . . . The 
 best rum comes from Martinique, Antigua, Santa 
 Cruz, and Jamaica. New England furnishes an 
 abundant supply of rum distilled from molasses and 
 sugar-house rubbish. An inferior rum called tafia 
 is made in the West Indies, another known as bess-a~ 
 
136 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 besse, a third from molasses, named cachaca in Brazil, 
 and a fourth, from cane juice chicha de carta in New 
 Granada. These spirits are almost always suggestive 
 of Mr. Stiggins' habit of dropping a bit of loaf sugar 
 in his tipple of pine-apple rum. 
 
 3. Whiskey — corrupted from usquebaugh — is from 
 the Celtic, uisge, water, and beatha, life, water of 
 life. That often illicit distillate from barley, wheat, 
 rye, corn, or potato, has made and undone many good 
 fellows, with its forty-eight to fifty per centum of 
 ethylic and small proportion of amylic alcohol which 
 disappears with age. Potato whiskey contains more 
 amylic alcohol (fusel oil) than any of the other 
 whiskeys. Ireland and Scotland produce and con- 
 sume "lashings" of this delicious drink which has a 
 very different flavor from the American varieties, 
 each of which has its peculiarities, as the corn, the 
 rye, and the wheat whiskey, a large quantity of which 
 is brewed in Canada. 
 
 Under the influence of barley brew the Scotch 
 Bard's humor was always gay when he was na foo 
 but had plenty. Although potheen often excites 
 combativeness in the man of Galway, it intensifies the 
 good nature and brightens the wit of the whole nation. 
 Who can forget the chestnut of Pat's dream of a visit 
 to the Vatican? "Last noight I dhreamed that the 
 head-bishop ov Room axed me to have a dhrop ov 
 the crather. Phaclrick, says he to me, will you be 
 afther taking it straight or in punch? Saving your 
 
DISTILLED LIQUORS 137 
 
 Holiness' prisince, says I to him, if the matarials bees 
 convaniant, the stuff would be betther for a little 
 hate and suggar — as the Holy Father went for the 
 hot water I woke up, and it's distrissed I am that I 
 didn't take it cauld!" 
 
 Father Tom's receipt for punch is so often mis- 
 quoted that it is the writer's bounden duty to record 
 it with absolute accuracy. Here it is, and something 
 besides, taken verbatim et literatim from "Father Tom 
 and the Pope," Simpson & Co. Agathenian Press, 
 1867. "Now, 'your Holiness,' says Father Tom 
 'this bein' the first time you ever clispinsed them 
 chymicals, says he, I'll just make bould to lay down 
 one rule of orthography,' says he, ' for conwhounding 
 them, secundem mortem." 
 
 "What's that?" says the Pope. 
 
 "Put in the sperits first, says his Riv'rence; and 
 then put in the sugar; and remember, every dhrop 
 of wather you put in after that spoils the punch." 
 
 "Glory be to God! says the Pope, not minding a 
 word Father Tom was saying. Glory be to God! 
 says he, smacking his lips. I never knew what dhrink 
 was afore, says he. It bates Lachrymal chrystal 
 out of the face ! says he, it's Nechthar itself, it is, so 
 it is! says he, wiping his epistolical mouth wid the 
 cuff ov his coat." 
 
 4. Gin (42 to 58 per cent, of alcohol), from genever, 
 juniper, was first made in 1684 at Schiedam, Nether- 
 lands. This distillate of rye and barley was originally 
 
138 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 flavored with juniper berries, afterward coriander 
 seeds, angelica root, orris root, calamus root, and 
 orange peel were added. It has since been falsified 
 with oil of juniper and adulterated with bitter almond 
 cake, oil of turpentine, alum or a lead salt to clarify 
 it when much watered, capsicum, grains of paradise, 
 guinea pepper and other acrid substances and sugar 
 to disguise them. Such liquor, sold in the so-called 
 gin palaces of London, has been productive of many 
 hob-nail livers. Gin drinking makes men gloomy, 
 surly, and sour. Old Tom gin is much liked by 
 "topers," but "Hollands" was the favorite beverage 
 of the ancient Dutchmen of Chestnutville, cold with 
 sugar in summer, and as hot sling in winter. The 
 Garrick Club gin punch was rendered famous by 
 Theodore Hook who on one occasion before dinner 
 absorbed a whole brew which consisted of half a 
 pint of gin poured on the outer peel of a lemon, a 
 little lemon juice, a glass of maraschino, about a pint 
 and a quarter of water, and two bottles of iced soda 
 water, the result being three pints of punch. This 
 bears some similitude but no equality to the Ameri- 
 can gin fizz. 
 
 5. Arrack arack, rack, arrack-mewah, arrack-tuba; 
 these strong distillates of rice, barley, peaches, dates, 
 cocoa and other palm saps, variously aromatised, are 
 produced in the Orient, principally in the Philippine 
 Islands, in Batavia, Tourkestan, and Persia. 
 
 6. Vodka, a very strong rye or potato distillate, 
 is the drink of the Russian peasantry. It contains 
 
DISTILLED LIQUORS 139 
 
 enough fusel oil to sicken any tramp of to-day who 
 would dare to drink a gill of the vile "rot-gut" as it 
 is called by sailors. An alcoholic drink made of 
 fermented rice, known as watky, and another distilled 
 from a sweet herb, called Statkaiatrava, are used in 
 Kamstchatka. 
 
 7. Sake, (pronounced sakkeh) a distillate from the 
 yeasty liquid in which boiled rice has fermented for 
 many days under pressure, is the national tipple of 
 the Japanese, who drink it warm as the Greeks and 
 Romans were wont to take their wines. The first 
 distillation is the common potation whilst the recti- 
 fied spirit is rarely used as a beverage. 
 
 8. Sam-shoo, meaning thrice fired, is a Chinese 
 distillate, the same as rectified sake, but dark amber 
 colored and containing from thirty-three to fifty per 
 centum of ethylic alcohol. 
 
 9. Tepache, a distillate from corn or grapes, is the 
 favorite drink in Chihuahua, Mexico. 
 
 10. Agua-ardiente, distilled from pulque, is the 
 well-known intoxicant in Mexico and Central America. 
 
 11. Arza, distilled from fermented mare's milk, is 
 the strong drink used by Tartars and Kalmucks. 
 
 12. Bland, distilled from fermented skimmed milk, 
 is the tipple of the Shetland Islanders. 
 
 Many other alcoholic beverages, not mentioned on 
 this occasion, are used and abused by civilised nations. 
 
 13. The alcoholic cordials are almost too many to 
 record in this brief review; a few only need therefore 
 be named, viz. Kirschenwasser, Zwetschenwasser, 
 
140 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Holerca, Sekis-Kayavodka, Slivovitza, Troster, Rakia, 
 Noyaux, Creme-de-Cacao, Crtme-de-Mocha, Creme-de- 
 The, Cr&me de Menthe, Parf ait-amour, Elixir de Garus, 
 Cherry Bounce, Maraschino, Curacoa, Chartreuse, 
 Benedictine, Anisette, and Absinth which contains 
 from 62 to 75 per cent, of alcohol. 
 
 Cordials are said to have been invented for the use 
 of Louis the XIV in his old age. While these bev- 
 erages became the fashion during the last years of 
 the Grand Monarque, they surely were known and 
 used long before his time both as agreeable drinks 
 and as valuable medicinal agents. 
 
 Notwithstanding the wail of teetotallers, the Ameri- 
 can nation is comparatively moderate in the use of in- 
 toxicating beverages as shown in a recent statement 
 of the British Board of Trade to the following effect. 
 The annual consumption, per capita, 
 
 OP SPIRITS OP WINE OP BEER 
 
 In Engl'd. . 1.12 gals. In-Engl'd. .9.39 gals. In Engl'd. .31.7 gals. 
 
 In France .. 2.02 " In France 25.40 " In France . .6.2 " 
 
 InGerm'y- .1.94 " In Germ'y .1.45 " In Germ'y .25.5 " 
 
 In the U.S.. 1.06 " In the U.S. 0.33 " In the U.S. 13.3 " 
 
 *jA-* J ^ , (fi /^ 
 
 *J.Sf 
 
 
X 
 
 VII. TEA INFUSION 
 
 "Sir . . . we are indebted to China for the four princi- 
 pal blessings we enjoy. Tea came from China, the compass 
 came from China, printing came from China, and gunpowder 
 came from China — thank God!" * 
 
 Ye lovers of wholesome and palatable drinks, pray 
 give indulgent heed to this discourse in continuation 
 of the discussion on beverages. That your forbear- 
 ance be not too sorely taxed by the tedium of a de- 
 tailed statement of Mongol commerce, of botanical 
 characters, or of hieroglyphic sah poetry these super- 
 fluities will be omitted from the introduction of the 
 subject which shall consist of brief notes on the his- 
 tory, culture, properties, and uses of the agricultural 
 product known as tea in this country; the in France; 
 thee in Germany; te in Italy and Spain; cha in 
 Portugal; chai in Russia, Turkey, and Persia; tsja in 
 Japan; and te, cha, sah, tsa, etc., in China. After the 
 proposed short preliminary historical summary and 
 the presentation of this intricate question of tea 
 imbibition at home, by genuine lovers of the savory 
 infusion as well as by pharisaical prohibitionists or 
 by garrulous, decayed, frumpish, female misanthro- 
 pists, and abroad by scabby, leprous, fiendish, opium 
 saturated heathens, you will be expected to illuminate 
 the dark side of the question in your own happy vein. 
 
 * Sayings of Dr. Bushwhacker. 
 141 
 
142 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 At the word tea, the index of the antiquarian's 
 mental compass is directed eastwardly, as it so often 
 is to suggest the origin of many earthly things. Sage 
 investigators speak with awful eloquence of the bane- 
 ful effects of the Orient's polluted waters; tell how, 
 by long suffering and cruel experiences, man rendered 
 them potable and salubrious by the simple process of 
 ebullition; and attribute the beginning of tea-drink- 
 ing to the necessity of rendering boiled water palatable 
 by means of artificial flavoring, not with spices as 
 did the Greeks, but by infusing the scrolled and 
 parched leaves of the evergreen shrub tea which com- 
 bines savor with stimulation and nourishment. 
 
 Of the origin of its name, little seems to be known. 
 In his Dictionary of the Amoy vernacular, Professor 
 Douglas says — "The word tea is derived from the 
 name of the plant which is te." — Whether this was 
 inspired by the revered Mr. J. Bunsby the author does 
 not say. In other parts of the Empire it is called 
 cha, ts'a, etc., but this author does not give the real 
 derivation of te, cha, or tsa. Linnaeus named the 
 shrub Thea Chinensis; Linklater, Camellia Thea; 
 and Griffith, Camellia Theifera. "The (other) names 
 by which the tea of the thea chinensis is known to the 
 Chinese," says Balfour, "viz. Ming, Ku-tu or Ku-cha, 
 Kia, Tu, . . . show that several shrubs have 
 furnished that country at various times with the tea 
 leaf in use at different periods or places . . . and 
 Ming ... is often put on tea boxes." 
 
 Indian mythology accounts for the origin of tea as 
 
TEA INFUSION 143 
 
 follows: " Dharma, a Hindoo Prince, went on a pilgri- 
 mage to China, vowing he would never take rest by 
 the way; but he once fell asleep and, on awaking, 
 was so angry with himself, that he cut off his eyelids 
 and flung them on the ground. These sprang up in 
 the form of tea shrubs; and he who drinks the in- 
 fusion thereof imbibed the juice of the eyelids of 
 Dharma." 
 
 Tea appears to have been known in China in 350 
 A. D., but was not in general use until the beginning 
 of the ninth century when, according to Siebold, it 
 was imported from Korea. In his "Relation des 
 voyages faits par les Arabes et les Persans dans Vlnde 
 et a la Chine dans le neuvieme siecle, Paris 1845," 
 Reinaud writes of certain Arabs and Persians who 
 had travelled in India and China and given an account 
 of a plant called sakh (supposed to be the same as 
 tea), said to be largely sold in the Chinese towns; the 
 leaves of this plant being used in infusion, both as an 
 agreeable beverage and a medicinal agent. In the 
 year 1285 says Fliieckiger, tea was subject to a taxa- 
 tion in the Chinese province of Kiang-si. It is evi- 
 dent that the plant was originally of northern habitat, 
 but the Chinese succeeded in acclimating it in the 
 south, so that in the beginning of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury not less than nine of their central and southern 
 provinces are mentioned as cultivating this shrub on a 
 large scale. 
 
 In Japan the use of tea infusion as a beverage has 
 been traced back to 729 A. D., but the cultivation 
 
144 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 of the plant does not appear to have been greatly 
 extended until the fifteenth century. 
 
 In 1550 an account of the use of tea among the 
 Chinese and Mongols was given at Venice by a Per- 
 sian merchant, and during the same century the Jesuit 
 missionaries to China and Japan reported upon tea- 
 drinking in these countries. Balfour speaks of the 
 Portuguese Texeira who, about the year 1600, saw the 
 dried leaves of tea at Malacca; and Olearius is men- 
 tioned by this author and also by Fliieckiger as having 
 drunk tea in 1637 at Ispahan, and of speaking of its 
 use among the Persians who, long before, had obtained 
 the leaves from China through the medium of Uzbak 
 traders. In 1600 Father Matteo Ricci, the founder 
 of the mission to China, sent tea to Europe and made 
 known some of its properties. Although as early as 
 1602 the Dutch East India Company began its im- 
 portation,* tea did not reach England until 1650. 
 It had already become known in France through the 
 Chancellor Seguier in 1636, but the addition of milk 
 to the infusion (the-au-lait) was not used until 1680 
 when Madame de Sevigne wrote of this as an inven- 
 tion of Madame de la Sabliere.t Throughout western 
 
 * Some French writers assert that the Dutch obtained their 
 first samples of tea in exchange for sage, whose infusion was so 
 much used medicinally in Europe, and whose virtues had been 
 so greatly extolled by the Salernian School; while ah English 
 authority says that the Dutch exchanged one pound of sage 
 for every three pounds of Chinese tea, and suggested that prob- 
 ably each barterer thought the other cheated. 
 
 f Mention of that distinguished lady's name is remindful of 
 a clever epigram which she made on Lafontaine who, despite 
 
TEA INFUSION 145 
 
 Europe tea infusion was at first used as a medicinal 
 agent and, in England, did not become a fashionable 
 beverage until Katherine of Braganza, the Queen of 
 Charles II, introduced at court this drink, a fondness 
 for which she had acquired in Portugal. As a me- 
 dicinal agent, tea was highly esteemed in Germany, 
 from the year 1657, and the official price-lists of drugs 
 for 1662, in the principality of Liegnitz, contained 
 the item "Herba schak" (tea) fifteen gulden for "a 
 handful." 
 
 Tea does not seem to have become known to the 
 Russians until 1638 when a Moscovite embassador 
 to China brought some, as a present to the Czar, from 
 Gobclo, now called Kobdo, a district of western 
 Outer Mongolia close to the Siberian frontier. 
 
 "The tea plant," says Balfour, "is multiplied by 
 seed like the hawthorn and therefore the produce 
 cannot be identical in every respect with the parent. 
 Instead, therefore, of having one or two botanical 
 varieties of tea plant in China, there are in fact many 
 kinds although the difference between them may be 
 
 his quick perception of the ridiculous, his keen observation of 
 the ways of men, and beasts, his admirable fables, full of deep 
 philosophy, abounding in charming allegory, judiciously tinc- 
 tured with wholesome satire, and told in such simple and beau- 
 tiful, poetical language, was not gifted with the art of small 
 talk, too generally pleasing in society, and therefore did not 
 shine as a bel-esprit. Once, during a tete-a-tete, his kind friend and 
 admirer, Madame de la Sabliere could not resist the impulse of 
 saying to him: "En verite, mon cher Lafontaine, vous seriez 
 bien bete, si vous n'aviez pas tant d'esprit." About a century 
 later a critical writer said that the expression would be as true, 
 seriously, by inverting it as follows : " Vous n'auriez pas tant 
 d'esprit si vous n'etiez pas si bete." 
 
146 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 slight. The seeds ... are gathered year after 
 year in different climates, and in the course of time the 
 plants in one district slightly differ from those of 
 another although they may have been originally pro- 
 duced from the same stock." . . . The sprouts, 
 when four inches high, are planted two feet apart. 
 "Hilly ground, as affording good drainage, is better 
 adapted for the growth of the plant than flat ground." 
 
 The first crop is gathered in three years. If the 
 shrub is stripped of its leaves while younger, this 
 may be fatal to future crops, as it would be if no 
 crop was gathered at the end of three years. Three 
 crops are collected yearly, the first in April, the sec- 
 ond in May, and the third in June. The shrubs are 
 not entirely stripped, otherwise they soon would be 
 exhausted. The best are the youngest leaves. In 
 ten years or even less the shrubs are unproductive 
 and cut down to the stems from which new shoots and 
 leaves sprout in time for the next year's crop. 
 
 Thea viridis thrives in the northern provinces; 
 not so the thea Bohea which is cultivated in the south- 
 ern provinces; but both green and black tea are pro- 
 duced from either of these species, the color depending 
 upon the mode of treatment of the leaves before and 
 during the drying process. 
 
 The Chinese teas are classed commercially in accord- 
 ance with their quality, and are further divided into 
 green and black teas. Chinese merchants reckon at 
 least one hundred and fifty sorts, of which the follow- 
 ing are the principal qualities known in trade : 
 
TEA INFUSION 147 
 
 GREEN TEAS BLACK TEAS 
 
 Hyson or He-chun Pekoe or Pak-ho 
 
 Hyson jr., or Yu-tseen Orange Pekoe 
 
 Hyson-schoulang Black Pekoe or Hung-muey 
 
 Gunpowder or Chou-cha Koang-foo or congon 
 
 Imperial Pouchong or Paou-chung 
 
 Tonkay or Tun-ke Souchong or Scaou-chung 
 
 Hyson-skin Ning-Yong 
 Oolong 
 
 Fifty years ago China exported nearly sixty millions 
 pounds of tea, and the yearly export had increased to 
 more than two hundred and fifty millions of pounds 
 up to fifteen years ago, since which time it seems to 
 have decreased on account of the fast increasing 
 product of the immense plantations in Japan, For- 
 mosa, India, and other countries; India alone yield- 
 ing more than a hundred millions of pounds in 1890. 
 Many of the Ceylon coffee plantations having failed, 
 owing to injury of the plant by the parasitic fungus 
 Hemileia Vastatrix, the coffee borer and the coffee 
 bug, tea was planted on the island as an experiment, 
 and in 1867 the first tea gardens scarcely covered ten 
 acres of ground, but in less than fifteen years the 
 acreage of tea had reached ten thousand. At the 
 present time the yield of excellent tea in Ceylon is 
 immense, and the leaf is to be found in every civilised 
 country. 
 
 In 1828 the Dutch introduced the tea plant into 
 Java where it has thriven so that large quantities of 
 the leaves are now sent annually to Holland from 
 extensive tea gardens. 
 
 Formosa has, for many years, produced superior 
 
148 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 qualities of teas which are much esteemed in this 
 country. 
 
 Among the inferior teas are those of Amoy and 
 Cochin China. 
 
 Early in this century tea was cultivated in Brazil, 
 but its culture soon abandoned for coffee. (Fletcher 
 & Kidder.) It is cultivable in California, Texas, and 
 some southern states. 
 
 The best teas, among them the genuine Yen Pou- 
 chong, are said never to leave China; first, because 
 small quantities only are produced, just enough for 
 the use of the rich; secondly, because they are too 
 moist to bear exportation; and thirdly, because they 
 are all pre-empted by the mandarins; bringing from 
 seven to ten dollars per pound. 
 
 Next in excellence to mandarin teas are those 
 brought by caravan to Russia and consumed by the 
 wealthy nobles. These teas bring, in Moscow, and 
 St. Petersburg, from eight to ten, or even twelve, 
 dollars per pound. 
 
 It is only a few years ago that certain Chinese teas, 
 gathered from young bud-leaves and prepared with 
 great care, were sold in this country at public auction 
 for twenty-nine dollars and resold privately at fifty 
 dollars per pound. 
 
 Ordinary good tea from Formosa and Ceylon bring 
 from seventy-five cents to one dollar per pound, and 
 some blends bring five dollars and even more. 
 
 Many nations use infusions of leaves, stems, or 
 flowers of divers plants as beverages bearing the name 
 
TEA INFUSION 149 
 
 of tea, some of which have similar properties to the 
 thea chinensis whilst others are entirely different. 
 In Mexico, and Central and South America, infusions 
 of the leaves of Psoralea Glandulosa, Alstonia Thece- 
 formis, Symplocos Alstonia, Gaultheria Procumbens, 
 and Ledum Latifolium are used as teas. In Para- 
 guay the beverage called mate is an infusion of Ilex 
 Paraguay ensis, of Ilex Gongonha, or of Ilex Theaizans. 
 In India a tea beverage is made of stalks of lemon 
 grass, Andropogon Citratus; and the "tea of heaven," 
 a common drink in Japan is obtained from leaves of 
 Hydrangea Thunbergi. Faham tea of the Mauritius is 
 said to be made with the orchid Angrwcum Fragrans. 
 New Jersey tea is the astringent herb known as 
 Ceanothus Americanus (Balfour), and the Monarda 
 Didyma is commonly called Oswego tea. 
 
 Roasted coffee leaves, which contain a large per- 
 centage of caffein (thein) have been substituted for 
 tea and largely consumed for a long time in Sumatra 
 and Java, where this coffee tea can be produced for 
 about two cents per pound.* 
 
 Many more plants, the leaves of which have been 
 and are used, medicinally or otherwise, under the name 
 of tea, might have been added to this list, but the 
 statement already made suffices to emphasize that 
 thea chinensis is the chief plant that properly should 
 bear the title of tea. 
 
 The following excerpt serves to show that the tea 
 plant is cultivable in this country. 
 
 * See Daniel Hanbury's " Science Papers," 1876. 
 
150 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 "J. M. Hodnet, a progressive farmer living near 
 Lilac on the dividing line between Milam and Wil- 
 liamson counties, Texas, says that the Chinese tea 
 plant grows luxuriantly on his farm, even in the fence 
 corners, and requires no cultivation, save being kept 
 free from weeds. The plants come up voluntarily 
 every year, spread rapidly and by the uninitiated 
 would often be mistaken for noxious weeds. As an 
 experiment Mr. Hodnet imported the seed several 
 years ago from Oriental China through our Am- 
 bassador. He now gathers the leaves, dries and uses 
 them in making a most palatable tea, almost if not 
 quite equal to the imported product."* 
 
 The analysis of tea shows it to be composed of 
 tannin in varying proportions, of gum, of glucose, of 
 a volatile oil, of a fatty acid, of a special yellow acid, 
 of green and yellow coloring matters, of pectine, of 
 a nitrogenous substance closely approaching chemi- 
 cally the casein of milk, and of another nitrogenous 
 principle which is crystal lizable into colorless and 
 tasteless delicate needles. This alkaloidal principle 
 was discovered and named thein in 1827 by Oudry, 
 
 * The cultivation of tea, which has been for some years car- 
 ried on experimentally by Dr. C. U. Shepard, at Summerville, 
 S. C, now bids fair to develop into a commercial success greatly 
 to the advantage of the agriculture of the South. According to 
 the "Charleston News and Courier," capitalists are now buying 
 thousands of acres of land near the city, and their plans contem- 
 plate the production of something like 300,000 pounds of tea 
 annually for the American market. The gentlemen who are 
 actively interested in the enterprise are Col. A. C. Tyler, of New 
 London, Conn., Major R. D. Trimble, of the same place, and 
 Baron J. A. von Brunig, of Washington, formerly a member of 
 the German legation. — From American Gardening, Feb'y 9, 1901. 
 
TEA INFUSION 151 
 
 the French chemist. The chemical formula of thein 
 is C 8 H 10 N 4 O 2 , and its denomination is trimethylxan- 
 thin. Good tea contains from two to three per cen- 
 tum of thein while mate contains from y 1 ^- of one to 
 |4f P er centum of matein which is chemically iden- 
 tical with thein. This time the Bon Dieu "went back 
 on" Monsieur, for thein turned out to be chemically 
 identical with caffein discovered by Runge in 1820; 
 this identity having been confirmed by Jobst and 
 Muler in 1828. 
 
 It is known that the aroma of tea does not pre-exist 
 in the fresh leaves but is developed through the action 
 of heat in the preparation of these leaves, just as the 
 roasting coffee beans, of meats, and of other comesti- 
 bles so materially changes their odor and savor as to 
 render them highly palatable. 
 
 The lettered Chinese, Lo Yu, who flourished about 
 a thousand years ago, in the Tang dynasty, seems to 
 have been a great lover of tea, for he spoke of the 
 effects of its infusion in terms of high commenda- 
 tion, saying that "it tempers the spirit, and har- 
 monises the mind; dispels lassitude and relieves 
 fatigue; awakens thought and prevents drowsiness; 
 lightens or refreshens the body and clears the per- 
 ceptive faculties." 
 
 Among the principles of tea which act upon the 
 nervous system are chiefly the volatile oil and the 
 thein. The volatile oil, tannic acid and extractives 
 are found in larger proportion in green tea, while 
 thein is said to be twice as abundant in black as in 
 
152 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 green tea. The astringency of tea is due principally 
 to the tannin it contains. The inferior teas are much 
 more astringent and less excitant than the finer 
 qualities, owing to their greater proportion of tan- 
 nin and lesser proportion of thein and of volatile 
 oil. 
 
 The teetotallers, needing stimulation as much as 
 do other mortals, find it in tea drinking which has 
 been proved a decided exhilarant and even a mild in- 
 toxicant when taken in excess. Used in moderation, 
 this excellent beverage is as beneficial as the Chinese 
 philosopher found it a thousand years ago, while its 
 abuse not only disturbs the nervous equilibrium but 
 seriously impairs the digestive process. Its ill effects 
 were, however, greatly exaggerated by Balzac in his 
 article on Modern Excitants. He was an invet- 
 erate coffee drinker and was consequently taking 
 large quantities of caffein which is identical with 
 thein. 
 
 Tea infusion is very largely the beverage of the 
 hundreds of millions of human beings in Siberia, 
 Korea, the Chinese Empire, Japan, and India. It 
 is the common drink of the Russians among whom 
 the samovar's water is ever boiling, and who often 
 take their tea iced with the addition of a slice of 
 lemon. It is said that the brick-teas are sometimes 
 eaten after being chopped and mixed with salt and 
 butter or koumys, or with the addition of boiling 
 water to the butter or koumys, are taken as a soup 
 by Tartars and Tibetans. The Dutch and English 
 
TEA INFUSION 153 
 
 consume an enormous amount of tea, as is the case 
 with those nations that do not cultivate the grape- 
 vine; beer and tea being their principal beverages. 
 
 Explorers of frigid regions use tea infusion prefer- 
 ably to other beverages because it is easily prepared 
 and is, as they believe, sufficiently stimulating. 
 They prefer it to coffee partly because it is more 
 easily prepared, and they condemn the use of alcohol 
 during their expeditions, except medicinally. 
 
 Tea lovers do not generally acid sugar or cream to 
 this delicious drink, and professional tasters seldom 
 do so. Nor do they "wet the tea," as it is termed, 
 but infuse it in boiling water and in a minute or two 
 proceed with their test, which is first to inhale some 
 of the vapor from the infused leaves, and then to take 
 a mouthful of the infusion. The reason why they do 
 not simply wet the leaves and throw away the water 
 is that they wish to determine by taste the astringency 
 of the tea due to the contained tannin, besides its 
 other properties. The best teas need no wetting, 
 but the ordinary kinds require this preliminary pro- 
 cess to rid the leaves of their excess of tannin. When 
 two cups of tea are to be made, the dry leaves are put 
 in an earthen tea-pot which must be hot, and half 
 a cup of boiling water poured in, and the whole 
 shaken rapidly two or three times, when the water 
 is immediately thrown off, and the infusion made by 
 the desired quantity of boiling water. The working 
 people who want something "searching and puckery" 
 prefer a tea which is rich in tannin and which they 
 
154 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 allow to infuse until it acquires its wonted degree 
 of bitterness and astringency. 
 
 The following tales, being pertinent to tea drink- 
 ing, may suggest to you matter more enlivening than 
 this too technical dissertation. 
 
 An illustrious soldier, fatigue worn, thirsty and 
 hungry, arriving at a farm-house where he was well 
 known, asked for a drink of tea. The hostess, being 
 anxious to treat her guest becomingly, brought forth 
 the daintiest morsels at command and herself pre- 
 pared the drink with what was then called long 
 sweetening. Now, said she, is the tea quite to your 
 taste? Are you sure it is right? Do tell me if there 
 is anything amiss. — Since you insist, let me say that 
 it is rather sweet. — 0, dear me, General, if it was all 
 lasses it wouldn't be any too sweet for you. 
 
 At a boarding-house kept by one of those reduced 
 cultivated ladies, with a glorious past, a dim present, 
 and fervent hope for a bright future, a newly arrived 
 grave and silent guest was asked mincingly — Will you 
 have any condiments in your tea, sir? Looking 
 blandly toward the smiling widowed hostess, and 
 without semblance of irony in his tone, the sedate 
 man replied — Salt and pepper, madam, if you please, 
 but no mustard. — Although the laughter was at the 
 expense of the good lady, she was right in her use of 
 the term, for the cream and sugar ordinarily added to 
 the cup of tea infusion are, strictly, true condi- 
 ments which render the tea more relishable to many 
 persons. 
 
TEA INFUSION 155 
 
 HOW TO MAKE A CUP OF TEA. 
 
 BY AN OLD OFFICER OF THE NAVY. 
 
 "I have spent much time in China and Japan," 
 says Commodore X, "have enjoyed their delicious 
 infusion in Hongkong and in Yokohama tea-houses, 
 have long watched its simple preparation, and finally 
 settled upon a way which seemed to me preferable 
 to the Eastern methods. The tea must be of ex- 
 cellent quality, the porcelain vessel for its infusion 
 hot, the cups and saucers well heated, and the water 
 kept constantly at the boiling point. After due ob- 
 servance of these essential requirements, put one 
 drachm of tea leaves into the infusing receptacle, 
 pour in four ounces of boiling water, shake briskly 
 three or four times and throw out the water. The 
 superfluous tannin having been washed away from the 
 leaves by this process, eight ounces of boiling water 
 may now be poured in, the vessel well covered, and 
 the tea infused for five or six minutes when it will 
 be ready for drinking plain, diluted to taste, or 
 moderately sweetened. The addition of a dessert- 
 spoonful of cream is no detriment whatever to the 
 beverage. The Orientals and many Americans prefer 
 the plain drink. With or without condiments, a 
 good cup of tea is enjoyable in all seasons and does 
 all for man that Lo Yu has promised. The Russian 
 iced-tea with a thimbleful of rum or brandy is a 
 summer drink fit for the Olympian Gods." 
 
XI 
 
 VIII. COFFEE INFUSION 
 
 " Coffee which makes the politician wise, 
 And see thro' all things with his half shut eyes." 
 
 Convivial Readers, — Knowing your great fondness 
 for the fragrant, nutritious, and invigorating swarthy 
 infusion of certain parched and pounded Abyssinian 
 grains now known as coffee, the writer ventures to 
 lay before you for examination several differing ver- 
 sions and legends relating to the discovery and prop- 
 erties of these coffee or cuffa grains, and will expect 
 you to believe implicitly every one of them, for they 
 are all as true as the Koran, as instructive as the 
 Zend Avesta, and as entertaining as the thousand 
 and one nights' tales! The authorities cited seem to 
 have derived their information from very ancient and 
 trustworthy sources, notably from the astute and 
 veridical Iskender ben Ali ben Mustapha ben Dara 
 who was an inveterate drinker of cafe-noir, which he 
 believed to be a powerful stimulant, stomachic, he- 
 patic, peristaltic, and neurotic, besides being an 
 efficient arouser of the tender emotions. The follow- 
 ing short abstracts of these versions and legends are 
 noted for your special delectation. 
 
 1. When the pugnacious David and the gushing 
 young and recent widow Abigail enjoyed their first 
 
 156 
 
COFFEE INFUSION 157 
 
 tete-a-tete, after a sumptuous supper, instead of a 
 petit-verre of parfait-amour or of maraschino, each 
 took a mouthful and then several demie-tasses of a dark 
 black infusion which made them glad, wakeful, strong 
 and friskful. Judging from its immediate and sub- 
 sequent effects upon the happy couple, this black 
 beverage could not possibly have been other than a 
 strong infusion of roasted and pounded coffee grains, 
 although a meddlesome, garrulous, tedious, cavilling, 
 cynical censor boldly asserted that the drink in ques- 
 tion was only a decoction of parched kidney beans 
 fortified by a potent damianal philter. The dog- 
 matical dictum of that ancient, mouldy, Fadladeenish 
 critic is of no value whatsoever and there is not the 
 least shadow of doubt of the great antiquity of coffee 
 drinking, notwithstanding the silence of Don Fulano 
 y Mengano de Pergano on the interesting incident in 
 the life of the polygamous gynephilic patriarch men- 
 tioned by Oytis.* 
 
 2. The epicure, in sipping sable nectar from his 
 after-dinner demie-tasse, is ever reminded of his great 
 obligation to the illustrious culinary artist who first 
 conceived the brilliant idea of parching the grains 
 to develop their aroma and thus render coffee infusion 
 so delicious. Many deipnosophistic archaeologists had 
 for several scores of years, sought in vain to ascertain 
 the date of the invention and the title of the inventor 
 
 * "Thy promised boon, O Cyclop! now I claim 
 And plead my title; Noman is my name." 
 
 The strict meaning of Oytis, however, is nobody. 
 
158 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 of coffee roasting; but so soon as Iskender announced 
 that he had discovered the inventor to be King 
 David's chef -de-cuisine, these sages all declared that 
 they had always thought so, but were awaiting more 
 evidence before making known their conclusion! 
 . . . The King, as is the wont of the great and 
 mighty, failed to reward his faithful servant for the 
 forever-to-be-remembered luxurious blessing con- 
 ferred upon his royal highness and consort, as well 
 as upon the thousands of millions of coffee drinkers 
 yet unborn. Alas for the fate of innovators and the 
 "gratitude" of monarchs and of free governments! 
 
 3. You will doubtless recall to mind how eloquently 
 a certain aged troubadour — recorder of the exploits 
 of a shrewd and enterprising Hellenic soldier of for- 
 tune by profession and rollicking planet promenader 
 by compulsion — lauded in sublime verse the delight- 
 ful effects of the hypnotic substance nepenthes. Why 
 should he not have done so, since nepenthes added to 
 wine was then the infallible potion to make man 
 oblivious of care and ills? However, some modern 
 heavy bibbers speak contemptuously of the ancient 
 beverage, alleging that it is fit only for chicks, inferior 
 to haschish paste, and not comparable to "brown- 
 stout" which is both meat and drink besides having 
 no little hypnotic value. But these notions were 
 evidently not in accord with those of the downy 
 brained son of Gallia who, with distorted mental 
 vision and utter ignorance of the effects of banes, 
 regarded nepenthes as identical with the gladsome 
 
COFFEE INFUSION 159 
 
 non-intoxicating infusion of coffee beans. This gra- 
 tuitous assertion of the croaking, loquacious batra- 
 chopolitan, made in the most bold, blatant, and boast- 
 ful gasconish tone, has led to an acrimonious contro- 
 versy with the defacement of scores of thousands of 
 foolscap sheets of wood pulp; and the fierce dispute 
 is not yet ended! 
 
 4. A very interesting accomplished scholar and pro- 
 found Hellenist, but senior inmate of one of those 
 homes for the entertainment of persons whose eccen- 
 tricities render them unsafe to themselves and friends, 
 often, in magisterial and lofty style, expressed the 
 opinion that the black Spartan broth * was neither 
 more nor less than coffee infusion. Although some 
 of his auditors were dubious as to his thorough 
 knowledge of beans, none, in his presence, seemed 
 willing to give expression to his doubts. 
 
 5. Fackhir Eddin el Mardiny records that the 
 legion of devils which entered the bodies of the drove 
 of trichinous pigs that went swimming in the Tiberian 
 sea had taken the form of unripe coffee berries which, 
 gulped in great abundance into the jejune entrails 
 of these gluttonish swine, so affected their inward 
 peristalsis that, for immediate relief they frantically 
 dove into the surging waters to be soon seized with 
 
 * "The Turks have a drink called coffee (for they use no wine), 
 so named of a berry as black as soot, and as bitter (like that 
 black drink which was in use amongst the Lacedaemonians, and 
 perhaps the same), which they sip still off, and sup as warm 
 as they can suffer; they spend much time in those Coffee-houses, 
 which are somewhat like our Ale-houses or Taverns ..." 
 — Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy. 
 
160 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 general cramps and so to perish with a bellyful of 
 diabolically indigestible berries. It appears that this 
 abominable tale was originally told by an irreverent, 
 malignant and turbaned Turk who was condemned 
 to impalement for his crass ignorance of demonology 
 and botany, as well as of the habitat of pigs and of 
 the digestive aptitude of the porcine stomach* 
 
 6. The big medicine man Abou-Bekr-Mohammed- 
 Ben-Zacharia, named at first Zacharia al Razi be- 
 cause he was born at Ray in Persia; the Raysian 
 becoming Rases or Rhazes, who, in the ninth century, 
 practised upon the ailing multitudes of Arabia, was 
 in the habit of administering coffee infusion as a pana- 
 cea, a sovereign remedy for all distempers, and he was 
 the first faithful follower of the Prophet to make 
 known to the world the wonderful medicinal virtues 
 of coffee. 
 
 7. Two centuries later, another disciple of the great 
 Apollo, one Al-Houssain-Abou-Ali-Ben-Abdullab-Ebn- 
 Sina, vulgarly called Avicenna, procured from El- 
 Yemen (Arabia Felix) beans of this same coffee, 
 roasted and pounded them, and made thereof a strong 
 infusion of which he drank freely with much pleasure 
 and satisfaction and called it bunchum. 
 
 * Papa Arouet was wrong in his assertion that there were no 
 pigs near the sea of Tiberius, for the unorthodox Gadarenes, 
 who abided near its easterly shore, did, contrary to the Mosaic 
 prohibition, domesticate swine and did eat the flesh thereof. 
 Another bit of testimony has been offered of the existence of 
 hogs in the holy land, as follows: 
 
 " Augustus Caesar said of Herod the Great that he would rather 
 be his sus than suus — for Herod killed his own and not his pigs." 
 
COFFEE INFUSION 161 
 
 8. The antiquarian, Altman von Schwartzwasser, 
 insists that the first individual, outside of Germania, 
 to drink habitually coffee infusion out of a stein mug, 
 was the Mollah Shaduli; while Herr Professor Hein- 
 rich Apollonius Richter von Katznellenbogen und 
 Schweinberg, a great authority on date palms and 
 the dative case, asserts that it was the Scheik Omar 
 who, in the year 656 of the Hegira (1278 A. D.) having 
 taken refuge with his followers in the Ousab moun- 
 tains, found there nothing to eat but coffee berries 
 which made him and his men wakeful of nights, so 
 they were able to do efficient guard duty. Waxing 
 powerful in the wilderness, they made a raid upon 
 their old home, where, however, they were received 
 warmly and joyfully. In acknowledgment, Omar 
 made known to his compatriots the properties of 
 coffee and the delightful effects of its infusion. 
 
 9. The wise, learned and venerable Aboul Hadji 
 Effendi, speaks in glowing terms of the exploits of 
 the untiring Arabian peregrinator Jemal-Eddin- 
 Dhabhani who, says that author in his voluminous 
 treatise on men and things in general and in particu- 
 lar, attributed the discovery of coffee and its effects 
 upon beast and man to a singular incident, as follows : 
 
 A certain goat-herd's slumbers were much dis- 
 turbed ever since he had driven his flock to the edge 
 of a forest near which was a Dervish community, 
 owing to the nightly revels of his beasts that, in the 
 company of some stray sheep, seemed to be enjoying 
 a capronic cotillion lasting until the break of day, 
 
162 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 with attendant bleatings and other noises of the 
 frisky creatures. In his perplexity to ascertain the 
 cause of these nocturnal frolics, he applied to the chief 
 of the community, who promised his aid toward un- 
 ravelling the mystery. The good Dervish closely 
 watched the animals and one evening followed them 
 a short distance in the forest, when he saw them feed- 
 ing on the red berries and leaves of certain low trees. 
 The shrewd and canny old man gathered a basketful 
 of the fruit, which he boiled; then he drank some of 
 the decoction after supper, and for that whole night 
 was not only wakeful but inclined to unwonted bodily 
 and mental activity. Attributing these phenomena 
 to the potion he had taken, he concluded that he had 
 made a discovery likely to be precious to his com- 
 munity. Keeping his secret he advised the peasant 
 to take away his herd because he regarded the air of 
 the forest and region as insalubrious to horned cattle. 
 Every day thereafter with the noon refection he ad- 
 ministered a large bowl of the decoction to each mem- 
 ber of the Brotherhood as an unfailing remedy for 
 drowsiness and indolence. 
 
 10. It is further related by Aboul Hadji that, in 
 1420 A. D. this same Jemal Eddin, in his wanderings, 
 straggled into the country of Persia where he found 
 the people enjoying coffee infusion, and that he had 
 there learned the use of this anhypnotic beverage. 
 On his return to Aden he taught the sleepy townsmen 
 how to keep awake by drinking this infusion. From 
 Aden the delights of coffee imbibing were made known 
 
COFFEE INFUSION 163 
 
 to the people of Mecca, of Medina, of Mysore in India, 
 and finally of Cairo in Egypt. 
 
 11. It is written by Simon Ben Yusuf, or some 
 other scribe, that the Sultan Selim I, he who, in 1517, 
 organised a target excursion through Syria, Palestine 
 and Egypt, received from Cairo, among many prizes, 
 a large plated pewter mug filled with roasted coffee 
 beans, the use of which he introduced to the Constan- 
 tinopolitans. But the first public coffee house was 
 not established in the great city until the year 1550, 
 prior to which time the "heavy swells" only were able 
 to bear the expense of a cup of the luxurious infusion. 
 
 12. Still another Moslem writer of renown, Ibrahim 
 el Kebir Mufti, says that coffee was brought to Mysore 
 direct from Arabia by the notorious vagrant Baba- 
 Booden, who accidentally found among his scanty 
 habiliments seven stray grains which he carelessly 
 flung away on a hillside and which have yielded great 
 multitudes of coffee trees whose products were after- 
 ward propagated throughout the Indies. 
 
 Since you have read with so much patience and 
 attention the foregoing truthful and convincing 
 statement of the discovery and early history of coffee, 
 kindly give a no less willing attention to the follow- 
 ing which you may regard as fiction or not, as 
 dictated by your sound judgment. 
 
 13. The erudite Edbal Dar Woruf * Sahib, chief 
 medicine man in Hindostan and learned in botany, 
 supposes, as do other pandits, that the coffee tree had 
 
 * Anagram of Edward Balfour. 
 
164 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 its original habitat in the mountain regions of Enarea 
 and Cuff a or Kaffa to the south of Abyssinia. 
 
 14. Edbal goes on to say that it was not until about 
 the sixteenth centuiy that coffee was introduced into 
 Arabia whence it passed into Mysore and Ceylon in 
 the seventeenth century; into Mauritius and Bourbon 
 Islands in 1718, and Batavia in 1723, and subsequent- 
 ly into the West Indies. Abd-ul-Kadar-Mahommed- 
 ul-Azari-ul-Jesiri-ul-Hanbali, who wrote in Egypt 
 about 1587 A. D., relates that in the middle of the 
 fifteenth century, Jamal-ud-Din-Abu-Abdulla-Ma- 
 hommed-bin-Saced-ud-Dubani was Kadi of Aden, 
 and having occasion to visit Abyssinia found his coun- 
 termen there drinking coffee. On his return to Aden 
 he there introduced its use, whence it passed into 
 Arabia generally. He further says that Shaikh Ali- 
 Shaduli-ibn-Omar settled near the sea about 1630 
 A. D. on the plain now occupied by the town of 
 Mocha, and his reputation drew people around him 
 till a village was formed. He highly recommended 
 the use of coffee and has ever since been regarded as 
 the patron saint of Mocha. 
 
 15. For a long series of years Arabia had the monop- 
 oly on coffee culture and trade, but the crafty Dutch 
 and the shrewd Brazilians and Central Americans 
 have since driven Moslem coffee out of the American 
 market. 
 
 16. Rauwolf made coffee known in western Europe 
 soon after his voyage to the Levant in 1583, but the 
 use of the drink did not become general until the 
 
COFFEE INFUSION 165 
 
 seventeenth century. Public coffee houses were not 
 established in Italy until 1645, in London 1652, at 
 Marseilles 1671, and in Paris 1672. Cafe-au-lait was 
 introduced in 1690 by Madame de Sevigne. In Paris 
 coffee was then sold at the rate of twenty-eight dol- 
 lars per pound. Now, in this country, good roasted 
 coffee is retailed at from twenty-five to thirty cents 
 per pound, and the inferior qualities as low as ten 
 cents per pound. 
 
 17. The constituent elements of roasted coffee 
 are: cellulose, dextrin, caffeic acid, caffeo-tannic 
 acid, legumin, essential oils, caffeone, and caffein, 
 which is the main active principle of coffee and has 
 the formula C 8 H 10 N 4 O 2 , its chemical denomination 
 being trimethylxanthin. Guarana, Kola nut, tea and 
 mate have precisely the same active principle as cof- 
 fee which contains from 2 to f-f^- per centum of 
 caffein while guarana contains 5 per centum, Kola 
 nut 2 to 2\, tea from 2 to 3, and mate j 1 -^- to ^§-| 
 per centum of caffein. 
 
 18. An infusion of raw coffee would be so intoler- 
 ably bad as to be unfit to drink. The roasting of the 
 grains completely changes their nature, and so 
 develops their aroma, by the production of caffeone, 
 as to render the infusion delightful alike in flavor 
 and odor. The torrefaction causes the grains to 
 become sufficiently friable to be easily and effectu- 
 ally comminuted, but this torrefaction is a delicate 
 process requiring experience to prevent carbonisation 
 of the grains, which renders the infusion disagreeably 
 
166 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 bitter, nor should the grains be underdone as their 
 centre would be practically raw. 
 
 19. Nothing need be added to what the immortal 
 poet Abou-Ben-Senar tells of the properties and effects 
 of coffee infusion in his great poem on eastern bever- 
 ages. He says that "Among the prodigious proper- 
 ties and the happy effects of this sweetened swarthy 
 water upon the faithful and the houries in the seventh 
 heaven and elsewhere are : it helps digestion and is a 
 potent peristaltic persuader; it cures the headache 
 and prevents drowsiness; it brightens the intellect 
 and inspires poetical thought; it equalises the circu- 
 lation and invigorates the body; and it tones the 
 heart and incites love." 
 
 20. Heterogeneous substances in great numbers 
 have been and still are used, more or less burned, to 
 make a black beverage which, taken hot, goes under 
 the name of coffee, and there are seven score and seven 
 or more methods of preparing these many kinds of 
 "coffee" for steady drinking, but only a few of them 
 will now be mentioned. 
 
 21. A woodman says that a pound of grilled and 
 ground acorns or chestnuts, and an equal amount of 
 finely chopped salt pork boiled for an hour in a gallon 
 of hard cider, makes a coffee drink that warms the 
 cockles of the laborer's heart. 
 
 22. There was a rustic with economical turn of 
 mind who, for his hired men, made " coffee" out of 
 toasted corn cobs which otherwise would have gone 
 to waste. Some of these hired men having detected 
 
COFFEE INFUSION 167 
 
 him in the act, exacted the substitution of grains 
 of corn, whilst others preferred cow-peas or sweet 
 potatoes similarly treated and strengthened with 
 Jersey lightning, and threatened a strike unless their 
 demands were granted. The miserly yeoman had to 
 succumb ! 
 
 23. In lumber regions, parched sawdust is said to 
 make strong " coffee" when boiled in whiskey and 
 water, principally whiskey. 
 
 24. The Kiowa Indians flavor their "coffee" with 
 mescal buttons to give the drinkers glorious, brilliant 
 color visions of the happy hunting grounds of Turey. 
 
 25. The Guaranis Indian belles of Brazilian forests 
 serve, at their five o'clock coffee-teas, a drink made 
 of Paullinia Sorbilis seed ground between two hot 
 stones and moistened to form a paste which is at once 
 infused, or dried and preserved for use when desired. 
 This dry paste, which appears in our market as hard, 
 brittle cylinders, is known as guarana, and contains 
 five per cent of guaranin which is identical with caffein. 
 
 26. The South Sea Islanders use for their "coffee" 
 baked and pounded cocoanut shells with long pig, 
 and drink it hot and straight ; whilst the Eskimos and 
 Laps luxuriate, without the aid of liquid air, in a 
 cafe-frappe of walrus oil and lamp soot. 
 
 27. Some web-footed nations daily imbibe many 
 cups of an infusion of burned chicory root in the firm 
 belief that they are drinking superfine coffee, and 
 others make use of the grains of a species of holly, 
 which when parched has the odor of coffee. 
 
168 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 28. The substance employed is merely a question 
 of means or of taste. In many parts of the world 
 very decided preference is given to an infusion of 
 the parched and pounded grains of Coffea Arabica, 
 or of any of its varieties, such as those of Mocha, 
 Loanda, Java, Sumatra, Bourbon, Martinique, La 
 Guayra, Maracaibo, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Rio de 
 Janeiro, etc. 
 
 HOW TO MAKE A CUP OF COFFEE. 
 
 29. An eminent gourmet and a passionate amateur 
 of coffee, very justly condemns the prevalent popular 
 notions respecting the preparation of this excellent 
 beverage unknown to the ancient poets, and so pre- 
 cious to those moderns who may lack inspiration, 
 saying that to grind coffee in a mill is a barbaric 
 atrocity — it should be pounded in a hot porcelain 
 mortar * while still hot from the roaster, and imme- 
 diately used — that to boil coffee is a vandalistic in- 
 congruity — it should be infused by percolation in a 
 previously heated glazed-porcelain apparatus as soon 
 as pounded, then poured into heated cups and drunk 
 hot. To clarify coffee infusion with egg albumen is a 
 monstrosity. The quantity of coffee to be infused 
 should not be less than two ounces to the pint of 
 boiling water for morning use, with hot milk and sugar, 
 and stronger for the after-dinner cup. He further 
 asserts that the most delicious of drinks is obtainable 
 
 * The Turks pound their parched coffee in wooden mortars. 
 The older the mortar the more precious. 
 
COFFEE INFUSION 169 
 
 by the blending of three sorts of these grains; not, 
 however, until after the roasting process, as some 
 varieties require more time than others to effect the 
 desired brittleness of the contained lignin. In his ex- 
 perience the Loanda, Java, and Bourbon make a very 
 satisfactory blend, as do the Martinique, La Guayra, 
 and Costa Rica coffees, and regards the addition of 
 chicory root powder as a gustatory abomination 
 worthy of Huns and Goths.* 
 
 30. The coffee tree — which is as tall as the lilac 
 bush, not so lofty as the Araucaria Excelsa, greater 
 in girth than the ilex, lesser circumferentially than 
 the cedar of Lebanon, with not so much foliage as 
 the chestnut, and more spread than the Lombardy 
 poplar — is attacked (from root to bark, from stem to 
 leaf, from fragrant white flower to cherry-like pur- 
 plish fruit) by scores of different kinds of enemies, 
 among which abound microbes and molds, larvae and 
 butterflies, bugs and borers, birds and rodents. Yet 
 it survives to yield its precious fruit and grains for 
 the gratification of man and beast. The young leaves, 
 rich in caffein which is the same chemically as thein, 
 make good coffee-tea; the pulp of the berries gives, 
 by fermentation, a coffee-wine and, by distillation, 
 a coffee-brandy; the hard trunks of the old plants 
 may be used by the cabinet maker; the larger twigs 
 
 *It is reported that in 1897, in the United States, the consump- 
 tion of coffee reached 636,000,000 pounds or more than forty 
 pounds for each person. In the course of the past ten years the 
 enormous sum of 875,000,000 of dollars was paid for the coffee 
 consumed by our people. 
 
170 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 converted into walking sticks; the roots fashioned 
 into various ornaments and into pipes for smoking 
 tobacco; indeed, a house may be built of coffee-wood, 
 and lastly a sarcophagus for the mortal remains of 
 the departed tenant. 
 
XII 
 
 IX. CHOCOLATE AND OTHER BROTHS 
 
 " In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow, 
 And tremble at the sea that froths below." 
 
 Experts are agreed that broths be classed among 
 beverages, although they contain much solid matter, 
 which, however, is in a state of comminution and 
 subjected to a more or less prolonged ebullition, and 
 in some cases to fermentation. 
 
 Let us now inquire into the nature of the plant that 
 produces cacao beans with which one of the most 
 highly nutritious broths is made. In this inquiry 
 we are ably assisted by a veteran learned in Aztec 
 lore, who probably had striven to read currently the 
 world renowned calendar, who, after victory, had so 
 gracefully resheathed his trusty sword and, quitting 
 the tented field, had dwelt and dreamed in marble 
 halls that once may have been Montezuma's, who 
 had long known of the evil ways of the wily and 
 cruel Hernando Cortez, and who had played so well 
 his patriotic part toward the second but holy con- 
 quest of Mexico which gave us California, together 
 with the immense western territory called, by our 
 fathers, the great American Desert. 
 
 Modern historians and all well disciplined sopho- 
 mores vouch for the accuracy of the statement that 
 
 171 
 
172 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Columbus was the first white man to learn of cacao 
 as a highly prized article of food, and also of its use 
 as money in prehistoric Mexico, and that the illustri- 
 ous Genoese had obtained from a cacique of Yucatan 
 specimens of this precious food and money equiva- 
 lent, while he was sailing along the coast of Hon- 
 duras on his fourth and last voyage in 1502. They 
 are also positive about the time of the interview 
 in 1520 between the adventurer Cortez and the 
 noble and good Aztec Emperor Xocoyotzin,* who 
 offered the Spaniard a drink of chocolatl in a golden 
 vessel which the ungrateful cleptomaniacal guest did 
 probably purloin. 
 
 Students of botany speak of the cacao tree, of the 
 natural order Sterculiacese, as a native of south- 
 eastern Mexico below the twentieth degree of latitude. 
 They say that the tree best thrives in tropical regions 
 within the fifteen degrees of north and south latitudes; 
 that the cultivated plant grows from sea level to two 
 thousand feet above in the alluvial soil of the valleys; 
 that it is seldom over eighteen feet high and that the 
 highest are the wild trees; that the beautiful, light 
 green, glossy leaves average ten inches in length, 
 three inches and a half in mean breadth, and are 
 elliptic-oblong and acuminate, growing generally at 
 the ends of branches but occasionally directly from 
 the trunk; that the flowers, which are small, bloom 
 in clusters on the larger branches and on the trunk 
 itself; that each cluster yields a single fruit; that 
 
 * Aztec for Montezuma. 
 
CHOCOLATE AND OTHEK BROTHS 173 
 
 the ripe fruit from a trunk cluster looks as if it had 
 been artificially pinned to the spot; that the matured 
 fruit or pod is elliptical-ovoid in form, from seven to 
 nine inches in length and from three to four inches in 
 mean diameter, has a thick, tough, purplish yellow 
 rind with ten longitudinal ribs; that this pod is di- 
 vided into five long cells, each containing eight or 
 ten beans embedded in a soft pinkish acid pulp; 
 that the beans are irregularly ovoid, averaging one 
 inch in length, five eighths of an inch in breadth, 
 and three eighths of an inch in thickness; that the 
 coquettish tree plays the amorous prank of almost 
 always having buds, flowers, and pods in sight, so 
 that ripe fruit may be gathered at any time, but the 
 regular harvests are in June and December, each tree 
 yielding about twenty pounds of beans annually; 
 and that the nubile age of the tree is five years and 
 its prolific period is forty years when comes the meno- 
 pause. Such is the nature of the plant which has 
 received from the illustrious Linnaeus the name of 
 Theobroma Cacao.* 
 
 The manufacturers assert with confidence that the 
 best cacao is produced in Venezuela, principally near 
 Puerto Cabello and La Guayra, and the merchants 
 say that the preparation of cacao beans for the mar- 
 ket is not the least part performed by the planters, 
 for, unless made with proper care, the whole crop 
 
 * "We misname the berries cocoa because the jicaras or native 
 cups, in which the cacao was drunk by the Mexicans, were made 
 of the small end of the cocoa-nut." — "Sayings of Dr. Bush- 
 whacker." 
 
174 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 may be lost. The process is briefly as follows: The 
 harvesters heap up the pods on the ground and leave 
 them to wilt, and on the next day cut them open, 
 set free the beans and carry them away in baskets 
 so constructed as to allow the juice of some of the 
 still adherent acid pulp to drain off; after thorough 
 draining the beans are placed in "sweating boxes" or 
 buried and covered with clay for fermentation during 
 forty-eight hours, this being called the claying of the 
 beans, which are then taken out and dried in the sun, 
 when they assume a warm reddish hue, which is 
 characteristic of superior qualities, ready to be packed 
 for exportation. The Theobroma Cacao is now cul- 
 tivated in India, Ceylon, Southern China, the Philip- 
 pines, and other tropical regions. 
 
 It happened long, long ago that an epicurean com- 
 manding officer of a distant military post had some 
 doubts about the genuineness of the Gods' food 
 served at his regular morning meal and, desiring 
 information on the chemistry of cacao, sought en- 
 lightenment from the post surgeon, who asked for 
 time to confer with the commissary of subsistence, 
 who suggested that he write for scientific advice to 
 the Medical Director of the Department, who re- 
 ferred the communication to the Medical Pur- 
 veyor, who sent it to a chocolate merchant who 
 appealed to a manufacturer, who consulted his 
 apothecary, who entered into a lengthy correspon- 
 dence with the most eminent chemists of the terres- 
 
CHOCOLATE AND OTHER BROTHS 175 
 
 trial globe, who, after twelve months' delay in elab- 
 orate investigation, obtained results of the most 
 diverse character because some of them had analyzed 
 beans which they had extracted from the fresh pods 
 before the wilting process, others had selected the 
 fermented but not dried beans, and the majority 
 had taken their specimens from cured and roasted 
 beans. While in this multitude of experimenters, 
 only one was found to have used the cacao beans as 
 cured for exportation. In his perplexity, the in- 
 dustrious, enterprising and inquiring surgeon closed 
 his final report with the query — Who shall decide 
 when such high and mighty authorities disagree? 
 As he had annexed to the report scores of analytical 
 tables, among which was one from the French chemist 
 Payen to whom the Bon Dieu had given the brilliant 
 idea of subjecting to analysis only the cured and un- 
 toasted beans, the Commander, casting a glance at 
 this last table, said he thought it always safe to decide 
 in favor of those whom the Gods love, and so decided 
 that the Gallic favorite of Turey had overcome in 
 astuteness all his wayward competitors; but alas the 
 information had come too late for the warrior's com- 
 fort, as he had already given up bad chocolate for 
 good coffee to which he sometimes added the Com- 
 missariat's spiritus frumenti in sufficient quantity, 
 for lack of fine champagne eau-de-vie. The surgeon 
 also accepted the Frenchman's analysis of Theobroma 
 Cacao beans unroasted, which is as follows: 
 
176 
 
 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Fat (cacao butter) 
 
 
 
 . 52.00 
 
 Nitrogenous compounds 
 
 
 
 . 20.00 
 
 Starch . 
 
 
 
 .10.00 
 
 Cellulose 
 
 
 
 . 2.00 
 
 Theobromin . 
 
 
 
 . 2.00 
 
 Saline substances . 
 
 
 
 . 4.00 
 
 Water . 
 
 
 
 . 10.00 
 
 Cacao red 
 
 
 
 (traces) 
 
 Essential oil 
 
 
 
 
 100.00 
 
 The learned chemists, however, agreed that the 
 large percentage of fat in cacao greatly increased 
 its nutritious properties, and were also of the same 
 mind as to the component elements of the highly 
 nitrogenised principle theobromin, whose formula is 
 C 7 H g N 4 2 , and whose chemical name is dimethyl- 
 xanthin, differing from caffein by having one atom 
 less of carbon and two less of hydrogen; caffein being 
 trimethylxanthin. 
 
 CACAO BROTH. 
 
 The drink commonly called chocolate is in reality 
 a cacao broth. The word chocolate is said to be de- 
 rived from Aztec chocolatl, from choco, signifying noise, 
 and lail, water, because of the noise made by water 
 while boiling (Larousse). If this etymology be cor- 
 rect, the term chocolate can be properly applied only 
 to boiling water singing in a kettle, whereas chocolate 
 is now the arbitrary name for cacao paste as well as 
 for the broth made of that paste. The following 
 from Murray's dictionary gives some verisimilitude 
 to the etymology quoted in Larousse's great work. 
 The Mexican chocolatl was, says Murray, "an article 
 
CHOCOLATE AND OTIIES BROTHS 177 
 
 of food made of equal parts of the seeds of cacao 
 and of those of the tree called pochotl (Bombax ceiba)* 
 . . . chocolatl has no connection whatever with 
 the Mexican word cacauatl, cacao, but is, so far as 
 known, a radical word of the language. It is possible, 
 however, that Europeans confounded chocolatl with 
 cacaua-atl which was really a drink made from cacao, 
 caca-uaUT 
 
 The Aztecs, and those who early learned from them 
 the use of the broth, grated the roasted cacao beans 
 and boiled them for immediate consumption. It was 
 not until the opening of the seventeenth century that 
 the Spaniards began to crush the beans mixed with 
 sugar so as to make thereof a paste flavored with 
 cinnamon, and dried, for the preparation of the broth 
 which they called chocolata. 
 
 The Spanish ladies in Mexico became so fond of 
 sweetened cacao broth that they took their morning 
 cup in church even during lent. At first they were 
 censured for this self-indulgence by the high clergy 
 but at length the pecadillo was overlooked, par- 
 ticularly since Father Escobar had declared that 
 chocolate water did not break a fast; quoting the 
 old maxim, liquidum non Jrangit jejunium, which 
 Father Tom's chronicler afterward did into polite 
 Keltic — "There's no fast on the dhrink." Karmata 
 
 * "The bombax ceiba, a large tree often dug out for canoes 
 by the people of Yucatan, is native of the tropical regions of 
 Mexico and South America, growing also in the West Indies 
 and introduced in the East Indies. The fleshy petals of the 
 flowers are sometimes used for food . . . its beautiful soft 
 floss is used for pillows and thin mattresses." — Balfour. 
 
178 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 of Cufa, Arabia, a heterodox Moslem, introduced a 
 new kind of fast during which he allowed the faith- 
 ful to drink wine. Silence, however, was imposed as 
 a part of the fast! 
 
 Chocolate was introduced to the French by Anne 
 of Austria, the spouse of Louis XIII, and soon became 
 a fashionable beverage which, nearly a century later, 
 was taken mixed with coffee and milk under the name 
 of choca, the favorite drink of the Parisian wits and 
 men of letters who were wont to frequent the famous 
 Cafe Procope. 
 
 The French are very fond of flavoring their choco- 
 late not only with vanilla as did the Mexicans, but 
 with the seeds of the South American musk okra, 
 Hibiscus Abelmoschus (Linn.), commonly known 
 among them as grains d'ambrette and among us as 
 musk seeds which, according to Redwood, have been 
 used to flavor coffee. The chocolat ambre of Brillat- 
 Savarin was probably flavored with these grains finely 
 powdered and mixed with sugar ; about half a drachm 
 of this mixture to the pint of boiling chocolate. 
 
 The epicures' formula for brewing the most pala- 
 table breakfast cacao broth is to rub up in a little 
 milk a quarter of an ounce of impalpably pulverised 
 roasted cacao beans, deprived of a considerable pro- 
 portion of their fat; to acid to this enough milk to 
 make a pint, to boil the mixture for five minutes; 
 to sweeten it to taste ; and to stir in two tablespoon- 
 fuls of whipped cream. The result is a thin broth of 
 which half a pint may be taken. The ordinary thick 
 
CHOCOLATE AXD OTHER BKOTHS 179 
 
 broth containing not less than two ounces of cacao 
 paste to the pint is much too heavy for a delicate 
 stomach, besides it is too often adulterated with 
 starch and other undesirable substances, and con- 
 tains scarcely more than half of its weight of cacao. 
 
 Savarin tells, in his admirable style, of a suggestion 
 made to him by the Lady Superior of a convent, 
 concerning the preparation of a cacao-broth which 
 was, that it should be made on the evening of the day 
 before it is to be used. The night's rest, she said, 
 concentrates the broth and gives it a velvety smooth- 
 ness which greatly improves its taste. It is of 
 course to be heated for the morning meal. 
 
 Broths are also made of cacao-nibs, which are the 
 roughly crushed beans; of flake-cacao, which is ob- 
 tained by crushing the beans between rollers, and of 
 cacao-shells, which are the envelopes of the beans, 
 corresponding to the parchment-like cover of coffee 
 beans. Thin cacao-broth is sometimes taken iced, 
 under the name of bavaroise de chocolat. 
 
 Sweetened cacao-paste variously flavored is used 
 to coat confections composed of divers substances 
 according to the fancies of confectioners. This paste 
 also enters into the composition of the so-called 
 Neapolitan ice-cream. 
 
 Among the other broths may be mentioned, barley, 
 oatmeal, clam, chicken, mutton, beef, besides many 
 more, and the well-known caudle which is admirably 
 made for her friends by a dear old-time Chestnut ville 
 lady. 
 
180 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 There is another noteworthy broth, so potent as 
 to raise the dead, and its formula is given in 
 Macbeth, 4, 1. 
 
 Only brief mention will be made of the fermented 
 broth, a drink of which was offered to certain travel- 
 lers who declined the honor because they had wit- 
 nessed its concoction which is here given : 
 
 "In Schouten's and Le Maire's voyage round the 
 world in 1616, a familiar liquor was prepared for them 
 by the natives of Horn Island. At a banquet, at 
 which two of the native princes were present, a com- 
 pany of men came in with a quantity of cana, an herb 
 of which they make their drink, and each of them 
 having taken a mouthful, they for some time chewed 
 it together, and then put it into a wooden trough, 
 poured water upon it, and having stirred and strained 
 it, presented this liquor in cups to their kings, and 
 very civilly offered some of it to the Dutch, who de- 
 clined tasting of it." (Lettsom's oration on the his- 
 tory of the origin of medicine, 1778.) A similar ac- 
 count of this "soup" is given by Demeunier in his 
 work" which bears the title of " L' esprit des usages 
 et des coutumes des Diff evens Peuples," published in 
 1776. 
 
XIII 
 
 THE SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 
 "The spice and salt that season a man." 
 
 An oft -quoted deipnophilist said that aboriginal 
 man, like the dumb animal, satisfied hunger by de- 
 vouring his food in the crude state wherever he found 
 it, and that in time he learned the use of not only 
 the kinds of aliments best adapted to his wants, but 
 of those products of nature which are pleasant to the 
 taste, such as nuts and sweet fruits. Furthermore, 
 that the earliest food-stuffs were unquestionably 
 mushrooms and truffles. 
 
 Compelled to labor arduously in gathering, chewing, 
 and swallowing the materials necessary for the suste- 
 nance of life, man would soon have perished had not 
 the Creator, in His infinite wisdom, and as a recom- 
 pense for this labor, endowed him with efficient pre- 
 hensile, suctorial, salivary, masticatory, ingestive, 
 and digestive organs as well as with delicate, sensory 
 apparatuses; all concurring to make alimentation 
 pleasurable, for, are not the tactile, auditory, visual, 
 olfactory, and gustatory senses exquisitely gratified 
 during the acts of eating and drinking savory food? 
 Savarin's sixth or genetic sense scarcely finds a place 
 
 181 
 
182 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 here since it requires two for its gratification, while 
 Bell's seventh or muscular sense is only a variety of 
 the tactile, closely allied to the genetic. But there 
 is an eighth sense which, unlike those already men- 
 tioned, requires the concurrence of many for its ex- 
 pression. It is orthodoxly stated by the lamented 
 Father Tom, as follows: . . . "We're to under- 
 stand that the exprission, 'every sinsible man,' sig- 
 nifies simply, 'every man that judges by his nath'ral 
 sinses ' ; and we all know that nobody f olleying them 
 seven deludhers could ever find out the mystery 
 that's in it, if somebody didn't come to his assistance 
 wid an eighth sinse, which is the only sinse to be 
 depended on, being the sinse of the church." . . . 
 He says elsewhere: "Them operations of the sinses 
 . . . comprises only particular corporayal emo- 
 tions, and isn't to be depended upon at all. If we 
 were to follow them blind guides, we might jist as 
 well turn heretics at ons't." 
 
 Of the many scores of subordinate senses cata- 
 logued in literary and scientific productions, those 
 which more particularly concern us at this time and 
 place and which are truly senseful are: the sense of 
 pleasure, which is the sensus communis of deipno- 
 philists; the sense of duty, which warns us to be 
 regular participants in and punctual attendants at 
 gastronomic and intellectual feasts, and which bids 
 us to bear in mind Savarin's seventeenth aphorism, 
 that to await too long the coming of a tardy guest is 
 a want of regard for all those who are present; the 
 
SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 183 
 
 sense of the good and true, which the righteous pos- 
 sess in the highest degree; the sense of beauty by 
 which we mentally enjoy graceful forms, contrast 
 of light and shade, rich color, and delicate tints; 
 Doctor Syntax' sense of the picturesque, which is 
 always enjoyable; the senses of melody, harmony, 
 and poetry, with which cultured men are so fully 
 endowed; the sense of humor, which it would be 
 fruitless to attempt to define ; besides deaf Staple- 
 ton's sense of smoking, which we so greatly enjoy; 
 the Pickwickian sense, which is so Pickwickianly 
 benign; and lastly the castanian sense, which in- 
 cludes them all. 
 
 When man became gregarious and able to ex- 
 change thoughts with his fellows, observation and 
 experience led him to discover and suggest means to 
 render palatable some highly nutritious aliments 
 which, in their natural state, are tasteless or other- 
 wise unfit for use. This he accomplished by coction 
 and by the addition of condiments, such as salt and 
 fat. Originally ingesting only vegetables, containing, 
 as some of them do, but a minimum of sodium 
 chlorid, his entrails must have sorely felt the want 
 of a sufficiency of this salt which was unknown to 
 him, but which is so essential to easy digestion; it 
 is therefore not unlikely that, for a long time, he 
 suffered the pangs of dyspepsia erroneously regarded 
 as a consequence solely of civilised life and of mod- 
 ern self indulgence. . . . 
 
184 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 OF COCTION. 
 
 When ruralising or camping in the wilderness, 
 how cheering, comforting, encouraging it is to bear 
 in mind Savarin's fifteenth aphorism to the effect 
 that man may become a cook but is a born roaster! 
 It is clear that when the ascendant from Pithecan- 
 thropus Erectus first resorted to coction, roasting 
 came to him by nature. The fire he built at night to 
 fright away wild beasts and to warm himself served 
 to bake, in the ashes, the roots and other provisions 
 gathered during the day. It was long before he began 
 to eat the flesh of the animals which he had killed in 
 self-defense, and the meat, roasted before the fire, 
 was probably very gustful to him and easily digested 
 on account of the amount of sodic and potassic 
 chlorids therein contained. He then soon learned 
 the trick of smearing his cooked vegetables with 
 drippings of fat from the sizzling haunches just as the 
 small boy of to-day is wont to soak his slice of bread 
 in hot, rich gravy. This may be regarded as the 
 dawn of luxury. . . . 
 
 OF DECOCTION. 
 
 Encouraged by his success with coction, the great- 
 grandson of the prehistoric Neanderthalisher tried 
 decoction but, at first, was doomed to disappoint- 
 ment because of rapid combustion of the thin walls 
 of the calabash used as a boiler. After repeated ex- 
 periments, tending to prevent carbonisation of the 
 utensil, and as many signal failures, it probably oc- 
 
SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 185 
 
 curred to him to coat a newly prepared calabash with 
 soft clay, to dry it in the sun, to fill all cracks with 
 the same plastic material, and thus to construct the 
 first marmite in which he obtained the first simmer, 
 the first decoction, the first boiled vegetables, which 
 were the precursors of the wily Jacob's pottage with 
 which he " buncoed" his greedy brother, of heathen- 
 ish Chinese millet porridge, of Tibetan bean curds, 
 of Etrurian chestnut puree, of Gallic soupe aux 
 choux, of African onion broth, of Hibernian stew, of 
 Iberian ollapodrida* of Hispaniolian fricasseed utias, 
 of Cuban ajiaco, of Venezuelan sancocho, of Peru- 
 vian cary-hucho, of Hungarian goulash, of Scottish 
 potato soup, of Louisiana gombo-fde, of Jersey okra 
 soup, of Kentucky burgoo, of Vermont pandowdy, of 
 aldermanic calapash, of Provengale bouillabaisse, and 
 of Squantum clam chowder. Kindly permit a brief 
 digression on a question of pottery priority. 
 
 Although earthen ware vases, so necessary to 
 good cooks, are supposed to have been invented three 
 thousand five hundred and ninety-nine years ago by 
 Epimetheus, who is said to have made the vessel in 
 which his brother Prometheus had corked up the 
 pathogenic microbia which were liberated by Dame 
 
 * The Spanish and their descedants in the Antilles and in 
 South America still have their special stews with variations in 
 composition and name. For instance, the olla of meridional 
 Spain is known as puchero in the north, as ajiaco in Cuba, as 
 sancocho in Venezuela, and as cary-hucho in Peru. Podrida is 
 not added to olla in any part of Spain. It must have been 
 jocularly suggested by some person who had tasted (una olla 
 muy podrida) a very rotten stew. 
 
186 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Epimetheus, commonly known as Pandora; it is 
 proved beyond cavil that the first potter was the 
 youthful emigrant from the frigid Neander vale to a 
 more genial clime, that he might save the expense of 
 superfluous raiment, who did make the first marmite 
 in the warm country of palms, gourds, and plenty, 
 who afterward extemporised sundry forms of vessels 
 and bottles to contain fancy drinks, and who therefore 
 did anticipate master Epimetheus by many thousand 
 years.* 
 
 The use of soups and stews is unquestionably of the 
 greatest antiquity. Pictet asserts that the Aryans 
 were great consumers of soup, which term is said to 
 be derived from the Sanskrit supa, meaning pottage, 
 broth, sauce; supakara being used for cook and liter- 
 ally signifying maker of soup. The earliest decoc- 
 tions must have been in some way flavored to suit 
 the primitive palates. But it is difficult for us to 
 imagine a tast)^ soup without sweet or salty flavoring, 
 and it is fair to assume that a great period of time 
 must have elapsed before sweet and salty soups came 
 into use; that the sweet was employed before the 
 salty condiment ; that probably the succulent pulp of 
 certain gourds was boiled with some sweeter fruit 
 to make a tasty, nourishing soup; and that as soon 
 as salt was discovered, it was added to millet, bean, 
 and other porridges which before could not be taken 
 with relish. 
 
 * According to Professor Petrie earthen ware vessels were 
 made in Egypt eight thousand years ago. 
 
SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 187 
 
 From what precedes it is clear that the fondness of 
 civilised man for broths, stews, soups, purees, fri- 
 candos, and ragoHts, is an inheritance from very early 
 ancestors. In nearly every country or region of 
 country there is a peculiar broth or stew which trav- 
 ellers generally find agreeable to the taste as well as 
 wholesome and nourishing. The French probably 
 exceed the other modern peoples in the great variety 
 and excellence of their pottages. Only two of their 
 works need be cited to give an idea of the resources 
 of the Gallic cook — The Cuisinier Imperial, edited by 
 Bernardi (1870), contains one hundred and forty 
 recipes for soups and purees. Careme's celebrated 
 pupil Francatelli, once Maitre-d' hotel of Queen Vic- 
 toria, published "The Modern Cook," which includes 
 directions for making one hundred and eighty-four 
 pottages. In England Mrs. Beeton incorporated many 
 French soup recipes among the one hundred and 
 twelve which she recorded. The stews are almost 
 as great numerically. In Chestnutville there are 
 French cooks who boast of being able to serve a 
 different soup for every day in the year. The old 
 proverb: 
 
 "Bon potage et bien mitonnt, 
 Est plus que moitie disne'.'" 
 
 is one of the many evidences of the French estimation 
 of soup; but the other and more modern adage — La 
 sowpe fait le soldat — does not appear to have been 
 current among the Germans during the Franco- 
 Prussian war, for then the sausage made the Teutonic 
 
188 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 soldier; and in our own wars the early morning pint 
 of hot coffee infusion gave the greatest vigor to the 
 soldier for the march and fight. . . , 
 
 OF CONDIMENTS. 
 
 Condiments — those substances added to aliments 
 to render them relishable, appetising, digestible, and 
 nourishing — may be classed as salty, fatty, sour, 
 pungent, aromatic, and sweet; used singly or com- 
 bined to season sauces. The sweet, salty and fatty 
 condiments — the earliest discovered — were, in time, 
 followed by the sour, pungent, aromatic, and the many 
 varieties since found have become indispensable in 
 modern cookery. The salty condiments include the 
 chlorids of sodium, potassium and magnesium, and 
 the oxalate and nitrate of potassium; the fatty con- 
 sist of fixed oils, lard, suet, milk, cream, butter and 
 cheese; the sour comprise lemon and lime juice, vine- 
 gar and other acid products; among the pungent are 
 black and long pepper, capsicum, horse-radish, mus- 
 tard and curry-powders; the aromatic being in 
 greatest numbers, as ginger, turmeric, galangal, para- 
 dise grains, cardamun, parsley, chives, leeks, onions, 
 shallots, garlic, mushrooms, truffles, celery seeds, 
 angelica, anis, coriander, cumin, caraway, ajowan, dill 
 seeds, sweet fennel, tarragon, nutmeg, mace, cinna- 
 mon, cassia, sassafras, bay leaves, canella alba, cloves, 
 allspice, pickled olives and capers, saffron, sage, 
 thyme, mint, nasturtium, gaultheria, vanilla, essen- 
 tial oils, cider, perry, wine, brandy, rum, and arrack; 
 
SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 189 
 
 while the sweet take in the juices of sweet fruits as 
 well as honey and sugar. 
 
 Antiphanes gives the following catalogue of season- 
 ings used in his time : 
 
 " Dried grapes, and salt, and eke new wine 
 Newly boiled down, and assafoetida,* 
 And cheese, and thyme, and sesame, 
 And nitre, too, and cumin seed, 
 And sumach, honey, and marjoram, 
 And herbs, and vinegar and oil 
 And sauce of onions, mustard and capers mix'd, 
 And parsley, capers too, and eggs, 
 And lime, and cardamums, and th' acid juice 
 Which comes from the green fig tree, besides lard 
 And eggs and honey and flour wrapp'd in fig-leaves, 
 And all compounded in one savory forcemeat." 
 Athen^eus, Epit. B. II, 77. 
 
 For many centuries past the names and properties 
 of many condiments have led to their being borrowed 
 by the literati for metaphoric use. Thus, in speaking 
 of style, the word piquant is often used with good 
 effect, and salt in praise of eloquence or of clever 
 productions. Many other metaphoric forms are in 
 constant use; as the salting of freshmen, the salting 
 of accounts, the salting of mines, etc. An ancient 
 mariner is often styled an old salt, etc., etc. A work 
 
 * "The name assafcetida was given to this substance by the 
 Salernum school, and seems to be derived from the Persian 
 assa, meaning gum. It is called stercus diaboli by facetious stu- 
 dents, and teufelstuhl by the common people in Germany, 
 while in some parts of the Orient a term signifying God's meat 
 is used for its designation. It is uncertain whether the silphion 
 of Greek and the laser of Latin authors really designate this 
 substance." 
 
190 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 may be tasteful, tasteless, insipid, or unsavory — may 
 lack salt. A low comedy is called a farce* A sweet 
 face, a honey tongue, a sour disposition, a peppery 
 mood, bitter words, and a host of other metaphors 
 are traced to the properties of those condiments used 
 to gratify the gustatory sense. Good examples are 
 contained in the following lines of Moliere's Femmes 
 Savantes, Act III, Scene 2. 
 
 "Servez-nous promptement votre aimable repas. 
 
 Pour cette grande faim qu' a mes yeux on expose, 
 
 Un plat seul de huit vers me semble peu de chose; 
 
 Et je pense qu' ici je ne ferai pas mal 
 
 De joindre a l'epigramme, on bien au madrigal, 
 
 Le ragout d'un sonnet qui, chez une Princesse, 
 
 A passe pour avoir quelque delicatesse. 
 
 II est de sel Attique assaisonne par tout, 
 
 Et vous le trouverez, je crois, d'assez bon gout." 
 
 Shakspeare's works abound in these metaphors 
 derived from edibles and from the special senses. 
 
 OF SAUCES. 
 
 Sauces,t those comparatively modern culinary con- 
 trivances, evolved from the gravy first observed to 
 drip from roasting flesh, soon became so essential to 
 good cookery as to excite great emulation among the 
 
 * The plural word farces is used metaphorically by the French 
 to signify pleasantries, and farceur, qui fait des farces, qui nous 
 farce, i. e., who is stuffing, guying or fooling us. 
 
 | The middle English and old French designation was salse, 
 from the Latin salsa, from sal, salt. 
 
SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 191 
 
 cooks, and it was not long before some noted chefs 
 earned their high reputation through the excellence 
 of their sauces, so that they were eventually known 
 as eminent saucier s. Although the name of these 
 composite condiments implies the presence of salt, 
 there are sweet sauces made of fruits and sugar, as 
 the apple sauce, so relishable with tame duck or with 
 domestic goose, the apple butter, the sweet jellies 
 served with roasted venison, and the pudding sauces. 
 Sweet pickles, too, form excellent adjuvants to cold 
 meats. The compounding of sauces is regarded as 
 one of the great arts of alimentary science for which 
 much honor is due to the French who invented the 
 five grand sauces that form the basis of nearly two 
 hundred lesser sauces.* 
 
 During the nineteenth century the innocent in 
 hygienic gastronomy have been duped into purchas- 
 ing at a high price, and led to the excessive use of 
 certain gorge-rising bottled abominations bearing the 
 usurped title of sauces, ironicly styled table disin- 
 fectants, though they are truly infectant. These 
 rank compounds of villainously foul odor and van- 
 dalisticly bad taste deserve greater condemnation 
 than the dispraisal of epicureans, for, when habitually 
 ingested, they not only blunt and deprave the gusta- 
 tory sense, but impede digestion and cause serious 
 mischief. 
 
 The sauce made of blood and spices invented by 
 
 * According to Grimod, there were known to French cooks, 
 in 1S07, only a little over eighty kinds of sauces. 
 
192 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 a Lydian cook and called caruca seems to have been a 
 precursor of these vile modern bottled sauces. 
 
 The following are fair specimens of the saucier 7 s 
 art in the olden time, taken from the Horatian Satires, 
 Book II, Satires IV and VIII. 
 
 "Two sorts of sauce are worthy to be known; 
 Simple the first, and of sweet oil alone: 
 The other mix'd with rich and generous wine, 
 And the true pickle of Bizanthian brine; 
 Let it with shredded herbs and saffron boil, 
 And when it cools pour in Venafran oil. 
 
 SAUCE FOR'" A LAMPREY. 
 
 "The sauce is mix'd with olive oil; the best 
 And purest from the vats Venafran press'd, 
 And, as it boil'd, we pour'd in Spanish brine, 
 Nor less than five-year-old Italian wine. 
 A little Chian's better when 'tis boil'd, 
 By any other it is often spoil'd. 
 Then was white pepper o'er it gently pour'd, 
 And vinegar of Lesbian vintage sour'd." * 
 
 In connection with sauces, the following tale so 
 well told by Savarin, may not be out of place. 
 
 The Prince de Soubise, intending to give an enter- 
 tainment, which was to end with a supper, asked his 
 maitre-d' hotel for the menu which was duly brought 
 to him. The first item on the list was "fifty hams." 
 "What, Bertrancl," said the Prince, "thou dreamest; 
 fifty hams ! Dost thou wish to regale my whole regi- 
 ment? " " No, my Prince; only one ham will appear 
 
 * Translation of Philip Francis, D. D. 
 
SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 193 
 
 on the table, but the surplus will not be less necessary 
 for my brown s^auce, my blonds, my garnitures, 
 my . . ." " Bertrand you are robbing me, and 
 this article will not pass." — "Ah! my Lord," said 
 the artist scarcely able to repress his anger, "you 
 know not our resources! Command, and these fifty 
 obfuscating hams will be so reduced as to be con- 
 tained in a crystal vial no larger than the thumb." 
 The Prince smiled and the article passed. 
 
 Another story, taken from Berchoux's poem "La 
 Gastronomie" together with the note thereon may 
 be worth recording here as it refers to a sauce. 
 
 "Domitien un jour se presents au senat: 
 Peres consents, dit-il, une affaire d'etat 
 M'appelle aupres de vous. Je ne viens point vous dire 
 Qu'il s'agit de veiller au salut de Fempire; 
 Exciter votre zele, et prendre vos avis 
 Sur les destins de Rome et des peuples conquis; 
 Agiter avec vous ou la paix ou la guerre: 
 Vains projets sur lesquels vous n'avez qu' a vous taire; 
 II s'agit d'un turbot: daignez deliberer 
 Sur la sauce qu'on doit lui faire preparer . . . 
 Le senat mit aux voix cette affaire importante, 
 Et le turbot fut mis a la sauce piquante." 
 
 The piquant sauce is here a poetical fiction of Ber- 
 choux; the original story being as follows: Domitian 
 one day convoked the senate to know in what vase 
 could be cooked an enormous turbot that had been 
 sent him. The senators gravely discussed the ques- 
 tion, and as there could not be found a vessel of suf- 
 ficient size, it was proposed to cut up the fish, but 
 this suggestion was rejected. After prolonged delib- 
 
194 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 eration it was solemnly decided that a vase be con- 
 structed for the purpose. t 
 
 Savarin, more ingenious than the gluttonish 
 Romans, describes in characteristicly felicitous style, 
 his management of a monster turbot, too large for 
 the ordinary domestic fish boiler and too fine a speci- 
 men to be allowed to spoil, for it was not to be cut 
 up. He succeeded in cooking it by steam in half an 
 hour with the aid of a quickly improvised apparatus, 
 and in serving it whole and well seasoned much to 
 the entertainment and delight of the company which 
 was to enjoy the delicate dish. . . . 
 
 While modern gourmets enjoy to the fullest extent 
 of their senses the delicacy of skilfully prepared sauces, 
 those who eat mechanicly and only to appease the 
 cravings of hunger are content with anything of a 
 fatty nature. It is related of an illustrious soldier, 
 remarkable for his sobriety, and for always being so 
 preoccupied with his plans of battle as to sometimes 
 forget to eat, that once at the evening meal he sea- 
 soned his meat with a malodorous, nauseous, medicinal 
 unguent, which was at hand and which he had mis- 
 taken for the intended sauce and that he ate this 
 without seeming to be aware of his mistake. 
 
 Nothing could form a more marked contrast to the 
 careless habits of eating and lack of appreciation of 
 good things just stated than the talk of a noted 
 modern French gourmet who said that he greatly 
 prized his cook, not because of the scrupulous care 
 she took in the preparation of roasts and entremets, 
 
SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 195 
 
 but because she was incomparable for supremes of 
 fowls, and crayfish butter, unique in her talent for 
 Italian sauces, and marvelous for salmis. One of his 
 gastronomic adages was to the effect that in order 
 to enjoy a truffled turkey, only two were required: 
 the turkey and himself. 
 
 Any man unwilling to pay well for a good sauce is 
 likely to be regarded as the meanest and most des- 
 picable of creatures by the artistic chef. This is 
 well illustrated in the "Art of Dining," second edi- 
 tion, 1853, as follows: 
 
 " Colonel Damer, happening to enter Crockford's 
 one evening to dine early, found Ude walking up and 
 down in a towering passion, and naturally inquired 
 what was the matter. 'The matter, Monsieur le 
 Colonel! Did you see that man who has just gone 
 out? Well, he ordered a red mullet for his dinner. 
 I made him a delicious little sauce with my own hands. 
 The price of the mullet marked on the carte was 2s.; 
 I added 6d. for the sauce. He refuses to pay the 6d. 
 That imbecille apparently believes that the red mullets 
 come out of the sea with my sauce in their pockets!" 
 
 The subject of sauces should not be dismissed 
 without allusion to the sauce Robert rendered famous 
 by the epitaph on a grave-stone in the cemetery of 
 Pere la Chaise. 
 
 "Ci git qui des l'age le plus tendre 
 Inventa la sauce Robert; 
 Mais jamais il ne put apprendre 
 Ni son credo ni son pater." 
 
XIV 
 
 OF SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 
 "Ye are the salt of the earth." 
 
 Ye, whose sa'pience comprises the material universe 
 and whose verbal exchequer is inexhaustible, are 
 surely aware of the vast importance of freely ingest- 
 ing the most substantial mental and physical pabula, 
 such as will not fail to invigorate soul and body, 
 memory and imagination, speech and gesture, and 
 thus enable you to examine criticly and discuss 
 calmly the grave, intricate, and momentous question 
 of the nature of those condiments that not only 
 facilitate digestion but flatter the palate, accelerate 
 the circulation, gladden the spirits, stimulate the 
 thinking apparatus and speed the solution of all 
 imaginable riddles. 
 
 Let us first give a little attention to some of those 
 condiments employed in early times, that are still in 
 use, such as common salt, oil, lard, suet, milk, cream, 
 butter and cheese. Although the fatty were the 
 earliest discovered, the salty, for no reason whatso- 
 ever, will be examined first. The name salt was 
 formerly given to many substances of very different 
 nature, but modern chemists apply the generic term 
 salt to the combination of an acid with one or more 
 bases, and recognise neutral, alkaline and acid salts. 
 
 196 
 
SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 197 
 
 Some salts are alike alimentary and intellectual con- 
 diments. They are not all characterized by piquan- 
 cy, pungency, bitterness, or the flavor known as salty, 
 for many of them lack those qualities. Among these 
 salines are the solid, liquid, gaseous, and metaphoric. 
 Certain solid salts are found in the bowels of the earth, 
 hence their laxative properties; those in the liquid 
 state are in salt springs, lakes, and seas, in many 
 vegetable organisms, in the blood of animated crea- 
 tures, and in the minds of the learned; the gaseous, 
 which are generally insipid, emanate from "intra- 
 cranial tympanites," a condition discovered and 
 named by a learned Exegetist who had observed it 
 principally in speakers affected with a prodigious 
 flow of inflated verbiage and a chronic destitution of 
 ideas. The metaphoric salt seasons, with temperance, 
 good taste, and judgment, the works of eminent 
 writers and sound thinkers and is always agreeable, 
 entertaining, and instructive to attentive readers. 
 An exquisitely flavored metaphoric salt, the Attic, 
 discovered in the speech and writings of the pandits 
 and wits of ancient Athens, is often borrowed by the 
 moderns who highly prize it as the symbol of sapience. 
 We must not forget that proverbial grain of salt so 
 appropriately used by the elder Pliny,* and now so 
 
 * "Addito salis grano" — there being a grain of salt added. 
 Pliny, Book XXIII, Chapter VIII (77) in the formula for an 
 antidote for poisons. "Cum grano salis — with great limitation. 
 As salt is sparingly used for a condiment, so truth is sparingly 
 scattered in an exaggerated report." "With a grain of salt — 
 with something to help swallowing it. With some latitude or 
 allowance. Said of anything to which we are unable to give 
 implicit credence." 
 
198 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 often wrongly pluralised into many grains, without 
 improving in the least degree the original "cum grano 
 salis." It would scarcely do to omit mention of the 
 divine William's saline metaphor in the dialogue 
 between Sir John and the Chief Justice in II Henry 
 IV, 1, 2. — "Your Lordship, though not clean past 
 your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some 
 relish of the saltness of time." And another in the 
 "Merry Wives," II, 3 — "We have some salt of our 
 youth with us." 
 
 Many culinary terms with the prefix sal are among 
 those in which this condiment prevails to give certain 
 aliments the right savor, such as salmi, salad, salse 
 the middle English word for sauce, saligot which is a 
 stew of tripe and is also the vulgar name of the water- 
 chestnut, and many other terms of the kitchen. The 
 dish of chopped meat with onions, eggs, etc., commonly 
 styled salmagundi, but by the Italians salmigundi, 
 is so called owing to its markedly salty flavor, from 
 the Latin sal and the past participle conditus of con- 
 dire, to pickle. The French took from the Italians 
 the word salmi, which they gave to a ragout of game 
 birds, far different and much more savory than the 
 primitive salmigundi* 
 
 The principal use of salt in certain regions of the 
 country is to preserve pigs for exportation before 
 their post-mortem conversion into adipocere, or their 
 consumption by microbia. 
 
 * A noted parasite and miser once said to his friends with 
 whom he was to dine: "Do you furnish the meats and wine, 
 I shall contribute the salt." 
 
SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 199 
 
 The illustrious dean of St. Patrick long since sug- 
 gested a new use for sodium chlorid which was to con- 
 vert Irish infants into salt provisions for the navy, 
 and thus prevent poor children from being a burden 
 to their parents. 
 
 Pliny tells of the salting of cadavers to prevent de- 
 composition until the moment of cremation, just as 
 we now use ice to preserve bodies until the time of 
 their inhumation. 
 
 Shakspeare mentions the use of salt as an addition 
 to the tortures inflicted in his time. On the sud- 
 den and shocking announcement of the marriage of 
 Octavia and Antony, Cleopatra strikes down the 
 unwelcome messenger, calls him bad names, wools 
 him, and says: 
 
 "Thou shalt be whipped with wire, and stewed in brine, 
 Smarting in ling'ring pickle." 
 
 — Antony and Cleopatra, 2, 5. 
 
 SALTY CONDIMENTS. 
 
 The salty condiments now in use are few, and among 
 them only the following need be mentioned, viz.: 
 sodium, magnesium and potassium chlorids and 
 potassium oxalate and nitrate. The ancient adage 
 sal sapit omnia has particular reference to sodium 
 chlorid. The finding of this salt is one of the many 
 evidences of man's indebtedness, to those creatures 
 he is pleased to style the lower animals, for the enjoy- 
 ment of many luxuries and necessities. To the birds * 
 
 * Were it not for the blessed insectivorous birds, all vegetable 
 food and textile stuffs would be devoured in the bud by bugs, 
 
200 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 is he not beholden for his knowledge of the nutritive 
 properties of the cereals, to the rodentia for the nuts 
 and birds' eggs, to the apes for the milk in the cocoa- 
 nut and for many luscious fruits, to the swine for 
 the roots and the truffle, to some of the herbivora for 
 the salty grasses containing potassium oxalate and 
 nitrate, to the carnivora for flesh, meat, etc.? It is 
 therefore more than likely that the discovery of salt 
 was made by a ruminant animal which a wild man 
 saw in the act of licking a glistening deposit on the 
 clay surface or the rock at or near the mouth of 
 a spring. Imitative, like his kinsman the simian, 
 that man soon began experiments with the aid of 
 his lingual appendage and found so much pleasure 
 in the process, and was so greedy for a quicker and 
 greater supply, that he contrived a way to scrape off 
 and gather some of the stuff with which he afterward 
 seasoned his coarse and hitherto tasteless porridge. 
 These crystalline formations, vulgarly called salt- 
 licks, have long been visited by the bison, common 
 deer, and other ruminants, so many of which have 
 perished in the adjacent deep mire, that one of the 
 springs in the State of Kentucky bears the name of 
 Big-Bone-Lick. 
 
 caterpillars and other creeping things; leaving the food-beasts 
 to starve, and rendering man a naked, fish-eating creature soon 
 to perish from the consequences of the enforced exclusive diet! 
 What would then become of the "vegetarians?" What would 
 be their food should the grasses, roots, and nut and fruit trees 
 disappear owing to the destruction of birds and the multiplica- 
 tion of insects? Where would they find raiment for protection 
 from the cold when the cotton plant, the flax, the hemp, etc., 
 would all be extinct? 
 
SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 201 
 
 Who made the first plausible record of the discovery 
 of the properties of salt, it is not easy to ascertain, 
 Polidore Virgil writes that "salt, and the use thereof, 
 was perceived by Misor Salech," but does not say 
 who Misor Salech was and when he lived. Was 
 Misor Salech the prophet who lived before the time 
 of Abraham? 
 
 Salt, known to man from a very remote time, was 
 evidently for a great while the only condiment he 
 added to fat. It was afterward also employed for 
 other purposes, as when a town was destroyed the 
 Hebrew warriors spread salt on the site, believing 
 that the soil would thereby be rendered forever 
 sterile; the adjective salty in Hebraic language 
 being synonymous with barrenness. The Egyptians 
 and Romans entertained this belief and acted in 
 accordance therewith. . . . The new born were 
 rubbed with salt as a purifyer. The purpose of its 
 use in infant baptism, in modern times, is too well 
 known to require any commentary. . . . Among 
 some of the eastern nations, salt at this time is the 
 recognised emblem of friendship. To eat salt with 
 an Arab was and is regarded as the most sacred tie 
 of amity. . . . An Arab thief, on entering a 
 house in the dead of night, stumbling upon a lump of 
 salt, abstained from committing the intended rob- 
 bery and retired. . . . 
 
 Salt was the principal condiment of the Greeks and 
 Romans, who used it also in their sacrifices as an 
 offering that was always pleasing to the Gods. The 
 
202 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 salt receiver was invariably placed in the middle of 
 the table. Among the Romans, the wedding cake, 
 of flour and salt, was prepared by vestals and carried 
 in the procession in front of the bride when she was 
 led to the bridegroom's house. After supper each 
 guest received a portion of this cake.* . . . 
 
 The Roman soldier, who carried, on the march, a 
 burden of at least sixty pounds including fifteen days' 
 rations, was provided with a sufficiency of salt which 
 was added to his pack. The Roman ration consisted 
 of wheat, pork, oil, cheese, vegetables, and salt. . . . 
 The word salary (solarium) originated from the dis- 
 tribution of salt to the army. For a long time the 
 officers received a certain quantity of salt which 
 they sold for money to pay the troops. ... In 
 very early times the Greeks used salt for the preser- 
 vation of fish and other meats. Athenseus, in speak- 
 ing of the Athenians' fondness for pickled fish, says 
 that in recognition of the great service Chaerephilus 
 rendered by introducing salt fish to them, they en- 
 rolled his sons as citizens of Athens; and further says 
 that Alexis, in his Hippiscus and Soraci, makes men- 
 tion of Phidippus, who was a dealer in salt provisions 
 as "a foreigner who brought salt fish to Athens." 
 . . . Homer called salt divine, and speaks of 
 some nations who never used salt as a condiment. 
 . . . According to Sallust the Numidians disdained 
 adding salt or any other flavoring to their aliments. 
 
 * From this was evidently evolved the present sweet wedding 
 cake. 
 
SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 203 
 
 The Egyptian priests ordinarily used no salt with 
 their food. 
 
 FATTY CONDIMENTS. 
 
 Fat was undoubtedly the first condiment derived 
 from vegetable and animal matter, but besides being 
 a mere seasoning, it is an absolutely necessary food 
 for both man and beast. It is contained in greater 
 or less proportion in the grasses, grains, nuts, tubers, 
 and fruits with which animal life is sustained. Man, 
 the most cruel and not the least rapacious of om- 
 nivorous beasts, obtains a great part of the fat he 
 consumes by slaughtering and devouring dumb 
 beasts, while in time of famine he has become anthro- 
 pophagous, and it is not very long since that he 
 practised cannibalism from choice. In those times 
 a man was not declared good unless fat, then he was 
 good to be eaten, under the name of long-pig, short- 
 pig being the swine. 
 
 Some paleontosophists who have found certain 
 fossil bones bi-sected longitudinally, are disposed to 
 regard this as designedly done by man to pick out 
 the marrow for a bonne-bouche. Precisely how the 
 marrow bones were served to the primitive gourmets, 
 whether as entrees or entremets, has not yet been as- 
 certained. One thing, however, seems highly prob- 
 able, and it is that those who split these bones did 
 so to enjoy the marrow's fat. 
 
 Fats, in the form of oil, lard,* suet, cream, and 
 
 * The subjoined statement gives some idea of the amount 
 of surplus fatty products of the United States and of its dis- 
 
204 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 butter, to fry certain aliments, to enrich sauces, to 
 give consistency to some puddings, and to lighten 
 pasties, are now absolutely indispensable to the 
 accomplished cook. In countries where olives abound 
 their oil is used almost exclusively in cookery — 
 cuisine h Vhuile — while in regions of rich pastures 
 butter is the principal fat in use — cuisine au beurre — 
 and in great cities, where all dainties are obtained, 
 lard and suet are added as fatty condiments. The 
 consistency and pearly appearance of lard are owing 
 to the abundance of margarin and the small quantity 
 of stearin, whilst the hardness of suet is due to the 
 great amount of stearin in proportion to the mar- 
 garin and olein which enter into its composition. 
 These two fats hold such an important place in the 
 modern kitchen as to have given rise to the saying: 
 No ox, no suet; no sheep, no tallow; no pig, no lard; 
 no cow, no butter; no fats, no cook; and no cook, 
 savagery!* . . .* 
 
 Man is sometimes placed in situations where he 
 is obliged to resort to expedients which are justified 
 only by dire necessity. For instance, whalers, short 
 of fatty provisions, have employed freshly tried whale 
 
 position. In 1898 the exports of these products to foreign coun- 
 tries were as follows: 
 
 Lard 709,344,045 lbs. 
 
 Lard Oil 775,102 gals. . 
 
 Cotton-seed Oil ... . 40,230,784 gals. 
 
 Much of the exported cotton-seed oil is said to be returned 
 to this country labelled as "prime olive oil." 
 
 * Lard appears to have been introduced into cookery by the 
 ancient Persians. 
 
SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 205 
 
 oil to fry doughnuts and other dainties; declaring it 
 to be sweet, savory, and wholesome. 
 
 A distinguished chemist who was asked what is 
 oil? answered, there are essential and fixed oils; 
 the fixed oils of vegetable or animal origin are sub- 
 stances usually liquid at ordinary temperatures, 
 becoming solid on cooling, more or less viscid, insolu- 
 ble in water, saponifiable by alkalies, yielding soap 
 and glycerin. — At that moment it was suggested to 
 him that the statement was rather a description than 
 a definition, and that it was remindful of a certain 
 youth's attempted definition of love, beginning with 
 a declamation that promised to be of tedious length, 
 when he was abruptly interrupted with the excla- 
 mation that love is love and nothing else ! * So it 
 may be said that oil is oil and nothing else. Then 
 a would-be syllogistical wight undertook confidently 
 the task of definition and said that fat is greasy and 
 grease is fatty; argal, all fats are greasy and all 
 grease is fatty; fixed oils are unctuous and unguents 
 are oily; argal, all fixed oils are unctuous and all 
 unguents are oily; fixed oils are fatty liquids and 
 fats are oily solids; argal, all fixed oils are fatty liquids 
 and all fats are oily solids, f The Shakspearean 
 grave-digger could not have done better! . . . 
 
 * Robert Herrick undertakes to tell "what love is:" 
 " Love is a circle that doth restless move 
 In the same sweet eternity of Love." 
 t Oil originally signified olive oil; the word being derived from 
 the Latin oleum, related to the Greek elaion, from elaia, olive 
 tree. The chemists designate fixed or fatty oils as triglycerides 
 of the fatty acids known as oleic, margaric, and stearic acids. 
 
206 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Oil and other fats are of great value to metaphor- 
 ists who employ them to calm troubled waters, and 
 to designate well filled purses, lucrative offices, pro- 
 lific soils, rich pastures, and many other things fat 
 and flourishing. 
 
 Milk, which enters so largely into the diet of man, 
 is worthy of more attention than it is likely to receive 
 in this short sketch. The milk commonly used in 
 this country is from the domestic cow. In other 
 countries, however, as in China, the milk of every 
 domesticable mammal is employed for obtaining 
 cream and butter, and wherever the wild cow roams, 
 it is seized for a milker and its lacteous product is 
 preferred to that of the domestic animals. Cow's 
 milk, say the chemists, consists of four per centum 
 of casein and albumen united to a small proportion 
 of tribasic calcium phosphate; four per centum of 
 milk globules or butter, five per centum of lactose 
 or milk sugar, and traces of alkaline salts dissolved in 
 the eighty-seven parts of water, the whole being an 
 emulsion which on standing separates into cream and 
 an opaline serum containing the lactose, casein and 
 albumen. Although milk is generally regarded by 
 wine bibbers as an aliment fit only for the first and 
 last ages of man — that sans teeth, sans hair, sans 
 everything period — many heavy topers are wont to 
 use it not only as a sobering, thirst quenching luxury, 
 but often as a menstruum for strong drink. Milk, 
 as a condiment to coffee, and cream to tea, were first 
 used in the latter part of the seventeenth century. 
 
SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 207 
 
 Cream, as now separated centrifugally from the 
 milk, is said to contain from twenty-five to thirty 
 per centum of butter. . . . There prevails among 
 some of the peasantry of Europe the absurd idea that 
 the yield of cream is increased by dropping into the 
 milk a small piece of zinc. The following may appro- 
 priately be sandwiched between cream and butter: 
 
 Fat Jack — Tut! never fear me; I am as vigilant as a cat to 
 steal cream. 
 
 Prince Henry — I think, to steal cream indeed; for thy 
 theft hath already made thee butter. — I Henry IV, 4, 2. 
 
 Butter was not known to the early Greeks whose 
 poets ignored it while they so often made mention of 
 milk and cheese. According to Beekman they after- 
 ward learned its use from the Scythians, Thracians, 
 and Phrygians. The Romans, who got it from the 
 people of Germania, did not use it as an aliment but 
 as an unguent for their infants. The Spaniards also, 
 for a long time, used butter solely as a salve in the 
 treatment of wounds. The word boutyron (butter) 
 is from bous tyros, which, in reality, means cheese 
 made of cow's milk. What may have been the Scy- 
 thian word from which it is said to have been derived 
 does not seem to be known, since no writings in Scy- 
 thian have been found. The Phrygian word for but- 
 ter was pikerion. Athenaeus, in the Deipnosophists, 
 Book X, 67, quotes Hecatseus as saying of the Egyp- 
 tians that "they anoint themselves with the oil of 
 milk." ... In Book IV, 7, Yong's translation, 
 is the following: "And a countless number of men, 
 
208 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 with dirty hands and hair uncombed, supped on 
 butter." ... An Athenian woman and a Spar- 
 tan woman once meeting face to face, both instantly 
 turned their heads in disgust; the first named be- 
 cause of the smell of rancid butter * exhaled by the 
 second, and she because of the strong odor of the 
 perfumes with which the Athenian had impreg- 
 nated her garments. De (odoribus) non est dispu- 
 tandum. 
 
 In Genesis, 18, 8, may be read: " And he took but- 
 ter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and 
 set it before them; and he stood by them under the 
 tree, and they did eat." . . . During the early 
 years of Christianity, butter was often burned in the 
 lamps instead of oil,t and this custom is even now 
 observed in Abyssinia. Fresh butter known as karra 
 in India is seldom used by the natives. The Tartars, 
 says Balfour, make from goat's milk a kind of butter 
 which they boil and preserve in goat-skins for winter 
 use; and although they put in no salt, it never spoils. 
 In Tibet butter is obtained in enormous quantities 
 from yak's milk and kept as winter food. Some 
 Orientals still drink melted butter and also soak 
 therein their vegetable food. 
 
 * In the fifth century, and later, the Burgundians and other 
 peoples of eastern France, still used rancid butter as a hair 
 pomatum, and it is so used by the Abyssinians to this day. 
 
 |The "butter," mentioned by the translators of Genesis, 
 was probably ox-fat, asserts an unbeliever, and that which 
 was burned in the lamps, he says, was in all likelihood, some 
 rancid fat fit for nothing else, and surely was not extracted from 
 milk. 
 
SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 209 
 
 The appraisal of that rich, nutritious aliment, and 
 delicious condiment, cheese, merits so much more 
 space than can be given it in this, that it will have 
 to be examined in the next sketch. 
 
XV 
 
 OF CHEESE 
 
 "A dessert without cheese is a belle who lacks an eye." 
 
 Tyrophilic diners, whose chief gastronomic maxim 
 may well be "my cheese, my digestion," * lend your 
 melodious strains to sound in harmony the praise of 
 this precious aliment and savory condiment the use 
 of which is believed to be very much older than civi- 
 lisation, although the learned Father Polidore cannot 
 trace it beyond Aristeus who, he says, "gathered the 
 cruddes of milk and made cheese first"; to effect 
 which that princely cheesemonger must have dis- 
 covered the properties of at least two of the many 
 equivalents of rennet as well as some mode of ex- 
 pelling the whey and of pressing the curd into the 
 wonted solid mass, or, what is more likely, all the 
 needed information was handed down to his royal 
 highness through many generations, by his distant 
 trogloditic ancestor, chief of the far-famed Sour Juice 
 Club, and possessor of great flocks of sheep whose 
 milk he had probably converted into hard cheeses 
 
 * "Why, my cheese, my digestion, why hast thou not served 
 thyself in to my table so many meals?" . . . Achilles to 
 Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, 2, 3. 
 
 210 
 
CHEESE 211 
 
 for winter food. This makes it clear that from very 
 remote times cheese has been made and used as an 
 aliment, wherever domesticable mammals could be 
 found; the many varieties depending upon the char- 
 acter and habits of the animals, the nature of the 
 microbic ferment, and the mode of preparation and 
 treatment of the product. Throughout Eastern pas- 
 turable countries, ewes' milk or goats' milk has 
 generally produced good cheese. Sicily was particu- 
 larly noted for her cheese cakes and her delicately 
 flavored cheeses which were so highly prized by all 
 amateurs of tyros. Besides the many different kinds 
 eaten, was the fresh cheese — trophalis — known as the 
 "glory of fair Sicily." Athenaeus speaks of the high 
 character of the Achaian cheese — "the delicious 
 Tromilican" — made of goats' milk, and also of a 
 "harsh-tasted cheese, which Euripides calls opias 
 tyros, curdled by the juice (opos) of the fig tree." . . . 
 Although ancient nations held cheese in high 
 estimation, it is not likely that any of them manu- 
 factured it on so large a scale as those of our time. 
 No better idea of the extent of cheese making, and 
 its use as a food stuff and condiment, can be 
 formed than by casting a glance at the facts given 
 of its production in the small territory of Great 
 Britain and Ireland where its average annual out- 
 put, up to the year 1885, is said to have been not 
 less than eighty thousand tons (180,000,000 pounds) 
 principally in Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Shropshire, 
 and Derbyshire; Cheshire contributing fourteen thou- 
 
212 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 sand tons; Leicestershire producing the well known 
 stilton, and Somersetshire the cheddar. Besides her 
 domestic yield, England imports and consumes great 
 quantities of every description of cheeses from this 
 and other countries. According to the United States 
 census of 1889, the output of cheese by all the 
 States was 238,035,065 pounds; the State of New 
 York alone contributing 119,762,496 pounds, or more 
 than half the total amount for the U. S. In 1849 
 the output from farms was 105,535,893 pounds; 
 this steadily decreased until 1889 when it was only 
 18,726,818 pounds. In the same year the farm 
 cheese output of New York State was reduced to 
 4,324,028 pounds. This decrease hi the production 
 of farm cheese is owing to the fact that a very great 
 part of the farms' milk has, for some time, been turned 
 over to the many cheese factories that have sprung 
 up in different parts of the country. The propor- 
 tionately larger production and consumption of cheese 
 in Great Britain than in the United States may be 
 accounted for by the fact that it is one of the most 
 common of the articles of diet of Englishmen, whereas 
 Americans, who eat cheese sparingly, consume very 
 much butter, whose output according to the U. S. 
 census of 1889 was 1,024,223,468 pounds 'from 
 farms only, and 181,284,916 pounds from the large 
 creameries, making a total of 1,205,508,380, or 
 more than five times as much butter as cheese pro- 
 duced in the United States. New York State 
 makes annually 112,727,515 pounds of butter chiefly 
 
CHEESE 213 
 
 for home consumption, as against 119,762,496 
 pounds of cheese, the major part of which being 
 for exportation. Then, too, milk is used through- 
 out this country in very great quantity as a common 
 beverage, as a condiment in coffee and tea, and as 
 a luxury in desserts, etc. The total production of 
 milk (U. S. census) in 1889 was 5,210,125,567 gal- 
 lons by 16,511,950 cows. In New York State alone 
 1,440,230 cows during the year 1889 gave 663,719,240 
 gallons of milk. .' . . 
 
 Cheese in English, kase in German, kaas in Dutch, 
 cacio in Italian, queso in Spanish, queixo in Portu- 
 guese, all come from the Latin caseus; while the 
 French fromage, and the Italian formaggio are derived 
 from the vulgar Latin formaticum from the classical 
 Latin forma, the vat in which the cheese takes its 
 form. The modern Greek word for cheese is tyri 
 from the Greek tyros. ... 
 
 In Europe and in this country three primary 
 classes of cheese are made; the soft, the firm, and 
 the hard. The French, however, class cheeses as 
 the soft fresh, the soft salted, the hard prepared cold, 
 the hard prepared hot, and the strong or fermented. 
 The percentage of water in soft cheeses varies from 
 thirty-six to fifty-one; of casein and albumen from 
 ten to twenty-five; of fat from twenty-one to forty; 
 and of milk-sugar from four to fifteen. The variations 
 of percentage of water in firm and hard cheeses range 
 from twenty to forty; of casein, from twenty-five to 
 forty-four; of fat, from fifteen to forty; and of milk- 
 
214 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 sugar from one to six. Parmesan,* which is the 
 hardest of cheeses, contains twenty -seven of water; 
 forty-four of casein, sixteen of fat; and six and a 
 fraction of milk-sugar. The cream cheeses to be soon 
 consumed are little if at all salted; while to those 
 made for exportation a sufficiency of salt is added for 
 their preservation. Among the many excellent fresh 
 cheeses of France are the Petit Gervais, served for 
 dessert in the Paris Cafes, the delicious Saint Gervais, 
 sprinkled with powdered sugar, eaten from tiny cups 
 at Blois, and the Brie, Camembert, and Pont l'Eveque 
 salted for foreign markets. The cream cheese of 
 Banbury in Oxfordshire owed its fame not only to 
 its superexcellence but to its special notice by Shaks- 
 peare and by Burton. When Master Slender — in the 
 Merry Wives — accused the minions of Sir John of 
 taking him to the tavern and adding "knockout 
 drops" to his liquor and of picking his pockets, 
 Bardolph, after a general denial of guilt, characterized 
 him as a "Banbury cheese," which is soft and thin, 
 all paring. Burton says: "Of all cheeses, I take that 
 kind which we call Banbury cheese to be the best." 
 In recent years excellent cream cheeses have been 
 made in this country. The New Jersey imitations 
 
 * In common with Parmesan, Suffolk cheese of old is said to 
 have been of adamantine hardness, and besides was as poor as 
 hard; hence the old saw: 
 
 "Hunger will break through anything except Suffolk cheese." 
 In Forby's Vocabulary, Suffolk cheese is made to lament its 
 own hardness, as follows: 
 
 "Those that made me were uncivil, 
 For they made me harder than the devil. 
 Knives won't cut me; fire won't sweat me; 
 Dogs bark at me, but can't eat me." 
 
CHEESE 215 
 
 of the Brie and Neuchatel are used in preference to 
 the imported since these are seldom in fit condition 
 when they reach us. It will probably not be long 
 before good imitations of the Camembert and Pont 
 l'Eveque will be produced in New York or Jersey. 
 Already a cream cheese similar to the Petit Gervais 
 made here, is eaten, generally served upon a biscuit, 
 sometimes with one fourth of its bulk of Gruyere, 
 and occasionally with sugar or with a sweet jam. 
 Our American cottage cheese is well adapted to the 
 confection of sweet cheese cakes made of light pastry. 
 Among the many imported cheeses in this market 
 are: the Swiss, Strasburger Minister, Sage,* English 
 Dairy, Cheddar, Stilton, Gorgonzola, Roquefort, 
 Edam, Leyden Spiced, Hamburger Kummel, Sapsago, 
 Parmesan, Neuchatel, Columnier, Isigny, Brie, Ca- 
 membert, Pont l'Eveque, Gervais, Romatour, Hol- 
 land Gonda, Thuringer, Mainzer, Liederkranz and 
 Koppen dessert cheeses, Bismarck, and the strong 
 smelling fermented Limburger. The chief domestic 
 cheeses are similar to the English, French, and Swiss, 
 and some of them are excellent imitations of the 
 foreign products, as the Schweizer, Dairy, Cheddar, 
 Edam, Stilton, Neuchatel, Brie, and Gervais. Each 
 locality has its own peculiar cheeses, and their quality 
 and flavor are owing not only to the kind of milk used, 
 to the aromatic spices sometimes added to the rennet, 
 and to the mode of preparation, but to the native 
 micro-organisms, as shown in the following excerpt. 
 
 * Sage cheese is often called green cheese, but the term green 
 cheese is usually applied to unripe cheese or to cream cheese. 
 
216 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 "ON THE FLAVOR OF CHEESES. 
 
 "From Good Words. 
 
 "It is a curious fact that certain districts produce 
 certain flavored cheeses, and that those cheeses can- 
 not be produced except in their respective localities. 
 It is now explained that there are specific forms of 
 bacteria indigenous to those districts and not found 
 elsewhere, and it is the presence of these in the milk 
 that gives the local flavor, and various experiments 
 have been made to ascertain if it is possible to culti- 
 vate these local bacteria and then transport them into 
 districts producing inferior cheese. For instance, a 
 certain cheese fungus has its home in Normandy, and 
 probably in Normandy alone, and to its aid we are 
 indebted for a certain kind of cheese. Cultures of 
 this germ were obtained and sent into Holstein and 
 artificially introduced into milk set aside for cheese- 
 making. The result was not altogether satisfactory, 
 for though at times the cheese had a good Normandy 
 flavor, at other times it reverted, apparently without 
 reason, into that of the local Holstein. Herr Hofel- 
 meyer, the experimenter, speaks feelingly of the dis- 
 appointing and unaccountable relapses brought about 
 by the subtle influence of the bacteria of the place, 
 an influence which hitherto has resisted the successful 
 working of imported species. It may be noticed in 
 passing that the organisms bringing about every form 
 of cheese ripening are not necessarily all bacteria, 
 though always belonging to the great group of the 
 
CHEESE 217 
 
 fungi. Thus the distinctive flavors of Roquefort, 
 Gorgonzola, Camembert, and Stilton are induced by 
 a blue mold, a fungus designated Penicillium glaucum, 
 a common enough variety found often on old boots, 
 crusts, jams, etc., which ramifies in the cheese, and 
 produces the striking blue veins and patches." 
 
 The Roquefort cheese of southern France and other 
 pungent cheeses made in Spain, are obtained from 
 ewes' milk, where flocks of sheep abound and other 
 cattle are scarce. Hence the old Spanish saw: 
 
 "Queso de ovejas, leche de cabras, manteca de vacas. " 
 " Cheese from the ewe, milk from the goat, butter from the cow." 
 
 Cheese affords a striking example of the ordinary 
 relation of host to habitation. To the tiny vegetable 
 and animal denizens to whom it affords snug lodging 
 and abundant food, a cheese is a vast world with 
 ample caverns containing air, water, oil; whilst divers 
 salts are included in its nitrogenous substance that 
 serve as nutriment to innumerable forests of micro- 
 bia eaten in salad by colonies of busy mites and 
 dancing maggots that are themselves sometimes de- 
 voured by swarms of ants, or by a greedy rodent, but 
 generally by their gigantic enemy man, whose vorac- 
 ity would seem insatiable to his diminutive victims 
 if they could see him eat. There has long been a 
 general but unwarranted belief that old cheese, to be 
 good and palatable, must be more or less decomposed 
 or infested with many sorts of parasites, hence the 
 saying: 
 
218 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 "The richness of a cheese is discovered by the multiplicity of 
 its mites." 
 
 And Berchoux's lines in his poem La Gastronomie: 
 
 "Le dessert est servi: quel brillant etalage! 
 On a senti de loin cet enorme fromage 
 Qui doit tout son merite aux outrages du temps." 
 
 Hippocrates believed old cheese to produce flatu- 
 lency and constipation and to heat the other articles 
 of food; giving rise to crudities and indigestion, and 
 being particularly injurious when eaten along with 
 drink after a full meal. Celsus, too, expressed similar 
 opinions and spoke of old cheese as one of the most 
 unwholesome articles of diet. But of new soft cheese 
 he thought better. Dioscorides, Galen, Pliny, and 
 afterward Avicenna and other ancient authors had 
 the same good opinion of unsalted new cheese which 
 they regarded as very nutritious. Paul of Aegina 
 also adopted the Hippocratic dicta, particularly about 
 old cheese; saying that "old cheese is acrid, occasions 
 thirst, is difficult to digest, forms bad chyme, and en- 
 genders stones. That is best which is new, spongy, 
 soft, sweet, and has a moderate share of salt. The 
 opposite kind is the worst." * Of the medicinal 
 properties of cheese the same author reiterates Galen's 
 views and says: "Cheese, that which is new made, 
 and soft, has repellent powers, cooling gently, so as 
 when applied to agglutinate wounds. That called 
 
 * The seven Books of Paulus Aegineta, Sydenham Society 
 Edition, 1844. 
 
CHEESE £19 
 
 oxygalactinous acquires slightly discutient powers 
 in addition, and is more agglutinative of wounds. 
 Old cheese, especially such as is fatty, becomes 
 discutient, so as to be a fit application to tophi 
 in arthritic complaints, particularly along with the 
 decoction of swine's flesh pickled, and fat." Ebn 
 Baithar wrote, at great length, of cheese as an article 
 of food and as a medicinal agent,* and Avicenna 
 recommended new cheese as an application in eye 
 inflammation. The Salernum School, too, spoke its 
 word about cheese eating: 
 
 "Caseus est frigidus, stipans, grossus quoque, durus." 
 "Caseus et panis, bonus est cibus hie bene sanis." 
 •'Post pisces nux sit, post carnes caseus adsit." 
 
 The long prevalent, but erroneous, notion that 
 cheese is indigestible gave rise to the old medical 
 aphorism : 
 
 "Caseus est nequam quia concoquit omnia secum." 
 Cheese is injurious because it digests all things with itself. 
 
 It is, however, rendered in Ray's Proverbs (1670) as : 
 
 "Cheese it is a peevish elfe, 
 It digests all things but itself." 
 
 This is quoted by Wadd in his Comments on Cor- 
 pulency, and, with slight variations, by many other 
 writers, notably Dr. Kitchiner, from whose work the 
 
 *"The Laps make cheese of reindeer milk. They use it 
 medicinally for coughs, etc., also hot as a liniment for bruises, 
 and drink as a luxury a hot decoction of this cheese in the deer's 
 milk." 
 
 "Cheese is used for bait by anglers, as some fishes are very 
 fond of it." 
 
220 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 following notes, kindly furnished by a deipnosophic 
 correspondent, are inserted as testimony tending to 
 show the fallacy of the assertion that cheese, itself 
 indigestible, promotes digestion * 
 
 "The learned Dr. Kitchinerf treats with much con- 
 tempt the notion that cheese aids the digestion of 
 food. In one place he says: 
 
 'Others fancy their dinner cannot digest till they 
 have closed the orifice of their stomach with a certain 
 portion of cheese; if the preceding dinner has been a 
 light one, a little bit of cheese after it may not do 
 much harm, but its character for encouraging con- 
 coction is undeserved: there is not a more absurd 
 vulgar error than the oft-quoted proverb, that 
 
 'Cheese is a surly elf, 
 Digesting all things but itself/ 
 
 and in a note he quotes a remark of Dr. Trotter: 'I 
 
 would sooner encounter the prejudice of any sick 
 
 man, rather than those of a nervous glutton.' 
 
 In another place, pointing out the inconsistencies 
 
 of peptic rules, he falls into poetry: 
 
 'And though, as you think, to procure good digestion, 
 A mouthful of cheese is the best thing in question, 
 "In Gath do not tell, nor in Askalon blab it," 
 You're strictly forbidden to eat a Welch-rabbit.'" 
 
 * "Jack Jugler beats Jenkin and says: 
 
 'Gentleman, are you disposed to eat any fist mete?' 
 
 'Yet shall do a man of your dyet no harme to suppe twice 
 This shall be your chise, to make your mete digest.'" 
 t Kitchiner (William) Directions for invigorating and prolong- 
 ing life (etc.) From 6th London edition. New York, 1831. 
 
CHEESE 221 
 
 The idea of the alleged indigestibility of old cheese 
 strongly prevailed in the sixteenth century, judging 
 from the following adage in Bovilli's Proverbs and 
 in the others counselling its very sparing use. 
 
 " Le fromage n'est pas moins desplaisant que dommaigeable 
 a table." 
 
 "Fromage et melon au poids les prend-on." 
 
 "Cheese is gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at 
 night." — German 'proverb. 
 
 "Tout fromage est sain 
 S'il vient d'une chiche main." 
 
 "Le fromage est bon et sain 
 Que presente une avare main." 
 
 — Le Due. 
 
 The original being from the Salernum School, as 
 follows : 
 
 "Caseus est sanus quern dat avara manus." 
 Cheese when given with a sparing hand is wholesome. 
 
 Sir John Sinclair, in his Code of Health and 
 Longevity, says of cheese that it is unsuited as food 
 to children, and borne well only by those who take 
 much and constant exercise, and that the richer the 
 cheese the more nutritious, the leaner the more diffi- 
 cult to digest. 
 
 It is well known that the peasantry of many nations 
 feed largely on new cheese and that among them in- 
 digestion is not very common. Chiefly by reason 
 of the contained micro-organisms, cheese not only 
 digests itself but promotes the digestion of other 
 food From the many ancient adages 
 
222 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 relating to cheese eating the following are culled; 
 some of them showing with what freedom new cheese 
 may be eaten. 
 
 "Cheese and bread make the cheeks red." 
 — German proverb. 
 
 "Qui a fromage pour tous mets, 
 Peut bien tattler bien espez." 
 
 " Fromage et pain est medecine au sain." 
 
 "Au romage et jambon. 
 Cognoist-on voisin et compagnon." 
 
 "Fromage pesant pain leger, 
 Ne sont mauvais a manger." 
 
 Among other cheese ana and proverbs are the 
 following : 
 
 "Fromage tout autant que pain, 
 Ne fait pas un repas sain." 
 
 " Fromage avec pain et poire, 
 Ne veulent estre mangez sans boire." 
 
 "Entre la poire et le fromage." 
 
 That is, toward the end of a feast when jollity 
 begins, or confidential talk seems opportune. In his 
 Dictionnaire Comique, Le Roux has it : 
 
 "Entre le fromage et la poire 
 Chacun dit sa chanson a boire." 
 
 And Le Due in his Proverbes en Rimes, 1665: 
 
 " Entre la poyre et le fromage, 
 Discours de fol et de sage." 
 
CHEESE 223 
 
 " Bread and cheese is all very well, but cheese and cheese is 
 no sense." Said of two ladies kissing each other. — Dictionary 
 of English Dialect. 
 
 "To give chalk for cheese" is to pass an inferior 
 for a superior article. 
 
 "To know chalk from cheese." — Luke Shepherd's John Bon 
 and Mast. Person, 1551. 
 
 ''For thoughe I haue no learning, yet I know chese from 
 chalke . ' ' — H azlitt. 
 
 "The moon is made of green cheese/' says Hazlitt, 
 in his English Proverbs, occurs in "Jack Juggler," 
 A dialogue wherein is plainly layd open the tyran- 
 nicall dealing of Lord Bishops against God's chil- 
 dren (1589). 
 
 "Green cheese, cream cheese. Fools and children 
 are told that the moon is made of this material. 'To 
 make one swallow a gudgeon, or believe a he, and that 
 the moon is made of green cheese/ " appears in Florio's 
 works, quoted by Halliwell in his Dictionary of 
 Archaic and Proverbial Words. Under the head 
 gudgeon — "to swallow a gudgeon, is to be caught or 
 deceived, to be made a fool of. A gudgeon was also 
 a term for a lie (as appears in Florio, p. 476) and some- 
 times a joke or a taunt." (Halliwell.) 
 
 "The moon made of green cheese," ascribed to 
 Rabelais, in the English edition, Book I, Chapter XI, 
 anent the adolescence of Gargantua, seems to be an 
 interpolation of the translators, Urquhart and Mot- 
 teux. This English version has it that the young 
 
224 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Gargantua . . . "would beat the bushes with- 
 out catching the birds, thought the moon ivas made of 
 green cheese* and that bladders were lanterns." 
 
 In the several French editions examined, fromage 
 (cheese) does not occur anywhere in Chapter XI of 
 the first Book. In the three phrases of these French 
 editions there is not a word to warrant the English 
 rendering of Urquhart and Motteux, and the following 
 is the exact language of Rabelais : . . . "battait 
 les buissons sans prendre les ozillons, croyait que les 
 nues fussent paelles d'arain, et que les vessies fussent 
 lanternes." ... In the tenth phrase below this, 
 the moon is referred to as follows: "gardait la lime 
 des loups," which the glossary gives as a proverbial 
 locution, meaning, to take needless care. This al- 
 leged composition of fair luna was and is on the lips 
 of the facetious only of English speech. The question 
 is whether the locution has been used by Greek, Latin, 
 or other nations. Possibly some castanean pandits 
 may be able to discover it among mouldy parchments 
 or Chaldean or Egyptian remains. 
 
 Samuel Butler expresses a negative opinion as to 
 
 * In the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, the following occurs: 
 "He cries for the moon, i. e., He craves to have what is wholly 
 beyond his reach. The allusion is to foolish children who want 
 the moon for a plaything. The French say: He wants to take 
 the moon between his teeth (II vent prendre la lune avec les dents) 
 alluding to the old proverb about 'The moon' and 'a green 
 cheese.' " There surely is no rational ground for the assumption 
 that to wish to take the moon with the teeth is at all suggestive 
 of any particular composition of the satellite. If Rabelais had 
 thought of this or had cared to use the idea of the caseous nature 
 of the moon, he would assuredly have done so. 
 
CHEESE ' 225 
 
 the moon's make-up which he credits to the "con- 
 jurer" of whom he writes in Hudibras, Part II, Canto 
 III, lines 261-266: 
 
 "He made an instrument to know 
 If the moon shine at full or no; 
 That wou'd as soon as e'er she shone straight 
 Whether 'twere day or night demonstrate; 
 Tell what d'meter t' an inch is, 
 And prove that she's not made of green cheese." 
 
 It has been suggested that the saying — the moon is 
 made of green cheese — possibly arose from the old 
 belief that "digestion depends on putrefaction, and 
 that since the moon has putrefying properties, the 
 principal meal should be taken at night in order that 
 digestion be thereby promoted as it is by putrefying 
 green cheese, and that therefore the moon must 
 necessarily be made of green cheese." 
 
 The allusion to the moon, in connection with cheese, 
 by Martial, must be taken only for what it seems 
 worth. Epigram XXX, Book XIII. A cheese from 
 Luna. 
 
 "This cheese, marked with the likeness of the 
 Etruscan Luna * will serve your slaves a thousand 
 times for breakfast." 
 
 Consumed so largely as a condiment, aliment, and 
 luxurious dessert from time immemorial, it is not 
 strange that cheese should play such an important 
 part in commerce. The modes of using this precious 
 
 * " Luna (was) a town in Etruria. The mark on the cheese 
 was probably some likeness or emblem of the moon, or Diana." 
 
226 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 substance are so many that only a few of them can be 
 referred to in a brief essay. 
 
 In Italy the well-known hard cheese of Parma, 
 styled cacio parmigiano, has long been employed as a 
 condiment to the daily dish of macaroni and to many 
 viands. Other nations have used it in these ways 
 as well as to flavor soups and some dainty dishes. 
 Sundry English and American hard cheeses have, in 
 a measure, subserved these purposes but fail to re- 
 place the tasty Parmesan whose flavor is best adapted 
 to macaroni, spaghetti, and certain broths. . . . 
 
 On bread and cheese with a slice of onion, peasants 
 of many districts of Europe live almost entirely, and, 
 as a luxury, toast their slice of cheese spitted at the 
 end of a forked stick held before a brisk fire. The 
 peasant soldiery of old often used their swords for 
 this purpose and called them cheese toasters. 
 
 Corporal Nym to Lieutenant Barclolph (Henry V, 
 2, 1) says: . . . "I dare not fight; but I will 
 wink and hold out mine iron : it is a simple one ; but 
 what though? it will toast cheese, and it will endure 
 cold as another man's sword will." . . . 
 
 It is not unlikely that cheese, toasted at the end of 
 a fork, stick, or sword, before a blazing wood fire, 
 often becomes well saturated with smoke which may 
 be to the liking of the rustic or the soldier. But 
 smoked cheese seems to have been regarded as a lux- 
 ury among the higher classes of Romans, as it ap- 
 pears from Martial's epigram XXXII, in Book XIII 
 on Smoked Cheese, as follows: 
 
CHEESE 227 
 
 " It is not every hearth or every smoke that is suited 
 to cheese; but the cheese that imbibes the smoke of 
 the Velabrum * is excellent." 
 
 Toasted cheese was also eaten by epicures and this 
 same Martial seems to have enjoyed Trebula cheeses 
 in that form and makes them sing their own praise : 
 
 "Trebula gave us birth; a double merit recommends us, for 
 whether toasted at a gentle fire or softened in water, we are 
 equally good." 
 
 The very radical difference between toasted and 
 melted cheese is generally appreciated by good cooks 
 and by connoisseurs: the first being quickly parched 
 without losing its form. Fat Jack, in the Merry 
 Wives, 5, 5, says : " 'Tis time I were choked with a 
 piece of toasted cheese" ; while the second is gradually 
 heated, cooked to fluence, with the addition of very 
 little ale or beer, and poured from the pan upon a 
 slice of toasted bread. Served in this manner, it is 
 known as a Welsh-rabbit (not rare-bit) . In regard to 
 the jocular character of this term, the Century 
 Dictionary quotes the following from Macmillan's 
 Magazine: " Welsh-rabbit is a genuine slang term, 
 belonging to a large group which describes in the same 
 humorous way the special dish or product or pecu- 
 liarity of a particular district. For examples: . . . 
 an Essex lion is a calf; a Fieldlane duck is a baked 
 sheep's head; Glasgow magistrates or Norfolk capons 
 are red herrings; Irish apricots or Munster plums are 
 potatoes; Gravesend sweetmeats are shrimps." The 
 
 * "A place near Rome abounding with shops." 
 
228 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 varieties of Welsh-rabbit are many. Among them is 
 the golden buck, consisting of a superposed poached 
 egg to the rabbit; and the "slip-on," the melted 
 cheese being poured upon a hot mince pie. Another 
 common variety consists in the addition to the 
 rabbit of a thin broiled slice of ham or a bit of fried 
 bacon. . . . 
 
 The subject cheese should not be dismissed without 
 some reference to the excellent cheese pudding known 
 as fondue and which seems to have originated in 
 Switzerland. Savarin says of this delicacy that it is 
 not only of quick confection but wholesome, savory, 
 and appetising; and should not be eaten with a spoon 
 but with a fork.* The Swiss formula was extracted 
 by Savarin from the papers of M. Trollet of the Can- 
 ton of Berne, and is substantially as follows: 
 
 Weigh the number of eggs suitable to the number 
 of guests; add a piece of Gruyere cheese one-third 
 the weight of the eggs, and a lump of butter one-sixth 
 of this weight. The eggs are broken and well beaten 
 in a stewpan; the butter is added; and the cheese, 
 thinly sliced or grated, is thrown in; the pan is then 
 placed upon a brisk fire and the mixture stirred con- 
 stantly with a spatula until the cheese is melted and 
 well incorporated with the eggs. A liberal allowance 
 of black pepper is requisite, but very little, if any, salt 
 need be used. The pudding must be served upon hot 
 plates and eaten hot. The chafing dish is sometimes 
 
 * "II y eut des novateurs qui prirent le parti de la cuiller, 
 maisils furent bientot oubli6s: la fourchette triompha." . . . 
 
CHEESE 229 
 
 used for this preparation. There are many various 
 ways of preparing the delicate aliment, but in this 
 castanean town is a lovely lady who makes a fond?'* 
 which is a food fit for father Jupiter and all other gas- 
 tronomic Gods in and out of Elysium. That good 
 angel's receipt is substantially as follows: 
 
 A FONDUE FOR EIGHT PERSONS. 
 
 Ingredients. Eight ounces of any tasty firm cheese, 
 two ounces of butter, four ounces of bread crumbs, 
 eight ounces of milk, three eggs, very little salt. 
 
 Mode of Preparation. Break up the cheese, butter, 
 and bread crumbs into the smallest bits in a large 
 bowl; pour in the milk scalding, add the salt, then 
 the yolks of the eggs well beaten; stir the mixture, 
 and keep it covered on the back of the "cooking 
 range" until the ingredients are incorporated, when 
 the whites of the eggs, beaten lightly, are stirred in; 
 finally the confection is poured into porcelain cups 
 and baked for about ten minutes. 
 
 To be served hot without delay. 
 
 Made by fair hands, this marvelous fondue of cheese 
 nearly as light as whipped cream, awakens such de- 
 lightful gastronomic sensations as to invite the im- 
 bibition of the most delicate of wines. 
 
XVI 
 
 OF SOUR CONDIMENTS 
 
 "Every white will have its black 
 And every sweet its sour." 
 
 In continuing the examination of condiments, it 
 would be flagrantly ungrateful to omit the following 
 veracious statement of an interesting incident in the 
 eventful career of our eminently respectable ancestor, 
 the lineal ascendant from the aristocratic progeny 
 of the venerable patriarch Pithecanthropus Erectus. 
 His mansion was a vast cavern, in the heart of a lofty 
 mountain, richly ornamented with numberless stalac- 
 tites and intended not only for the lodgment of his 
 large family, but for the protection of his flocks and 
 simian domestics from nightly incursions of ferocious 
 beasts. He was the king of epicures of his time and 
 the happy observer of the herbivorous discoverer of 
 the salty condiment. 
 
 In the first decade of his reign, having found a new 
 condiment, he determined to celebrate convivially 
 the startling event by a grand entertainment, and 
 accordingly summoned a select company of four hun- 
 dred neighboring troglodites to the magnificent feast, 
 for the first hour of the ninth full moon, in order to 
 introduce with suitable solemnity into polite society 
 
 230 
 
SOUK CONDIMENTS 231 
 
 a new gastronomic sensation. The sumptuous repast 
 was served by chimpanzees gaily attired with wreaths 
 of bright colored flowers around their necks and rich 
 plumes on their heads, in the largest of the immense 
 halls of the intra-montane palace, and began with the 
 munching of salted parched locusts with wormwood 
 cocktail accompaniment followed by a marmot soup, 
 flavored with acid sumach berries, ladled in highly 
 ornamented skull-caps and sipped from spoons made 
 of tiny gourds; this being the very beginning of 
 spooning victuals* The next course consisted of a 
 full grown hippopotamus, baked in a deep pit of hot 
 ashes, filled with sucking pigs, each of which was 
 stuffed with mushrooms and acid berries; this great 
 river horse being flanked with huge calabashes of 
 boiled and salted greens and an immensity of a kind 
 of bread-fruit. After this course, split marrow bones 
 with some attached flesh were brought in and eaten 
 with a pungent grass, salt and the acid juice of the 
 favorite berries as an additional appetiser for the 
 scores of roasted buzzards inside of each of which was 
 a crow; inside of the crow a small owl; inside of the 
 owl a sparrow; inside of the sparrow a field mouse; 
 and inside of the mouse a tiny chestnut; f served 
 
 * Professor Petrie, the eminent Egyptologist, says that 
 "spoons of ivory, and rarely of precious metals, were made" 
 in Egypt more than six thousand years ago. 
 
 fThis dish and many others of a similar sort used by good 
 livers, from time immemorial, very probably suggested to the 
 French the roti a Uimperatrice, about which the following in 
 substance, appeared in the Almanack Perpetuel des Gourmands, 
 1830. . . . "Let us hope that the intrepid adept who 
 heeds us shall extract the kernel from an olive and fill the vacant 
 
232 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 with a sumach flavored sauce made of a puree of 
 polecat livers and horse-chestnuts. The drink was 
 cocoanut milk duly acidulated, and the dessert 
 soursops galore. The host then delivered a short 
 address on the past, present, and future condiments, 
 and predicted for the sour a universal use and the 
 highest appreciation by nations yet unborn. After 
 a searching examination of, and an exhaustive dis- 
 cussion on, this interesting subject, the guests all 
 declared the sour condiment to be the greatest anti- 
 dyspeptic discovery of the age, and voted to establish 
 a sodality, which they called the Amlarasa or Sour 
 Juice Club,* for mensual refection, with the further 
 object of studying the old and discovering new condi- 
 ments likely to render eating more pleasurable and 
 digestion more facile. Such, unquestionably, is the 
 origin of the idea of forming the many existing dining 
 clubs. 
 As pertinent to the discovery of condiments, and 
 
 space with a fillet of anchovy, shall then place the fruit thus 
 stuffed in a lark, which shall enter a quail, which shall be con- 
 tained by a partridge to be hidden in the flanks of a pheasant, 
 which in turn shall disappear within a turkey that a sucking 
 pig shall enclose. A brilliant fire shall combine the divers 
 juices of these enchased viands, and the hour has arrived to serve 
 this precious mixture .... Then let the olfactive sense 
 enjoy alone the perfume exhaled by the roast, and cause all to 
 be pitched out of the window, except the olive which has become 
 the centre of the quintessence of the elements by which it was 
 surrounded. He shall eat this olive, or perhaps only the an- 
 chovy, and almost faint with pleasure." 
 
 * Long before the discovery of acetous fermentation, the sour 
 juice of unripe fruit was used as a condiment. Verjus (vert jus) 
 verjuice, i. e., the juice of green vegetable substances, is often 
 mentioned by writers in the middle ages and even in later 
 times. 
 
SOUR CONDIMENTS 233 
 
 as showing the love of periodical rustication to be 
 a true atavistic trait, it is only necessary to trace the 
 ascent of man from pithecanthropus to the cave 
 dweller, whose discovery of the sour condiment has 
 been such a great boon to epicures, but the branches 
 of the genealogic tree may be extended to the present 
 time. Thus the mushroom-eating habitant of the 
 plains engendered the root eating valley denizen, who 
 was the precursor of the nut-eating tree tenant, who 
 was the progenitor of the flesh-eating cave-dweller, 
 who was the sire of the fish-eating lake-resident, who 
 was the parent of the cheese and onion eating villager, 
 who was the father of the omnivorous big-bellied 
 burgher, whose great-grandsons, to this day, for 
 recreation, are wont to spend many weeks in the wil- 
 derness in hunting and fishing, and who flavor their 
 luscious bean soup with acid fruit juice, stuff their 
 fish with nuts, coat them with clay,* and bake them 
 in the ashes, while the saddle of venison is roasted 
 and basted with dripping fat, each huge portion being 
 seasoned with salt, pepper, and lemon juice or with 
 vinegar when the store of fruit is exhausted. The 
 
 * This rural mode of cooking fish is given in " Kaloolah" 
 toward the close of the sixth chapter. Joe Downs loquitur. 
 " You take some nice, clean clay and work it up a little, then catch 
 your trout, or any other kind of fish, and don't scale or dress 
 him, but just plaster him all over with the clay about an inch 
 thick, and put him right into the hot ashes. When he's done, 
 the clay and scales will all peel off, and you'll have a dish that 
 would bring to life any starved man, if he hadn't been dead 
 more nor a week . . . but if you want an extra touch, 
 cut a hole in him and stick in a piece of salt pork or bear's fat, 
 and a few beachnuts, or the meat of walnuts or butternuts, 
 and Lord bless you, you'd think you was eating a water angel." 
 
234 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 meal is always enjoyed with a relish and appetite that 
 come of open air living and enforced physical exertion. 
 
 Ye modern deipnophilists know well how essential 
 citric acid, as contained in the juice of fresh lemons 
 or limes, is to modern cookery, and how much it is 
 esteemed by epicureans of our time for flavoring 
 salads preferably to vinegar. You know, too, what 
 an important part the lemon plays in the decoration 
 of many dainty dishes; how indispensable it is to 
 the ostreophagist; how effective it is in turtle* 
 soup and in nearly all fish sauces; how necessary an 
 ingredient in well concocted punch; and what a 
 pleasant, wholesome beverage it makes, either sweet- 
 ened or salted, particularly in warm weather and at sea. 
 
 Vinegar, from vinaigre, vin aigre, vinum acrum, 
 sour wine, oxos, acetum, impure acetic acid, appears 
 to be a much later discovery. It is clear from its 
 name that this condiment, although nascent in some 
 fruits, was not known until acetous was distinguished 
 from vinous fermentation; a use being found soon 
 thereafter for the spoiled wine.t This had in all 
 
 * In the West Indies, the preparation of green turtle for cala- 
 pee or for steaks is an event of no little import in the family. 
 After decapitating the monstrous amphibian and removing the 
 plastron or ventral shell, he is treated with a profusion of sliced 
 lemons with which, and with a liberal allowance of salt, all ac- 
 cessible soft parts are rubbed. When he is finally cut up for 
 cooking, each section is rubbed freely with lemons, then with salt 
 and pepper. These preliminary steps are necessary in the 
 tropics to prevent fly-blowing or rapid decomposition, 
 t Of vinegar, Martial says : 
 
 "Egyptian vinegar despise not thou: 
 When it was wine, 'twas far more vile than now." 
 
 — Wright's metrical version. 
 
SOUR CONDIMENTS 235 
 
 likelihood occurred to the youthful anthropoid dis- 
 coverer of fermentation who had more than once 
 negligently allowed his decoctions to stand too long, 
 and tasting, found them pungent and sour, but freely 
 diluting and salting the product into a palatable 
 vinegrade, doubtless swallowed large draughts of the 
 mixture with quite as much pleasure and refreshment 
 as does the modern teetotaller his sweet lemonade 
 with a "stick" therein. 
 
 The foregoing statement gives some idea of the great 
 antiquity of the use of vinegar as a beverage. Ever 
 since its employment as a condiment, men have sub- 
 stituted it for wine. The poorer classes among the 
 Egyptians, who could not afford wine or beer, drank 
 posca, which was vinegar mixed with water. This 
 was also the common tipple of the slaves and Roman 
 soldiers. Their generals, for popularity's sake, drank 
 it publicly, but had their wine in private. In the 
 field the habitual beverage of the soldiers of the Em- 
 peror Hadrian was diluted acetum which was called 
 posca. Diluted oxymel was also a favorite drink in 
 ancient times; and in later years raspberry vinegar 
 in iced water. . . . 
 
 To greatly multiply the praises of sour condiments 
 would be superfluous, since their excellence is so well 
 known to good livers and their value in sauces so well 
 recognised by urban and rural cooks. You will surely 
 remember how highly the far famed uncle Ebenezer 
 appreciated the sour when, one autumn evening, he 
 had made the most elaborate preparations to cook his 
 
236 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 supper, which was to consist of a fat possum dressed 
 with the choicest cider vinegar, the purest salt from the 
 nearest lick, and the tastiest and hottest kind of green 
 pepper. Alas! from enjoying the good things provided 
 at such pains, he was unfortunately prevented by a 
 nocturnal marauder. It happened just as uncle Eben 
 was giving the last turns to the spit, that Queen Mab 
 crossed his lids, and one of her ravenous followers, 
 taking advantage of the profundity and length of the 
 old man's sleep, engulphed possum, sweet potatoes and 
 ash cake into his vast paunch, as we have been told so 
 admirably and never-too-often by a dear Beatic exe- 
 getist who always adds with expressive idiom and 
 appropriate gesture, that when uncle Eben awoke 
 to find the potatoes and ash cake gone and the pan 
 to contain only well picked bones, and his fingers 
 and lips coated with gravy, exclaimed that if he had 
 really eaten the possum, sweet potatoes and ash cake, 
 they certainly lay very lightly on his stomach and 
 were less satisfying than any food he had ever 
 taken. . . . 
 
 It is an interesting fact to the student of etymons, 
 that, in many languages of the past and present, the 
 property of sourness has given to this condiment 
 the name which it bears. Thus, in Sanskrit, vinegar 
 is cukta, which signifies sour; in Arabic, khall, sour; 
 in Greek, oxos, from oxys, sharp, pungent, sour, but 
 sometimes, euphemisticly, hedos, from hedys (modern 
 Greek, hidi) sweet, or glycadion, from glycos, sweet; 
 (the commentator of Paul of Aegina's works is, 
 
SOUR CONDIMENTS 237 
 
 however, "inclined to think that glycadion is the dim- 
 inutive of gleucos must; vinegar being the juice of the 
 grape which has lost its strength") in Latin, acetum 
 is from acer, sharp, pungent, sour; in French, vinaigre, 
 vin aigre, is from vinum acrum, sour wine; * in Italian, 
 vinagro or aceto; in Spanish and Portuguese, vinagre; 
 in German, essig, from acetum; in Dutch, azyn, from 
 acetum; in Russian, uksus, from oxys, sour; in Bo- 
 hemian and Polish, ocet, from acetum; in Servian 
 and Croatian, ocat, from acetum; in Swedish, attika, 
 from acetum; in Norwegian and Danish, vineddike, 
 from vinum acrum; in Persian and Hindustani, 
 sirka, sour; and in Malealim, chuca, from cukta, sour. 
 Vinous must necessarily precede acetous fermenta- 
 tion; acetic acid being formed at the expense of the 
 alcohol which is produced by any one of the several 
 particular species of micro-organisms, but mainly 
 by the Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Brewer's yeast). 
 
 * The word in old French was aisil, esil; in old Saxon, ecid; 
 in Anglo-Saxon, eced; in middle and in early modern English 
 eisel and eysell, all from acetum; and occurs in many writings 
 notably in the " Romaunt of the Rose." 
 
 "Kneden with eisel strong and egre, 
 And thereto she was lene and megre." 
 
 In Hamlet V, i, 299: 
 
 "Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?" 
 
 And in Sonnet CXI, 8: 
 
 "Pity me then and wish I were renewed; 
 Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink 
 Potions of eisel 'gainst my own infection; 
 No bitterness that I will bitter think, 
 Nor double penance, to correct correction." 
 
238 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 When the fluid (wine, beer, or cider) is invaded by 
 the Mycodermata aceti (vinegar plants) these increase 
 rapidly, cause oxydation of the alcohol, and vinegar 
 (dilute acetic acid) is the outcome; alcohol being 
 C 2 H 6 and acetic acid C 2 H 4 2 * 
 
 Acetic acid is said to exist ready formed (free or 
 combined) in many plants, notably the Sambucus 
 Nigra, Phoenix Dactylifera, and Rhus Typhina. Of 
 the manufactured vinegars, the principal kinds in 
 the shops are the wine, malt, cider, sugar, and wood 
 vinegars. The best for table use is the white-wine 
 vinegar, which like the other sorts contains about 
 five per centum of acetic acid to which it owes its 
 chief property. It is often flavored with tarragon 
 and other substances. Like many of the articles 
 of man's dietary, vinegar undergoes with age such 
 alterations as to become worthless; particularly when 
 kept in imperfectly closed cruets. It is then invaded 
 by innumerable colonies of the anaerobic variety of 
 the Micrococcus aceti which settle to the bottom 
 of the vessel in the form of a glutinous mass called 
 the mother of vinegar. On the surface of the spoiled 
 vinegar appear colonies of the aerobic Micrococcus 
 aceti known as the flowers of vinegar. Animal life is 
 also developed in old vinegar in the form of the vine- 
 gar eel, or Anguillula aceti glutinis, a minute nematoid 
 worm about two millimeters in length. Decayed 
 vinegar attracts members of the Darosophilidce family 
 of dipterous insects among which is the vinegar fly 
 
 * Empyrical formulae. 
 
SOUK CONDIMENTS 239 
 
 which invades neglected pickles and preserved fruits 
 that have undergone acetous fermentation. 
 
 Vinegar has long been used as an antidote to mush- 
 room and other poisons. It is perfumed for toilet 
 purposes, and aromatised with camphor, garlic and 
 other ingredients, to be used as a "preventive of in- 
 fectious diseases," under the name of the four thieves' 
 vinegar, which it owes to the fact that during the 
 plague of Marseilles, four notorious thieves who had 
 been taken up for rifling the bodies of the dead from 
 house to house, had confessed, under promise of par- 
 don, that their immunity from the dread disease was 
 due to the habit of constantly inhaling the aromatised 
 vinegar and sprinkling their garments with this same 
 vinegar. 
 
 The metaphoric uses of vinegar are many. Among 
 them are the following: 
 
 X . . . is all gall and vinegar; i. e. his humor 
 is both bitter and sour. 
 
 Y . . . was made to sweat vinegar; i. e. he 
 was tortured by words and deeds. 
 
 Z . . . wore vinegar raiments; i. e. clothing 
 too light for the existing low temperature. 
 
 More flies are taken with honey than with vinegar. 
 The meaning of this very ancient adage is too well 
 known to require explanation. 
 
 Good wine makes good vinegar is employed to 
 express briefly the idea that the best use is to be made 
 only of the best things. 
 
240 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Season not thy words with vinegar, since, in life, 
 there is already too much acrimony. 
 
 "Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time: 
 Some that will evermore peep through their eyes 
 And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper, 
 And other of such vinegar aspect 
 That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, 
 Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable." 
 — Merchant of Venice, I, 1. 
 
XVII 
 
 OF PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 
 
 " Variety's the very spiee of life 
 That gives it all its flavour." 
 
 The next condiments discovered, says Deip- 
 nophilus, were certain hot, pungent berries suggestful 
 of the sharp taste, only more so, of the cressy grasses 
 with which were eaten the marrow bones served at 
 the gorgeous feast given in the vast sub-terraneous 
 palace by his Majesty, the great trogloditic epicure, 
 to celebrate the finding of the sour condiment. 
 
 At the first convocation of the members of the 
 Sour Juice Club, one of its founders, learned in botany, 
 presented many specimens of different species and 
 varieties of pungent berries which, added to food were 
 eaten with great relish, though when powdered they 
 acted fiercely upon the buccal membrane and lachry- 
 mal glands and brought on prolonged fits of sneezing 
 that elicited a general cry of God bless ye. He then 
 opened a parle on these delicatessen in characteristic 
 amlarasan manner, as follows: "0! thou Royal 
 Master, offspring of the bright luminary of day, father 
 and guiding star of thy loving people, thou whose 
 taste for luxurious aliments, art, ornament, raiment, 
 and adornment is so exquisitely refined, whose super- 
 
 24] 
 
242 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 acute audition on the dexter side enables thee to 
 hear the shrillest hum of the invisible gnat, while on 
 the sinister side thou perceivest the gravest notes of 
 the far away bellowing leviathan and the most distant 
 thunder,* whose subtile olfaction discerns all grades 
 of perfumes even the infinitesimal variations of the 
 component odors emitted by the cat-like hermit who 
 is wont to visit the poultry yard nocturnally ; | thou 
 
 * It is said that the notes of a bellowing whale are so grave 
 that they cannot be heard by the unaided human ear. It is 
 also said that the ear of man is ill adapted to perceive the shrill 
 hum of certain diminutive insects or of the highest notes of cer- 
 tain whistles used in physical experiments. In some cases the 
 hearing is obtuse on one side and acute on the other, and these 
 anomalies do not always result from disease. 
 
 f The Japanese indulge in a game of perfumes consisting, 
 in part at least, of igniting slips of combustible substances im- 
 pregnated with different odoriferous agents. 
 
 In the forty-seventh chapter of " Kaloolah" the following 
 chestnut occurs: . . . . "At the conclusion of the piece, 
 the Prince inquired whether I should not like to witness a per- 
 formance upon the perfume machine, which had often been 
 the subject of conversation between us. I at once assented, 
 and rising, we all repaired by a short passage to a low, narrow, 
 but very long hall. . . . There were more than fifty distinct 
 perfumes, that stood in the same relation to each other that tones 
 and semi-tones do to the different parts of the scale in music. 
 The harmonic combinations of these were infinite. There are 
 also several fundamental and controlling odors by which the 
 whole scale can be modified at pleasure. The three principals 
 of these are garlic, musk, and sulphuretted hydrogen. The gar- 
 lic, which corresponds to the minor key in music, is exceedingly 
 plaintive and affecting. Compositions in this key almost in- 
 variably excite the smeller to tears. Compositions in the musk 
 key are very varied in their expression; sometimes grave and 
 solemn, like church music, at other times gay, lively, and redolent 
 of chalked floors and gas lights. Compositions in the sulphuret- 
 ted hydrogen key have invariably a spirit-stirring and martial 
 expression. It is the proper key for odorate marches, battle- 
 pieces, and storm rondos. The Christian reader, with an unedu- 
 cated sense of smell, may, perhaps, turn up his nose (in profound 
 ignorance of his nose's capacities) at the instrument I am de- 
 scribing; but if he should ever have an opportunity of snuffing 
 
PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 243 
 
 whose keen vision descries the most delicate and 
 diversified tints,* and peers into the deepest recesses 
 of mundane affairs, whose marvellous, magnetic, 
 magical touch so speedily cures all ills to which human 
 or simian flesh is heir, whose graceful gestures and 
 eloquent, rhythmical, melodious speech, so pregnant 
 with wisdom, ever entrance the hearer and compel his 
 attention by thus infinitely gratifying his senses of 
 sight and hearing, whose comprehensive mind is vast 
 as space, and whose steadfast will is powerful as the 
 
 the melodious streams and harmonic accords evolved by a good 
 performer upon a properly constructed instrument, he would be 
 compelled to admit that his nasal organ was given to him for 
 a higher purpose than to take snuff, support spectacles, or 
 express contempt. True, at first he may not appreciate the 
 more recondite combinations and delicate aperfumes any more 
 than a novice in music appreciates the scientific arrangement 
 of notes in Italian or German opera, but he will at once be able 
 to understand and admire the easy melodies, the natural suc- 
 cession of simple fragrances, and, in time, the cultivated sensi- 
 bility of his nasal organ will enable him to comprehend the more 
 elaborate harmonies, the most subtile and artificial odoriferous 
 correspondence and modulations. 
 
 The name of this instrument is the Ristum-Kitherum, which, 
 if my recollection of the Greek serves me, is very much like two 
 words in that language, signifying a nose and a harp. . . . 
 For some time I sat, the complete verification . . . of an 
 observation, I think by Hazlet, that odors, better than the sub- 
 jects of the other senses, serve as links in the chain of associa- 
 tion. A series of staccato passages amid bergamot, lemon, 
 orange, cinnamon, and other familiar perfumes, quite entranced 
 me, while a succession of double shakes on the attar of rose 
 made me fancy, for a moment, that the joyous breath of a bright 
 spring morning was once more dashing the odors of that old 
 
 sweet briar bush into the open window of my chamber at O . 
 
 . . . I withdrew to my chamber, where, revolving in my mind 
 the question whether odors, instead of being material emanations, 
 may not be like light or sound, mere vibrations propagated in 
 an elastic medium. . . . I was soon in a sound sleep." . . 
 
 * The sense of color is so highly cultivated^ among the Japan- 
 ese that they are said to be able to perceive seven hundred 
 distinct tints. 
 
244 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 winds; and ye loyal Princes, pithecoid inheritors of 
 the form and traits of anthropoid ancestors, ye sons 
 of the great king who believes each of ye to be his, 
 "partly on your (dam's) word, partly (his) own opin- 
 ion, but chiefly (by) a villainous trick in your eye and 
 a foolish hanging of your nether lip; and ye noble gas- 
 trodic and pithecocephalic Lords, fawning, cunning, 
 crafty courtiers; and ye gallant, arrant knights, of 
 the doleful countenance; and ye fat, fatuous, but 
 faithful squires; and ye devoted embrontetic sub- 
 jects of the mighty monarch : all ye, new-condimental- 
 sensation-seeking amlarasa lovers, 0! list ye to my 
 prosy phrase and be silent that you may hear; 
 hearken to my verbose speech and be attentive that 
 ye may heed ! It is for your superlatively great delec- 
 tation that I have wandered many days in the quasi 
 impenetrable jungle to gather these pungent palatine 
 titillators, these potent promoters of appetite, these 
 propitious persuaders of digestion, these prodigious 
 provocatives of thirst, which I ask you to name, now 
 that you have tested their attractive forms ocularly, 
 their consistence tactilely, their balmy fragrance 
 olfactively, and their piquant savor gustatively, au 
 naturel, with salt, with the royal sour juice, and mixed 
 with your aliments to which they have imparted their 
 precious properties !" * . . . 
 
 The botanist then described in detail the habitat 
 and peculiarities of these several kinds of pungent 
 fruits and placed them in their proper order, genera, 
 
 * Characteristic sophomoric style. 
 
PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 245 
 
 species and varieties. Their properties and uses as 
 condiments were afterward learnedly commented upon 
 and, as the question of generic names came up, a 
 facetious member said that as he tasted the different 
 sorts, each had its own savor but imparted the same 
 hot, pungent, puckery, buccal sensation varying, 
 however, in intensity, and that he could not express 
 this feeling except with the words pr, pi-pr, pi-pir, 
 pir-par, pi-pal, pil-pal, pi-pil, and said, ! Amlarasan 
 Brothers, again taste ye these lachrymogenic, mouth 
 puckering, throat corrugating, sternutatory dainties 
 and take your choice among the names. But, as 
 they failed to agree, the presiding Monarch decided 
 the question by ordering that the generic name be 
 pipar; and this name has been handed down to nearly 
 all the earthly nations with slight modifications as 
 follows: the word pepper being, in Sanskrit, pippala 
 (the fruit of the holy fig tree); in Persian, pulpul; 
 in Arabic, fulful; in Turkish, biber; in Greek, peperi; 
 in Epirotic dialect, bibeer; in Latin, piper; in French, 
 poivre; in Italian, pepe; in Spanish, pimienta; in 
 Portuguese, pimenta; in German, pfejfer; in Russian, 
 peretsu; in Dutch, peper; in Swedish, peppar; in 
 Norwegian and Danish, peber; in Icelandic, piparr; 
 in Lithuanian, pipiras; in Anglo Saxon, pipor, 
 piper; in old Bulgarian, piprii; in Servian, papar; 
 in Bohemian, peprzh; in Polish, pieprz; in Walla- 
 chian, piperiul, and in Hungarian, paprika. 
 
 In modern times two classes of peppers are recog- 
 nised : (a) Members of the piperacese. (6) Members 
 
246 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 of the solanaecse family of which capsicum is a 
 genus. 
 
 (a) The Piperacese family consists of Piper-nigrum, 
 P. longum, P. cubeba, P. angustifolium, P. methysti- 
 cum, P. Betle and other species; the drupes of the 
 first two species only being now used as condiments. 
 The black pepper plant, say Fliieckiger and Hanbury, 
 is a perennial climbing shrub, with jointed stems 
 branching dichotomously, and broadly ovate, five 
 to seven nerved stalked leaves. The slender flower- 
 spikes are opposite the leaves, stalked, and from 
 three to six inches long, and the fruits are sessile 
 and fleshy. It is indigenous of the forests of 
 Travancore and Malabar, whence it has been intro- 
 duced into Sumatra, Java, Borneo, the Malay 
 Peninsula, Siam, the Philippines, and the West 
 Indies. They further say that "long and black 
 pepper are among the Indian spices on which the 
 Romans levied duty at Alexandria about A. D. 176." 
 
 According to Athenaeus, pepper was freely used as 
 a condiment and as a medicinal agent by the Greeks, 
 and he quotes Antiphanes (404 to 330 B. C.) as 
 saying: 
 
 " If any one buys pepper and brings it home, 
 They torture him by law like any spy." 
 
 And Nicander (2nd Cent. B. C.) in his Theriaca: 
 
 " And often cut new pepper up and add 
 Cardamums fresh from Media." 
 
 And Ophelian: 
 
 "Pepper from Libya take." . . . 
 
PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 247 
 
 Again Fliieckiger and Hanbury say that pepper, 
 during the middle ages, was the most esteemed and im- 
 portant of all spices, and the very symbol of the spice 
 trade, to which Venice, Genoa, and the commercial 
 cities of Central Europe were indebted for a large 
 part of their wealth; and its importance as a means 
 of promoting commercial activity during those ages, 
 and the civilising intercourse of nation with nation 
 can scarcely be overrated. Tribute was levied in 
 pepper and donations were made of this spice, which 
 was often used as a medium of exchange when money 
 was scarce. In 408 A. D. Alaric, the Goth, demanded 
 as ransom from the city of Rome, among other things, 
 five thousand pounds of gold, thirty thousand pounds 
 of silver, and three thousand pounds of pepper. In 
 France, says Larousse, during the middle ages, it was 
 permitted to pay in pepper the cost of law suits, 
 imposts, and feudal rights, and when payments were 
 so made they were called spice payments, which were 
 regarded as equivalent to payments in metallic coins, 
 so that the locution has remained in the language, 
 i. e. to pay in spices (esp&ces) signifies to pay in 
 coin. Hence the present locution (in English) specie 
 payments. 
 
 ' In the middle ages, says Fulano, landlords exacted 
 from their tenants a pound or more of pepper at 
 stated intervals. These tributes were known as pep- 
 per-rents. The custom of adding to the regular 
 rental of certain lands a given quantity of pepper or 
 wheat still prevails, as shown in old leases which con- 
 
248 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 tinue in force, both in England and in our own country. 
 In England the pepper trade began as early as the 
 tenth century, and both there and in France the 
 traders, called poivriers, pepperers, formed companies 
 or guilds as did the vinaigriers and moutardiers. For 
 several centuries pepper brought such high prices 
 that it gave rise to the saying "dear as pepper"; and 
 it was long after the successful voyage (1498) of 
 Vasco da Gama, via the Cape of Good Hope, that the 
 price of this commodity sensibly fell. Even then it 
 was heavily taxed in England as it was also during the 
 seventeenth century, when the impost was five shil- 
 lings per pound and this duty was not materially 
 lessened until the beginning of the nineteenth century, 
 when it was two shillings and six pence per pound. 
 
 The pungency of pepper is due to the contained 
 resinous substance, and its aroma to an essential 
 oil. Another constituent of pepper is piperin which 
 may be resolved into piperic acid and piperidin; the 
 pericarp yielding a fatty oil. 
 
 White pepper is prepared from black pepper by 
 the removal of its pericarp, which lessens its pun- 
 gency. 
 
 The long-pepper shrub, although indigenous to 
 Celebes, the Philippines, Malabar, etc., is cultivated 
 along the Western as well as the Eastern coast of 
 India. This species of pepper "consists of a multi- 
 tude of minute baccate fruits closely packed around 
 a common axis, the whole forming a spike one inch 
 and a half long and a quarter of an inch thick. The 
 
PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 249 
 
 spike is supported by a stalk half an inch long; it 
 is rounded above and below and tapers slightly toward 
 its upper end. The fruits are ovoid, one tenth of an 
 inch long . . . and arranged spirally with a 
 small peltate bract beneath each. . . . The long 
 pepper of the shops is grayish white, and appears as 
 if it had been rolled in some earthy powder. When 
 washed the spikes acquire their proper color, a deep 
 reddish brown. . . . Long pepper has a burning, 
 aromatic taste, and an agreeable but not powerful 
 odor." It was used as a condiment in the remotest 
 times, and later as a medicinal agent. 
 
 (6) The fruit of certain members of the solanaccce are 
 called peppers owing to their marked pungency; 
 capsicum, whose seeds of acrid, biting taste are en- 
 closed in pods, being the generic name. This genus 
 is represented by many species and varieties of red, 
 green and yellow peppers, in this country, in Mexico 
 and the West Indies, in Central and South America, 
 and in Africa. The fruit is called a berry despite the 
 hollow interior of some of the large cultivated pep- 
 pers. Capsicum, commonly known as cayenne pep- 
 per, does not appear to have been known anciently; * 
 indeed, none of its species were brought into general 
 use until long after the discovery of America. They 
 
 * Theophrastus (4th Century B.C.) in his History of Plants, 
 says: . . . " Pepper indeed is a fruit, and there are two kinds 
 of it; the one is round, like a vetch, having a husk, and is rather 
 red in color; but the other is oblong, black, and full of seeds like 
 poppy seeds. But this kind is much stronger than the other" 
 (Athenaeus). He recommends this kind as an antidote against 
 hemlock. 
 
250 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 are called peppers from their peppery properties, and 
 not because they bear any resemblance structurally 
 to the Eastern peppers. Individuals of several 
 species of capsicum are those particular peppers of 
 which the prudent, plodding, patient, persevering 
 pertinaceous, and persistent Peter Piper had provi- 
 dently picked a peck for pickling. 
 
 Capsicum in Caribbean and South American primi- 
 tive tongues, is quio, ouriagon, boimin, bohemoin, aty, 
 or arymucha; in Spanish, chili or pimiento de Indias; 
 in Portuguese, pimentao; in Italian, peberone; in 
 French, piment; in German, Spanischer pfeffer; in 
 Dutch, Spaansche peper; in Norwegian and Danish, 
 Spansk peber; in Swedish, Spansk peppar; in modern 
 Persian, estiot; in Armenian, kurmyt bibar; and in 
 Turkish, kermezy bibar. 
 
 One who at an evening entertainment, has promised 
 to treat of the delightful pungent condiment known 
 vulgarly as horse-radish, wrote, at the last moment, 
 that he could not be present at that refection of mind 
 and body, begged that some guest would take up the 
 subject for him. The following, in brief, is the sub- 
 stance of what he would have been sure to say. 
 
 Horse-radish, that perennial member of the cruci- 
 ferse family with stout tapering root one inch in mean 
 thickness and three feet in length, long stalked, 
 coarse, large, and oblong leaves and erect flowering 
 racemes of the height of from two to three feet, has 
 nothing in common with equus except its great 
 strength which, however, is manifested not kineto- 
 
PUNGENT AND AEOMATIC CONDIMENTS 251 
 
 dynamically but gustatorily. This strength was long 
 ago realised by our Gallic brethren who called the 
 root raifort a contraction of racine forte, radix fortis; 
 they afterward called the plant cran de Bretagne. 
 The Germans named it meerrettig; the Russians chren; 
 the Lithuanians, krenai; and the Illyrians, kren. It 
 is known botanically as Cochlearia Armoracia (Linn), 
 radix armoracice. According to Flueckiger it cannot 
 be identified with the wild radish, raphanis agria, 
 of the Greeks. That author and Baillon cite Pliny as 
 saying that the name armon was used in the Pontic 
 regions to designate the armoracia of the Romans, 
 This plant (c. armoracia) says A. de Candolle, is 
 native of Western Asia and Eastern Europe. It has 
 long been cultivated throughout the temperate 
 regions of Western Europe and this country. 
 
 Ever since the sixteenth century, says Gerarde, 
 quoted by Flueckiger, the Germans have used horse- 
 radish sliced thin or grated and mixed with vinegar 
 for fish and other sauces, as mustard is now used, 
 hence its old popular French name moutarde des 
 Allemands. A century later it began to be used as a 
 condiment by the English. The well known sauce 
 Russe, eaten with roasted meat, is a sort of horse- 
 radish puree. The leaves of the plant have also been 
 used as food and condiment. In India the root of the 
 moringa pterygosperma is used as a substitute for 
 horse-radish. In France, the water cress, nasturce 
 amphibie, is commonly known as raifort d'eau. 
 
 Freshly grated horse-radish owes its pungency and 
 
252 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 savor to the contained volatile oil which is said to be 
 chemically identical with that of black mustard. 
 
 In all well-regulated establishments, it is to the 
 under-cook that is ordinarily assigned the painful 
 toil of grating in a day the week's allowance of do- 
 mestic horse-radish, and she is excused from all other 
 duties for, at least, twenty-four hours thereafter, 
 during which she is the exclusive family weeper, as 
 the children are then forbidden admission to the 
 scullery for obvious reasons. 
 
 Another absent guest, who was appointed to open 
 the discussion of the sinapic question, wrote that he 
 was suffering from the effect of a mustard plaster at 
 the pit of the stomach and wished all to know that 
 this delightful substance is infinitely more enjoyable 
 as a condiment than as a blistering medicinal agent. 
 The short note given below is an abstract of what 
 the absentee, whose better health was drunk with 
 pleasure, would have been likely to say. 
 
 Mustard, brassica or sinapis (Linn) a genus of the 
 order cruciferce, to which cabbage heads belong, has 
 four species that are used as condiments, viz. : sinapis 
 nigra, sinapis juncea, sinapis alba, and sinapis eru- 
 coides (L.). This annual herb is found in a wild state 
 throughout Europe, except in the extreme north, in 
 Northern Africa, in Asia Minor, in the Caucasus, in 
 Southern Siberia, and in China; and is now cultivated 
 in all those regions as well as in North and South 
 America. 
 
PUNGENT AND AK0MATIC CONDIMENTS 253 
 
 Sinapis nigra seeds are so often likened to the 
 planets not because they are spherical or slightly oval, 
 about one twenty-fifth of an inch in mean diameter 
 and one-fiftieth of a grain in weight, but because in 
 nature there is neither great nor small. All astrono- 
 mers and epicists are agreed that when powdered 
 (the seeds, not the planets) they become greenish 
 yellow, and that when mixed with water, the emulsion 
 is yellowish, emits a pungent, acrid vapor from the 
 contained volatile oil which irritates the eyes, and 
 has a strong acid reaction. These close observers 
 of the phenomena of nature and men further agree 
 that this pungency is not perceptible in the dry 
 powder. Gastronomers never use ground black 
 mustard seeds pure but always mixed with white 
 mustard, under the name of flour of mustard. 
 
 The sinapis juncea says a Polish professor whose 
 name is pronounceable only by snuffing a pinch of 
 rape made of this same sinapis, is largely cultivated 
 in India, Central Africa, Southern Russia, and other 
 warm regions where it takes the place of sinapis 
 nigra. Great quantities of the seed are sent to Eng- 
 land and France. 
 
 Sinapis alba seeds, says a flavian oriental pandit, 
 are yellowish, about one-twelfth of an inch in diam- 
 eter and one-tenth of a grain in weight. When pow- 
 dered and mixed with water, the emulsion is yellow- 
 ish, is inodorous as it does not yield any volatile oil, 
 but has a very pungent taste. 
 
 Sinapis erucoides is grown in Southern Europe 
 
254 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 (Fliieckiger) and has about the same properties as 
 black mustard. 
 
 Mustard is mentioned by Theophrastus as napy, 
 and by Dioscorides as sinepi. The pulverized seeds 
 were frequently employed by the Greeks and Romans 
 to season food. In Gaul, during the fourth century, 
 powdered mustard seeds were prepared with honey, 
 olive oil and vinegar as a sauce. During the thir- 
 teenth century, the sauciers-vinaigriers had the sole 
 right in France to prepare and sell mustard. In that 
 time, every day at dinner hour, these sauciers ran 
 about the streets of Paris crying : sauce a la moutarde, 
 sauce a Vail, sauce a la ciboule, sauce au verjus, sauce 
 h la ravigote, etc. These modes of seasoning aliments 
 increased rapidly in popularity and fashion, even 
 among the wealthy classes. Whenever Louis XI 
 dined out he brought with him his pot of mustard. 
 
 Dijon was the great mustard centre of France, 
 where the best was prepared for table use, and became 
 famous in the land of Gaul. Certain Burgundians 
 ventured to assert that the word moutarde came from 
 the motto of the Dukes of Burgundy which was 
 Moult Tarde. A facetious etymonist, however, sug- 
 gested that the motto did probably come from mou- 
 tarde. Another farceur gives to moutarde a celtic 
 origin, and says that the word in Cymric signifies 
 an object which emits a strong odor. A third word- 
 baiting wight sets forth his claim for a Latin etymon, 
 multum, much, and ardere, to burn. 
 
 In the middle ages and long afterward, during 
 
PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 255 
 
 winter months, the people of Western Europe fed 
 largely* on salted meat and made constant use of 
 mustard to render this food relishable. The following 
 verse from LeDuc's "Proverbs en Rime" (1665) may 
 serve to show the high appreciation of this condiment 
 by the hungry: 
 
 " De quatre choses prens toy bien garde; 
 De valet qui se regarde, 
 De femme ou fille qui se farde, 
 De boeuf sale sans moutarde, 
 D'un pauvre disne qui trop tarde." 
 
 Another author expresses the same idea as follows : 
 
 "De trois choses Dieu nous garde; 
 Du bceuf sale sans moutarde, 
 D'un valet qui se regarde, 
 D'une femme qui se farde." 
 
 It is needless now to go into particulars respecting 
 the many methods of preparation of this well known 
 condiment which is now used much more extensively 
 than ever before, and it will perhaps be "quite as 
 instructive and a little more entertaining" * to set 
 forth some of the old sinapic adages by way of increas- 
 ing our crop of chestnuts, as : 
 
 "Sweeten thy mustard"; which is another mode 
 of saying, be less caustic, let not thy angry passions 
 rise, moderate thine expressions of disapproval, etc., 
 or as Regnier puts it : 
 
 "Cependant il vaut mieux sucrer notre moutarde, 
 L'homme pour un caprice est sot qui se hasarde." 
 
 * A favorite locution of a dear old teacher. 
 
256 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 "Shrewd as mustard." 
 
 "This is mustard after dinner"; i. e. something 
 of no use since it has come too late. 
 
 "La moutarde lui monte au nez." 
 
 "The mustard is rising to his nostrils"; i. e. his 
 anger is beginning to manifest itself. 
 
 " Le moutardier du Pape." "The pope's chief mus- 
 tardist." This adage has long been used to designate 
 any pretentious individual "whose mental calibre is 
 not so great as to enable him to comprehend the 
 necessity of getting under shelter when the waters of 
 the firmament do descend to moisten the parched 
 earth." The saying arose from the fact that the Avig- 
 nonese Pope John the XXII (1316-34), who was 
 extremely fond of mustard, had created for one of 
 his nephews, the office of Chief Mustardist to His 
 Holiness; nepotism in high fife being then much 
 more common than it is at the present time. 
 
 " Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience 
 well: that same cowardly, giant -like ox -beef hath 
 devoured many a gentleman of your house : I promise 
 you your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now." 
 Midsummer Night's Dream. A. 3, S. 1. 
 
 "He a good wit? hang him, baboon! his wit's as 
 thick as Tewsbury mustard . . ." Henry IV, 
 Second Part, A. 2, S. 4. 
 
 "What say you to a piece of beef and mustard? 
 A dish that I do love to feed upon, 
 Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little. 
 Why, then the beef, and let the mustard rest. 
 
PUNGENT AND AEOMATIC CONDIMENTS 257 
 
 Nay, then I will not: you shall have the mustard, 
 Or else you get no beef of Grumio. 
 Then both, or one, or anything thou wilt. 
 Why then, the mustard without the beef." 
 
 — The Taming of the Shrew, A. 4, S. 3. 
 
 A third absent guest, learned in the ways of the 
 heathen, and on the eve of sailing to the Philippines, 
 wrote that he felt sure someone would speak, in his 
 place, on the composite oriental condiment known as 
 curry-powder, and appealed to the host to do so. 
 Hence the brief sketch that is to follow, of what our 
 dear absentee might, could, would, or should have 
 said, in his usual honeyed tones, on this very inter- 
 esting subject. 
 
 Curry, be it known to all mankind, has nothing 
 whatsoever to do with currying favor, dressing 
 leather, or grooming a horse, although the flesh of 
 that animal may be eaten with curry powder as the 
 main ingredient of the sauce which, in India, bears 
 the name of kari, karri, koora, or salin, and which is 
 used in seasoning fish, fowl, red herring and other 
 meats, and fruit, rice, and other vegetables. 
 
 Two hundred years before the Portuguese had 
 appeared in the Indian seas, says Balfour, Ibn Batuta 
 spoke of the natives of Ceylon as eating curry, which, 
 in Arabic, he calls conchan. In modern Arabic idaan 
 is the name. ... In Persia it is known as 
 Nan-khurish. 
 
 "The ingredients of curry powder are usually 
 brought from market daily to Hindoo families, but 
 
258 
 
 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 European residents often grind and keep the dry- 
 materials in powder." Almost every household has 
 its own formula for curry powder; one of these con- 
 sists of: 
 
 Cumin seeds 
 Fanugreek . 
 Mustard seed 
 Dried chilies 
 Dried ginger 
 Black pepper 
 Poppy seeds 
 Garlic 
 Cardamoms 
 Cinnamon . 
 Turmeric 
 Coriander seeds 
 
 Another formula consists of; 
 
 Cayenne pepper . 
 
 Coriander seeds 
 
 Cumin 
 
 Dried cassia leaves 
 
 Powdered turmeric 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 part by weight 
 
 1 
 
 a 
 
 " 
 
 1 
 
 it 
 
 tt 
 
 2 
 
 tt 
 
 tt 
 
 2 
 
 " 
 
 tt 
 
 2 
 
 It 
 
 it 
 
 2 
 
 tt 
 
 tt 
 
 2 
 
 it 
 
 tt 
 
 2 
 
 tt 
 
 tt 
 
 4 
 
 tt 
 
 tt 
 
 20 
 
 tt 
 
 tt 
 
 8 parts by 
 12 
 
 weight 
 
 « 
 
 12 
 
 tt 
 
 a 
 
 12 
 
 99 
 
 tt 
 
 it 
 
 Among other materials used in different curries in 
 various proportions, according to taste are : anis seed, 
 allspice, cloves, mace, nutmeg, onions, long pepper, 
 asafcetida, chironjie nut, almond, cocoanut, ghi, butter 
 salt, tamarind, lime-juice, mango, etc. No curry 
 seems complete without turmeric and the quantity 
 used is very variable. Cocoanut milk, as well as the 
 oil freshly expressed from the grated nut, is much 
 used in forming the gravy to many curries, especially 
 fish and prawn curries. 
 
 Before undertaking to enlighten the whole gastro- 
 nomic world on all that relates directly or indirectly 
 
PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 259 
 
 to certain aromatic condiments, the hope must be 
 expressed that the learned minority may accept the 
 view of Talwer Tasek,* sahib, on the derivation of 
 the adjective aromatic which, he says, is from the 
 Latin substantive aroma, from the Greek aroma, a 
 spice, a sweet herb. 
 
 To the ancient right worshipful ancient order of 
 the Sour Juice all the pungent condiments became 
 known, except capsicum and those extraordinary 
 curry powders of the far east. Of the aromatic, the 
 pre-historic botanists discovered only chives, leeks, 
 onions, shallots, garlic, asafcetida, mushrooms, and 
 truffles. The rest, such as members of the zingi- 
 beracese, of the umbelliferse, of the composite, of the 
 myristicese, of the lauracese, of the canellacese, of the 
 myrtacese, of the iridacese, of the labiatse, and of the 
 orchidacese, were discovered by modern deipnophilic 
 botanists of divers nations. Many of the condiments 
 classed as aromatic are more or less pungent, but 
 they are so grouped because the aromatic principle 
 predominates just as the piquant is the dominant 
 element in the pungent condiments which are more 
 or less aromatic. 
 
 At the mensual assemblies of the Sour Juice Club — 
 the records of whose jolly sessions are graven in the 
 imaginative minds of all poetical paleontists — the 
 members, regardless of breath, revelled in raw onions 
 and doted upon onion soup and their newly invented 
 delicious amlarasan onion puree — for broiled chops, 
 
 * Anagram of Walter Skeat. 
 
260 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 the best of all sauces — the receipt for which a Gallic 
 princess adopted without duly crediting it to her trog- 
 loditic ancestors, as is the wont of copyists now-a-days 
 and even consented that it be named after herself — 
 sauce Soubise. The philoneopolytheistic Egyptians 
 of the early dynasties found the onion to be so fra- 
 grant, savory, and wholesome, and such an efficient 
 stimulant of the emotions and of the lachrymal glands 
 that they sanctified and even worshipped the plant; 
 but alas! in our materialistic days, this holy root is 
 too often sacrilegiously defiled by being eaten un- 
 cooked, generally far away from home and from polite 
 society by the wicked, by rusticating idlers, and by 
 confirmed misogamistic bachelors to prevent them 
 from brooding over their forlorn social condition. 
 
 Martial says anent leeks: "Whenever you have 
 eaten strong smelling shreds of the Tarentine leek, 
 give kisses with your mouth shut." Which Wright 
 does into English verse: 
 
 "When you Tarentine leeks eat, shun offence, 
 With lips close seal'd a breathless kiss dispence." 
 
 And which Swift expands in his wonted happy style : 
 
 "For it is every cook's opinion, 
 No savory dish without an onion. 
 And, lest your kissing should be spoil'd, 
 Your onions must be thoroughly boil'd: 
 
 Or else you may spare 
 
 Your mistress a share, 
 The secret will never be known; 
 
 She cannot discover 
 
 The breath of a lover, 
 But thinks it as sweet as her own." 
 
PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 261 
 
 In Spain the onion is greedily devoured by hungry 
 impecunious Dons under the euphonious cognomen 
 of gazpacho, which consists of a portion of adamantine 
 black-bread, soaked in water, with superposed slices 
 of the tasty cebolla sprinkled with salt, vinegar, and 
 oil, and which is the least costly meal obtainable in 
 any rural venta. When in happy possession of a 
 real or two, the ragged Hidalgo, with grave ceremony, 
 much circumstance, pompous formalism, and turgid 
 ostentation, arrogantly orders that a slice of tomato 
 be added to the gazpacho * as a great and rarely 
 enjoyed luxury. The bodies and vestments of the 
 lower classes of meridional Europeans are generally 
 perfumed to saturation with the "delightful" shallot 
 which, in odor and savor, is a cross between onion and 
 garlic; and the common people of southernmost 
 France take no meal into which the pungent aromatic 
 garlic does not enter. An oily emulsion of garlic 
 (ayoli) was and probably is still used in the south of 
 France by students as a sauce for the viands consumed 
 at their carousals; its concoction demanding many 
 hours of continuous labor. The student who has 
 made the emulsion is forced to retire to bed on account 
 of the intoxication and conjunctival irritation pro- 
 duced by the garlicky fumes. The judiciously mod- 
 erate use of these condiments in salads and in cooked 
 
 * The modern gazpacho is more elaborate than that of the 
 time of La Mancha's knight, and the bread, of better quality, 
 requires no soaking; besides the onion, oil, vinegar, and salt, 
 there are in the modern gazpacho garlic, sliced white potatoes, 
 tomatoes, and boiled garbanzos (chick peas). 
 
262 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 dishes gives them a zest which immensely gratifies 
 the cultivated palate of the good-liver. Were the 
 onion and its allied condiments to pass away, all true 
 gastronomes would surely wish to shun the sterile 
 earth for a paradise in which these luxurious herbs 
 flourish in plenty! * 
 
 Asafcetida was not known under its present name 
 until the tenth century, but a substance called laser, 
 having, at least, similar properties, was employed as a 
 condiment in very remote times by the Persians, 
 Greeks, and Romans, and surely ages before these 
 modern nations by the trogloditic amlarasans. Laser, 
 gathered in India and Persia, was one of the commodi- 
 ties taxed by the Romans at Alexandria in the second 
 century. Laserpitium is among the substances enu- 
 merated for the famous composite fricassee in Aris- 
 tophanes' Ecclesiazusce. To this day asafoetida enters 
 into some of the dainty sauces prepared by culinary 
 artists. The best tears of asafcetida are said to come 
 from Laristan, Persia. It is gathered also in some 
 regions of Baluchistan and of Afganistan, near the 
 head-waters of the Oxus, and in other parts of the 
 Eastern hemisphere. 
 
 Of mushrooms and truffles little need now be said, 
 since their condimental properties are already well 
 known to all who have so often enjoyed the aroma 
 of one in the filet aux champignons, of the other in the 
 
 * A very tasty sauce, called mignonette, has lately been served 
 as condiment to raw oysters in some clubs and in French res- 
 taurants, and consists chiefly of finely chopped shallots, coarsely 
 ground black pepper, salt, and white-wine vinegar. 
 
PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 263 
 
 luxurious truffled turkey and the rich Strasbourg pie, 
 and of both in many delicious sauces. . . . 
 
 In ancient times the title of spice merchants con- 
 ferred greater honor than that of the modern epicier 
 who vends groceries in addition to his aromatic wares. 
 Spices and aromatics were so highly prized as con- 
 diments and as perfumes for unguents, that their 
 names were much used in figurative language. One 
 of the most precious gifts of the Queen of Sheba to 
 Solomon consisted of choice spices. In his song, 4—14, 
 the king uses allegorically " Spikenard and saffron; 
 calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense ; 
 myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices." 
 
 Shakspeare uses spicery, spice and spices meta- 
 phoricly as follows: 
 
 "Where in that nest of spicery, they shall breed selves of 
 themselves, to your recomforture." 
 
 — Richard III, 4, 4. 
 
 . . . "And so would you, 
 For all this spice in your hypocrisy." 
 
 —King Henry VIII, 2, 3. 
 
 " Even with the same austerity and garb 
 As he controll'd the war; but one of these — 
 As he hath spices of them all, not all, 
 For I dare so far free him — made him fear'd." 
 — Coriolanus, 4, 7. 
 
 . . . O, think what they have done 
 And then run mad indeed, stark mad! for all 
 Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it." 
 — The Winter's Tale, 3, 2. 
 
XVIII 
 
 OF SWEET CONDIMENTS 
 
 "Pleasant words are as an honey-comb, 
 Sweet to the soul, and health to the bones." 
 
 True lovers of sweets know well that from the re- 
 motest times of the evolution of thick-skinned hirsute 
 mammalian beasts, bruin was wont to make periodical 
 burglarious visitations to the hives of the bees; that 
 long thereafter anthropoid creatures acquired a very 
 decided taste for sweets; that the nut-fed tree-men — 
 those predecessors of the flesh-eating cave-dwellers 
 — diurnally enjoyed their delicious dessert of sweet 
 fruits from some of which they obtained an abundance 
 of juice to dulcify their favorite beverage, the rich 
 cocoanut milk; that they soon formed a sweet juice 
 or svadurasa club, whose main object was the dis- 
 covery of new species of savory fruits; that this 
 name svadurasa, handed down traditionally to the 
 cave-men, had suggested to them the opposite title 
 amlarasa or sour juice for their neoterical gastronomic 
 association; that a period of great length had elapsed 
 before the tree-man learned from his pachydermatous 
 trichotic cousin the value of honey by watching his 
 frequent combats with swarming insects; that bruno 
 has never lost any opportunity to gratify his ardent 
 
 264 
 
SWEET CONDIMENTS 265 
 
 taste and insatiable appetite for the luscious honey- 
 comb, although the less protected parts of his articous 
 economy have been so sorely exposed to the stinging 
 darts of his buzzing, active, pugnacious and piquant 
 little winged foes; that the cunning, crafty, arboreal 
 resident having often witnessed the after-effects of 
 the fracas upon the ursine snout, and sometimes 
 realised them on his own person, sought safety for 
 his nasal excressence by first smoking out the occu- 
 pants of the hive and leisurely gathering the product 
 of the industrious swarm's labor (such being the 
 origin of the virtue of tobacco smoking, of the craft 
 of smoking beef, and of the hazy trick of smoking 
 tutors and freshmen); that the discovery of the bee 
 and of its honey is clearly and unquestionably 
 ursinous; and that its use by the tree-men, who in- 
 vented hydromel as well as galactomel, and by the 
 cave-dwellers who exploited oxymel, was, without 
 the least shadow of a doubt, post-ursine: the lofty 
 sense of justice and the rising mental temperature of 
 the meliphilist will very properly impel him to protest 
 vehemently against the dicta of those arrogant Greeks 
 who ascribe to Aristeus, King of Arcadia, the dis- 
 covery of the bee and the invention of the domestic 
 hive and of apiculture, and who furthermore, with 
 equally intolerable assurance and boldness do dare as- 
 sert that Gorgoris, chief of a Spanish clan (1520 B. C), 
 had taught his people the use of honey as a condiment, 
 an aliment, and a medicament before it was known 
 to beast or man; and he will surely decry this outra- 
 
266 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 geous theft worthy of the free application of the 
 many-tailed literary cat to the shameless plagiaries ! ! !* 
 The word honey seems to have been introduced into 
 the language for no better reason than that it came 
 from the Anglo-Saxon hunig and the old Saxon 
 honeg. However, a learned facetious etymonist sug- 
 gests that it may have come from the Huns who, 
 twenty-five hundred years ago, were named hiong-nu 
 by the Chinese, and ounnoi by the Greeks. It is 
 nevertheless certain that the thick, viscid, syrupy, 
 fragrant, sweet, delicious, amber-colored substance 
 was named meli by the Greeks; met by the Latins; 
 miel by the French and Spanish; and miele by the 
 Italians; who all agree that it is prepared by some 
 insects, principally by bees and by certain sedentary 
 tropical ants whose crops become thereby enormously 
 distended — to nearly three centimeters — through the 
 intervention of their feeders, the working ants; the 
 honey stuffed ants being in turn the feeders of their 
 colony in time of need. These ants are served as 
 dessert at the tables of tropical epicures, who burst 
 the crop and eat the honey with great gusto. The 
 bees magazine their honey into hexagonal waxy 
 alveoli, which they build for protection in hollow 
 trees and sometimes even in the carcasses of animals; 
 this circumstance having led casual observers to 
 regard putrefaction as necessary to the generation of 
 
 * This sentence of four hundred and fifty-eight words is here 
 used to exemplify one of the kinds of verbosity to be avoided 
 by young writers. 
 
SWEET CONDIMENTS 267 
 
 bees and other insects. Samson's prospective honey- 
 moon was nipped in the bud probably on account 
 of his having received much more injury from the 
 bees, which had built their store-house in the body 
 of the dead lion, than from the lion himself during the 
 far-famed wrestling match, and he bore such marks 
 of their stings, when he returned with the sweet 
 offering to claim his intended bride, as to be rendered 
 repulsive to her who showed good taste rather than 
 good faith by rejecting him and accepting another 
 lover with a clearer skin but less strength and courage. 
 Strange as it may seem, the next connubial venture 
 of the muscular hero was not happier than the first. 
 Anciently regarded as a secretion of animal matter, 
 honey has long since been proved to be an elaboration 
 of the fluid sucked from the nectaries of divers flowers 
 into their crops by the working bees and deposited 
 into numberless waxy alveoli for safe keeping as 
 winter food; these thrifty laborers also gathering 
 pollen which they likewise store for the sustenance 
 of the fifty thousand of the queen bee's larvse. It is 
 clear that this honey does not exist as such in the 
 nectar of flowers but that it acquires its viscidity, 
 probably by admixture of a mucoid substance se- 
 creted in the insect's crop, and that it owes its con- 
 sistency to loss by the ingested nectar of much of its 
 seventy per cent, of water, while it retains the greater 
 part, if not all of its thirteen per cent, of crystallisable 
 sugar and of its ten per cent, of uncrystallisable sugar; 
 these proportions of sugar varying in the nectar of 
 
268 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 different flowers which impart to the honey their 
 peculiar flavor and properties, some kinds of honey 
 being poisonous to man.* 
 
 A dissertation on honey bees would here be out of 
 place, but a few words may be said in favor of these 
 precious insects which not only carry pollen from 
 flower to flower for the good of husbandry, but supply 
 man with a delicious sweet of their own confection, 
 and with a superior wax that is so valuable in the arts. 
 It is well known that rightly trained domesticated 
 bees never do injury to a kind master who properly 
 cares for them, while they repel vigorously the ap- 
 proach of strangers. This may be illustrated by the 
 following verses extracted from Watkins' translation 
 of Busch's "Buzz a Buzz, or the Bees," which is as 
 
 * The Mount Hymettus honey, so highly esteemed anciently, 
 owed its excellence to the character of the food the bees obtained 
 from the great profusion of flowers covering the mountain and 
 valleys in that region of Attica. 
 
 The chemist Dumas and also Hubert and Milne Edwards 
 ascertained by experiment that bees fed exclusively on cane- 
 sugar produced not only honey but wax. Some apiculturists 
 in this country feed their bees on sugar-house refuse, or molasses, 
 or unrefined cane-sugar, but the honey of these bees, though of 
 good appearance, is inferior in taste; it lacks the agreeable odor 
 and flavor of the honey from clover-fed bees. 
 
 Professor Youmans in his Hand Book of Household Science 
 says of honey: "That from clover, or from highly fragrant 
 flowers, is far superior to that from buckwheat; spring made 
 honey is better than that produced in autumn. Virgin honey 
 or that made from bees that? never swarmed, is finer than that 
 yielded by older swarms; and while some regions are renowned 
 for the exquisite and unrivalled flavor of their honeys, that made 
 in some other places is actually poisonous. We can hardly 
 suppose honey to be a simple vegetable liquid. It probably 
 undergoes some change in the body of the insect by the action 
 of the juices of the mouth and crop, as when bees are fed upon 
 common sugar alone they produce honey." 
 
SWEET CONDIMENTS 269 
 
 amusing to us all as the book with its comical pictures 
 is ever entertaining to children of lesser growth : 
 
 "The bee is ever a delight, 
 As round about he wings his flight; 
 Of great renown, too, is the bee — 
 In heathendom especially 
 Witness Virgilius, if you please, 
 A Roman poet — great on bees; 
 For when the famous Roman Legion 
 Which, as you know, sacked every region, 
 At length came down on his Penates, 
 Who shielded Virgil like his bees? 
 Peacefully smiles Virgilius, compassed 
 
 by sweet buzzing honey-bees; 
 Broken, the bearded brave warmen take 
 
 flight in the wildest confusion!" 
 
 Both the Greeks and Romans used honey in the 
 greatest profusion as condiment and aliment; in 
 their cheese cakes, with gruel or bread, and to sweeten 
 their wines which they generally drank hot. In the 
 Iliad, 11-628, when the wounded Eurypolos is con- 
 veyed from the battle field by Nestor, the bearers 
 and royal warriors are regaled by the fair-haired 
 Hekamede who placed upon a table a bronze basket 
 containing thirst-promoting onions, yellow honey, 
 and sacred flour . . . also a mighty chalice 
 into which she poured Pramnian wine, and with 
 bronze grater she grated in goat-cheese and then 
 strewed thereon white flour. In the Odyssey, 10-234, 
 Kirke (Circe) to regale her guests, mixes cheese, 
 flour, and yellow honey with Pramnian wine, and adds 
 to the food certain philters to make them forget 
 
270 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 home and friends. These Greeks and Romans and 
 their successors for many centuries made the freest 
 use of oxymel and hydromel, so often prescribed in 
 acute diseases by Hippocrates. Even at the present 
 time some nations use the mixture of honey and 
 water as a common beverage; notably the Russians 
 and Poles who call it mead when it has undergone 
 alcoholic fermentation, and the Welsh, by whom it is 
 styled metheglin. It is said that for a long time the 
 Poles made more than fifty different kinds of mead, 
 some of which were very strong in alcohol and there- 
 fore highly intoxicating. 
 
 The word sugar, as well as the sweet substance 
 which bears that name, all know to be of oriental 
 nativity, since in all western languages it is traceable 
 to the same root. From the Sanskrit sharkara the 
 Greeks coined saccharon which was brought to them 
 by the followers of Alexander, and from the Greek 
 the Latins made up saccharum. The Persian name, 
 however, still from this same root, is cheker, and the 
 Arabic shakar or soukker, from which the Spanish ob- 
 tained azucar, the Italians, zucchero, the Germans, 
 zucker, and the French, sucre. 
 
 Flavius Arrianus (100 A. D.) in an account of his 
 voyage along the Red Sea, speaks of cane sugar, 
 which he called reed-honey and says that it was also 
 named sacchari. From the writings of this author, 
 and later from those of Galen, it is clear that then the 
 sugar cane was cultivated, and sugar extracted there- 
 
SWEET CONDIMENTS 271 
 
 from, in Arabia Felix as well as in India. Long, how- 
 ever, before the time of Arrian, the sugar cane or 
 sweet reed was known throughout south western 
 Asia as is shown from the following: ". . . and 
 of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty shekels." 
 Exodus, XXX, 23. "To what purpose cometh to 
 me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a 
 far country. . . ." Jeremiah VI, 20. 
 
 Moses of Korni, an Armenian author of the fifth 
 century, speaks of the extraction of sugar from the 
 cane by boiling, and is regarded as the first writer to 
 note the fact by the English commentator of the works 
 of Paul of Aegina. But this sugar was not generally 
 known in Europe until the thirteenth century, 
 although the Moors, in Spain, early cultivated the 
 sugar cane as an exotic plant whose juice they used 
 as a medicament, and although at the close of the 
 eleventh century the followers of Godfrey, the cru- 
 sader — called Bouillon * because he was "un guerrier 
 
 * " GODFREY DE BOUILLON 
 
 "To the Editor of the New York Times: 
 
 "'J. P,'s' amusing effort in last week's Saturday Review to 
 trace the etymology of the suffix 'M. Bouillon,' carried by God- 
 frey the Crusader, has reminded me of the French explorations 
 for the same. I learned it in a couplet at school with some other 
 points of Godfrey's history, none of which is, I regret to say, so 
 well remembered as 
 
 ' Godfroi de Bouillon's ainsi nomm<j, 
 Parcequ'il 6tait Capitaine le plus consomme.' 
 
 " I quote from memory, for I do not recall ever to have seen 
 this sidelight to history in print. It is doubtless unnecessary 
 for me to add that as bouillon means broth, consomme is the best, 
 most perfect, highly flavored and finished variety of bouillon 
 that a chef can prepare. C. M. 
 
 "New York, Dec. 2, 1898." 
 
272 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 consomme" — knew the properties of sugar which they 
 had used in Syria, but failed to carry back home 
 specimens of the cane or of its product. 
 
 From what precedes, it is evident that the fruit 
 sugars were used many ages before the reed sugar; 
 and it is positive that the main property of these 
 fruit sugars, known anciently, was that of wine mak- 
 ing or what is now called alcoholic fermentation. 
 
 In Guy Patin's one hundred and fifty-eighth letter 
 dated May 27th, 1667,* the following occurs anent 
 sugar: "J'entretins hier au soir Monsieur le Premier 
 President, qui m'y avait invite par Lettre. II me 
 demanda si les Anciens avaient connu le sucre. Je 
 lui dis qu'oui: que Theophraste en a parle dans son 
 Fragment du miel, ou il en fait trois sortes : Tune qui 
 est des fleurs, et c'est le miel commun: F autre de 
 Fair, qui est la manne des Arabes; et la troisieme des 
 roseaux en tois kalamois, qui est le sucre. Pline Fa 
 connu aussi et en pake sous le nom de sel des Indes. 
 Galien et Dioscoride Font nomme sacchar, et c'etait 
 en ce tems-la une chose bien rare." 
 
 An erroneous notion prevails, even among intelli- 
 gent people, that sugar is harmful; whereas it is a 
 necessity, and it is only its excessive use, like that of 
 all other good things, which does mischief. Children 
 who are forbidden to eat sweets by too strict and un- 
 discerning parents, have been known to take them 
 by stealth in excess and to be much harmed thereby. 
 
 * Lettres Choisies de Feu Mr. Guy Patiii. Seconde Edition, 
 1688. 
 
SWEET CONDIMENTS 273 
 
 The very great physical exertion made by the young 
 under ten years of age demands the ingestion of a 
 sufficient amount of carbo-hydrates which are bene- 
 ficial in other respects, while more than a sufficiency 
 must necessarily be injurious. The simpler the sweet 
 aliment or condiment, the better for the health of 
 children or adults. The following excerpt from an 
 English paper shows how highly sugar is estimated 
 on the easterly side of the salty pond. This castanish 
 production was taken from a German publication 
 that obtained the information from the Dutch, who 
 gleaned it from Java and Sumatra planters, who had 
 long observed the good effects of sugar on man and 
 beast, etc., etc. 
 
 "the virtues of sugar. 
 
 " From the London News. 
 
 "Children all over the world, and all the keepers of 
 'Sweet-stuff' shops, ought to join in a testimonial to 
 the learned, though anonymous, scientist who pub- 
 lishes in the Allgemeine Zeitung an enthusiastic glori- 
 fication of sugar. Not only as a genussmittel, but 
 much more as a nahrungsmittel, sugar is almost the 
 most valuable thing which enters the mouth of man, 
 woman, or child. There is scarcely any other equally 
 important feeder of muscle power. The laborer can 
 do nothing better than keep a few lumps of sugar in his 
 pocket. The negroes in sugar plantations renew and 
 quicken their weary bodies by sucking the sugar canes. 
 
274 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Sugar is a fine restorative for soldiers. A Dutch 
 army surgeon asserts that during an expedition in 
 Sumatra he found that the best means to maintain 
 the soldiers in vigor and freshness not only during 
 the march, but during the fight, was a generous allow- 
 ance of sugar. Each man was served with a handful 
 at a time. The Swiss chamois hunters bear similar 
 evidence to its marvelous powers of sustenance and 
 of recuperation after exhausting fatigue. The writer 
 gives an account of successful experiments made with 
 sugar as food for athletes by several of the Dutch 
 rowing clubs, by pedestrians, by cyclists, and others 
 whose bodily powers need a rapid, portable, and in- 
 nocent stimulant. Sugar is coming more and more 
 into use in Holland in the course of training for con- 
 tests, and it is as good for beasts as it is for men. 
 The poor hardly realize as yet, or only realize uncon- 
 sciously, what a treasure they possess in cheap sugar. 
 Its value in fever has been emphasized by Hupeland 
 and others. That which is supposed to injure the 
 teeth in consumption of 'goodies' is not the sugar, 
 but the so-called fruit acids which are introduced to 
 flavor the sugar. Negroes, who devour sugar in so 
 huge a quantity, have the best teeth in the world." 
 
 Savages in tropical and temperate regions consume 
 a great amount of sweet fruit, but not so those of 
 bleak septentrional latitudes who live so largely on 
 fats. Dr. Kane writes that he had repeatedly offered 
 lumps of sugar to Eskimos, who invariably refused to 
 eat the stuff. Among the Eskimos lately brought 
 
SWEET CONDIMENTS 275 
 
 to this country was a girl, about twelve years of age, 
 who could not be induced to eat pure sugar or candy, 
 although she had learned to like the rest of our ordi- 
 nary diet. In Europe sugar was at first used exclu- 
 sively as a medicinal agent, and it was not until 
 the sixteenth century that it was a recognised con- 
 diment. 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF THE CHEMISTRY OF SUGARS. 
 
 It may be worth our while to make a brief inquiry 
 into the nature of the two great classes of sugars, 
 i. e. the vegetable and the synthetic prepared in such 
 enormous quantities for domestic purposes and for 
 use in the arts. 
 
 The following notes, relating to twenty sorts of 
 sugars derived from the vegetable kingdom, and of a 
 few obtained by synthesis, are obligingly contributed 
 by a friendly chemist of eminence, who says that sugars 
 are usually classed with certain organic compounds 
 containing carbon and a multiple of the molecule of 
 water (H 2 0) called carbo-hydrates. He further says 
 that this classification is no longer quite correct, since 
 sugars have been found in which the numerical rela- 
 tion of hydrogen and oxygen is not exactly two to 
 one. Sugars are classified in various other ways. 
 By the number of carbon atoms in the molecule, con- 
 sidered in its simplest form, and then they are called : 
 
 Tetroses, those that contain . . . . C 4 
 
 Pentoses, " " . . . . C 5 
 
 Hexoses, " " . . . C 6 
 
 Heptoses, " " . C 7 
 
276 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 etc., Octoses, Nonoses, etc.; or, according to the 
 number of groups of C 6 H 12 6 , which they represent, 
 or from which they are derived. As all sugars cannot 
 be brought under these categories, it will answer to 
 arrange them in the four following groups : 
 
 Group I. Monosaccharides, or glucoses in general 
 (C 6 H 12 6 ). 
 
 The term glycose or glucose at the present time is 
 used both in a generic sense, to- designate this whole 
 class, and also in the special sense of "grapesugar" 
 (see below under No. 1). All glucoses reduce certain 
 alkaline metallic solutions, such as those of copper, 
 silver, mercury, bismuth, etc., and all of them polar- 
 ise to the right. 
 
 1. Glucose (in its special sense) is also called dex- 
 trose, starch sugar. Its composition is C 6 H 12 6 . 
 It occurs very commonly in the vegetable kingdom; 
 in most fruits; in the spring sap of many trees, such 
 as the birch and maple; in buds in young roots; in 
 rhizomes, i. e. ginger, etc. ; in young tubers and shoots, 
 as the first step in the act of rendering soluble the 
 starch in the plant. It also occurs in many unripe 
 fruits, and in the nectaries of many flowers, and in 
 honey. Besides, it occurs in the animal kingdom; 
 in all parts of the body of mammalia and birds, chiefly 
 in the liver, chyle and blood. In most fruits and in 
 many succulent parts of plants, there are present at 
 different periods of growth or at maturity, more than 
 one kind of sugar, the relative quantities of which 
 may vary widely under different conditions. It is 
 
SWEET CONDIMENTS 277 
 
 therefore impossible to assign to such fruits or to other 
 parts of plants any definite proportion of a particular 
 sugar or mixture of sugars. As regards honey, this 
 is always composed of the particular kind or kinds of 
 sugar extracted from the nectaries by the bees, who 
 do not alter its nature or composition. It may 
 therefore consist of widely varying quantities of the 
 different natural sugars. If bees are fed exclusively 
 on glucose, their honey will necessarily be pure 
 glucose. 
 
 2. Laevulose, or fruit sugar, C 6 H 12 6 , occurs widely 
 in the vegetable kingdom, always alongside of glucose 
 or of saccharose (cane sugar) or of both. With yeast, 
 it ferments more slowly than glucose (No. 1) and 
 polarizes to the left. When cane sugar is treated 
 with a dilute acid at a gentle heat, it takes up one 
 molecule of water C lz H 22 11 + H 2 0+C 12 H 24 12 , and 
 this new compound then breaks up into two mole- 
 cules of isomeric bodies, namely: C 6 H 12 6 — regular 
 glucose (No. 1) polarizing to the right, andC 6 H 12 G ; 
 laevulose, polarizing to the left. The power of left 
 polarization of the latter is so much greater than the 
 dextrogyre action of the glucose, that the product, 
 which is called invert-sugar, shows a laevogyre rota- 
 tion. 
 
 3. Galactose or lactoglucose, C 6 H 12 6 , sometimes 
 called lactose, which name, however, is very commonly 
 applied to the natural product known as milk sugar, 
 either as a chemical or a pharmacal term. Galactose 
 does not occur in nature ready formed, but is pro- 
 
278 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 duced, alongside of glucose (No. 1) by warming milk 
 sugar with a dilute acid. It is also obtainable from 
 other sources. It polarizes to the right. 
 
 4. Sorbose or sorbin, C 6 H 12 6 , is obtained by fer- 
 menting the juice of the berries of sorbus aucuparia 
 or mountain ash. 
 
 5. Formose, C 6 H 12 6 (probably) is a sugar pro- 
 duced synthetically from formaldehyde, CH 2 0. 
 
 6. Dambose, or more commonly called inosite, 
 C 6 H 12 6 2H 2 (crystallised) occurs in muscles, and 
 in the brain, also in vegetables such as bean-pods, 
 unripe peas and lentils, green cabbage, potato-sprouts, 
 leaves of fraxinus excelsior (common ash), in walnut 
 leaves, in grape juice, and in some kinds of caoutchouc 
 from which it may be extracted by water. 
 
 7. Mannose or seminose, C 6 H 12 6 , exists in some 
 kinds of nuts, and may also be prepared artificially 
 from mannite. 
 
 Group II. Disaccharides, C 12 H 22 11 . 
 
 The disaccharides may be regarded as the result 
 of a combination of two molecules of glucose with one 
 molecule of water removed: 
 
 H -° 6 — C 12 H 24 12 lessH 2 0=C 12 H 22 11 . 
 
 C 6 H 12 O e 
 
 In fact, when these bodies (disaccharides) are headed 
 with a dilute acid, they split up and form inver-sugar 
 as explained under No. 2. 
 
 8. Saccharose or cane sugar, C^H^O^ occurs 
 widely in nature; in the sugar cane (up to 16 or 18 per 
 
SWEET CONDIMENTS 279 
 
 centum) ; in the sugar beet * (up to 14 per centum) ; 
 in sorghum (up to 9 per centum) ; in madder root or 
 rubia tinctorum (up to 15 per centum); in coffee 
 beans (6 to 7 per centum); in the stems of many- 
 grasses to which the sorghum and sugar cane belong; 
 in the date (20 to 30 per centum) ; in the sap of many- 
 trees such as the birch, maple, and various kinds of 
 palms, as the arenga saccharifera; in clover, timothy, 
 Indian corn, barley, •walnuts, hazelnuts, and in many 
 other plants and parts of plants. Bitter and sweet 
 almonds contain no other sugar than saccharose. It 
 occurs also in St. John's bread (the fruit of Ceratonia 
 Siliqua), the sweet orange, melons, etc. To show 
 that more than one kind of sugar may be present at 
 the same time in some plant or fruit, the following 
 figures are quoted from Kulish : 
 
 Cane Sugar Glucose 
 
 Pineapples contain . . .11.33 1.98 
 
 Strawberries " . . .6.33 4.98 
 
 Apricots " . . .6.04 2.74 
 
 Ripe bananas " . . .5.00 10.00 
 
 Apples " . . 1 to 5.40 7 to 13.00 
 
 Of course, these figures refer only to the particular 
 fruits examined at a particular time. 
 
 Cane sugar is readily fermentable by yeast, produ- 
 cing ethylic alcohol, carbonic acid gas, some amylic 
 alcohol (fusel oil), glycerine, and succinic acid. 
 
 * Of late years the sugar beet has been cultivated on a large 
 scale in California, Utah, Kansas, Michigan, and other States. 
 While the sugar-cane, in our Southern States, in Cuba, in Mexico, 
 and in the Sandwich Islands yields from 15 to 19 per centum 
 of saccharose, the sugar beet's yield is from 11 to 17§ per centum. 
 However, the sugar beet has sometimes given as much as 19 
 per centum of the saccharose. In Michigan, under very adverse 
 seasonal and other circumstances, the beet has averaged a yield 
 of 13§ per centum of saccharose. 
 
280 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 9. Milk sugar, or lactose, lactobiose or lactin, 
 'C la H. 2a 11 + H ao (crystallised), occurs in the milk of 
 
 mammalia; in the urine of females after child- 
 birth, etc. It is fermentable with yeast, producing 
 ethylic alcohol, carbonic acid, etc. 
 
 10. Maltose or ptyalose, C 12 Sl 22 O 11 + B. 20 , occurs in 
 the small intestine; and may be formed by acting 
 upon the starch with extract of malt (containing 
 diastase), or with ptyalin, the pancreatic juice, or the 
 liver ferment. It is easily fermentable. 
 
 11. Trehalose or mycose, C^H^O^ occurs in ergot 
 and various fungi. In trehala, a sort of concreT 
 tion is formed of the remains and digested portions 
 of the twigs of a species of echinops, in Syria, which 
 a certain insect eats, and envelops itself in the debris 
 (trehala) . 
 
 12. Agavose, obtained from the agave Americana. 
 
 13. Cyclamose, from cyclamen Europseum (sow 
 bread). 
 
 14. Lupeose, from lupinus lutens. 
 Group III. Polysaccharides. 
 
 15. Raffinose, melitose or gossypose, C 18 H 32 16 + 
 5H 2 (crystallised) occurs in the exudation ("man- 
 na") of various species of eucalyptus; in the molasses 
 separated from crude crystallised cane and beet sugar; 
 in cotton seed and in barley. It is fermentable. 
 
 16. Melezitose, C 18 H 32 16 + 5H 2 0, is obtained from 
 Briancon manna. 
 
 Group IV. Other sugars. 
 
SWEET CONDIMENTS 281 
 
 17. Arabinose or pectinose, pectin sugar, C 5 H 10 O 5 , 
 is obtained from cherry gum, and from certain kinds 
 of gum arabic. It is scarcely fermentable. 
 
 18. Mannite, C 6 H 14 6 , is obtained from manna. It 
 exists in dog grass, celery, some fungi and algae, in the 
 root of the aconitum napellus, and in other plants. 
 
 19. Dulcite or melampyrite, C 6 H 14 6 , exists in the 
 herb of melampyrum nemorosum (L.) or cow-wheat, 
 and other plants. 
 
 20. Isodulcite or rhamnose, C 6 H 12 5 is artificially 
 prepared from various sources. 
 
 There are several other similar bodies which have 
 been classed with sugars, though they are more pro- 
 perly alcohols. 
 
 Large numbers of sugars, not yet met with in 
 nature, have been obtained by synthesis, and the 
 discovery of others, which theory shows must be 
 obtainable is only a question of time. Many of these 
 compounds are isomeric, that is, contain the same 
 number of atoms of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. 
 And yet they differ by reason of the different arrange- 
 ment of the atoms in the several molecules. 
 
 The so-called aromatic series of organic bodies 
 (those which are derived from the benzol nucleus, 
 C 6 H 6 . or are related to it) has furnished several 
 compounds of intense sweetness, one of which, 
 saccharin, has come into common use as a sweetening 
 agent, either to replace sugar, in the diet of diabetic 
 persons, or for sweetening confectionery made from 
 
282 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 glucose, etc. Its chemical name is orthosulphamine- 
 benzoin-anhydride. Its formula is: 
 
 CO 
 
 C 7 H 5 NS0 2 , or C 6 H 4 NH 
 
 Nso/' 
 
 It is also known as glucide, saccharinol, saccharinose, 
 saccharol, sycose, "zuckerin." Several forms of this 
 product are on the market. One of them, in which 
 the original saccharin is freed from an accompanying 
 isomer which has but little sweetness, is about five 
 hundred times as sweet as ordinary sugar. The com- 
 mon saccharin is only three hundred times as sweet 
 as ordinary sugar. 
 
XIX 
 
 METAPHORIC USES OF SWEETNESS 
 "Sweets to the sweet." 
 
 The foregoing essay, on sweet condiments, sug- 
 gested the consideration of the metaphoric uses of 
 sweetness, so helpful in poetic and familiar language, 
 either of which would be tame and insipid without 
 some figures of rhetoric. Hence this brief inquiry 
 into the origin of the idea of sweetness as intended 
 to give expression to pleasurable sensations and emo- 
 tions. 
 
 Eastern, and semi-civilized nations have long been 
 wont to make the freest use of metaphors in their 
 speech, as have always done savages everywhere; 
 appealing to all the senses and emotions. Nomadic 
 Arabs and other Orientals who subsist largely on the 
 date, which contains from twenty to thirty per cent, of 
 sugar, very frequently use the equivalent of the word 
 sweetness as a figure to express endearment, delight, 
 happiness, contentment, and other kindred emotions, 
 because this nutriment is so pleasing to the sense of 
 taste. For the same reason savages appeal to this 
 sense and those sensibilities, since they are known to 
 be very fond of honey and of sweet fruits; except of 
 course those savages of far northerly latitudes who 
 
 283 
 
284 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 use other figures to express their emotions. The love 
 of civilised beings for sweets and for their metaphoric 
 uses in spoken as well as in written language is clearly 
 an inheritance from their remote savage ancestry, 
 and would that they were heirs to nothing worse! 
 The word sweet has been traced, by logophilists, to 
 the Aryan root swad, to taste, to eat, to please; 
 svadu signifying sweet. 
 
 If sugar had happened to be bitter or even taste- 
 less instead of being sweet, it is not likely that man 
 would consume as much as he does of this valuable 
 aliment and condiment, for sweetness is unquestion- 
 ably the chief property of sugars which renders them 
 so agreeable to the taste; each having its peculiar 
 savor and odor, as honey, unrefined cane sugar, 
 treacle, maple sugar, date sugar, and others, which are 
 more or less affected by coction; these savors and 
 odors being as various as those of the flowers and 
 fruits from which the sugars are derived. But there 
 does not appear to be an odor of sweetness for the 
 chemical product known as saccharin is odorless 
 though five hundred times as sweet as cane sugar, 
 notwithstanding Avon's Bard's qualification of the 
 rose which he places in the mind of a love-sick maid 
 who, in an impassioned discourse with her amorous 
 swain, says: 
 
 "... O, be some other name! 
 What's in a name? That which we call a rose 
 By any other name would smell as sweet; 
 So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called." 
 
METAPHOBIC USES OF SWEETNESS 285 
 
 In Venus and Adonis, verse 1178, the Bard reiter- 
 ates the idea of a sweet smell as follows: "Sweet 
 issue of a sweet-smelling sire"; and in Sonnet 99, he 
 again introduces this idea in the following sweet 
 words : 
 
 "The forward violet thus did I chide: 
 Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, 
 If not from my love's breath?" 
 
 The sweet Bard was undoubtedly well acquainted 
 with the pleasing odor of honey and of unrefined sugar; 
 but the alchemy of his time was not able to tell him 
 that sweetness is without odor; this ignorance was, 
 however, fortunate for poesy and music. But other 
 poets had fallen into the same error, notably Spenser 
 who, in the Faerie Queene, says: 
 
 " No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on ground, 
 No arborett with painted blossoms drest 
 And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd 
 To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al arownd." 
 
 The good book, too, affords another example: 
 
 "His lips like lilies dropping sweet-smelling myrrh." 
 
 — The Song of Solomon, 5-13. 
 
 To the question — How is it that chloroform smells 
 sweet? — the answer is, that while sweet to the taste, 
 it has not a sweet smell, but, being a highly volatile 
 substance, its vapor penetrates the mouth cavity at 
 almost the same moment that it is breathed through 
 the nostrils and vice versa, and the senses of smell and 
 taste are thus confused. The "sweet smell" of 
 
286 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 chloroform is therefore a delusion of the olfactive 
 sense. 
 
 In the works of many ancient, and of the great 
 majority of modern, writers of poetry and prose, you 
 doubtless have found in vast abundance, the meta- 
 phoric uses of sweetness and often, too, in the form 
 of such words as honey, honey-sweet, sweet honey, 
 honey-moon, honey-tongued, meli, met, philomel, 
 melodious, mellifluous, edus, edulcorate, edulcoration, 
 suavis, dulcis, dulcet, dulcify, dulce, dulces, dolce, 
 doux, douceur, douceurs, doucement, suess, suessigkeit, 
 sweet, sweets, sweetening, sweeten, sweetly, sweeting, 
 sugar, syrup, candy, etc., etc. 
 
 Both literally and metaphoricly, in the Iliad and 
 in the Odyssey, occur the words glycys, glykeros, edys 
 (meaning sweet), for anything that is pleasing to the 
 senses, and Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Lucretius, and many 
 other Latin writers employed, metaphoricly, sweet- 
 ness and its equivalents with great freedom. The 
 word sugar does not occur in the Bible, while honey 
 and sweetness are therein used very frequently in a 
 literal and in a metaphoric sense. The sugar cane is 
 there styled sweet reed, sweet cane. 
 
 " The wise in heart shall be called prudent : and the sweetness 
 of the lips increaseth learning." — Prov. 16-21. 
 
 In the following, honey, bitter and sweet do not 
 seem intended for contrast, while they illustrate 
 allegory and metaphor: 
 
 "The full soul loatheth an honey-comb; but to the hungry- 
 soul every bitter thing is sweet." — Prov. 27-7. 
 
METAPHOKIO USES OF SWEETNESS 287 
 
 Sweet used by itself as a simple substantive and 
 sweet-heart as a compound substantive occur fre- 
 quently in the works of many writers of prose and 
 poesy, as do my honey, honey-sweet, sweet, honey. 
 In this last, the adjective sweet in the compound 
 substantive implies the existence of some other kind 
 of honey, as the bitter or sour.* The compound 
 adjectives honey-tongued, honey-mouthed, sweet- 
 mouthed, etc., are also much used. How frequently 
 too, writers of prose and poetry use the adjective 
 mellifluous as well as many other modes of express- 
 ing the idea of sweetness, of delight of the senses, of 
 pleasure, enjoyment, love, etc.; moreover, sweetness 
 is largely used in contrast to sourness or bitterness. 
 The following Leonine couplet intended to character- 
 ise the hypocrite is a good example of the contrast 
 of sweetness and bitterness. 
 
 " Mel in ore, verba lactis, 
 Fel in corde, fraus in factis." 
 
 Shortened in French, as: 
 
 " Bouche de miel, coeur de fiel." 
 
 Lengthened in English, as: 
 
 "Honey in his mouth, words of milk, 
 Gall in his heart, and fraud in his acts," 
 
 Chaucer, too, in his "Troylus and Criseyde," con- 
 trasts sweetness and bitterness in the following sweet 
 verse : 
 
 * Since honey has the taste and certain other properties of 
 the particular flowers on whose nectar the bees feed, it is not 
 strange that it should sometimes be bitter; and sweet honey- 
 does often become sour. 
 
288 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 "And now swetnesse semeth more swete, 
 That bitterness assayed was byforn; 
 For out of wo in blisse now they flete." 
 
 And Shakspeare, in All's Well that Ends Well, 
 A. V, S. 2: 
 
 "All yet seems well, and if it end so meet, 
 The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet." 
 
 Campoamor in his " Dolor as y Cantares" seldom 
 uses the idea of sweetness, but the following is quoted 
 from "Las dos copas," because he there has sweet and 
 bitter in contrast. . . . 
 
 "Yo, aunque el m^todo condene, 
 Lo dulce en lo amargo escondo: 
 Esta copa es la que tiene 
 Dulce el borde, amargo el fondo." 
 
 The following, contrast sweetness and sourness: 
 
 " Speak sweetly, man, though thy looks be sour." 
 
 —Richard II, 3, 2. 
 
 "Item: she hath a sweet mouth." 
 
 "That makes amends for her sour breath." 
 
 — Two Gentlemen of Verona, 3, 1. 
 
 "Ha, ha! keep time. How sour sweet music is 
 When time is broke and no proportion kept!" 
 
 — Richard II, 5, 5. 
 
 "Lofty and sour, to them that lov'd him not; 
 But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer." 
 
 —King Henry VIII, 4, 2. 
 
 Bitterness of feeling, mingled with loving paternal 
 anxiety, expressed in honeyed words, is beautifully 
 
METAPHORIC USES OF SWEETNESS 289 
 
 illustrated in the speech of Henry IV to his wayward 
 son; contrasting his kingly relations with the people, 
 to those of the second Richard. 
 
 "My presence, like a robe pontifical, 
 Ne'er seen but wonder'd at : and so my state, 
 Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast 
 And won by rareness such solemnity. 
 
 The skipping king, he ambled up and down 
 With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits, 
 
 Mingled his royalty with capering fools, 
 
 That, being daily swallowed by men's eyes, 
 They surfeited with honey and began 
 To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little 
 More than a little is by much too much." 
 
 —I King Henry IV, 3, 2. 
 
 Among the modern Spanish poets, none better than 
 Espronceda makes use of sweetness. A few examples 
 only need be given. In his lirics, p. 115, occur the 
 following: . . . 
 
 "Tantas dulces alegrfas, 
 Tantos magicos ensuefios 
 
 ^Donde fueron? . . ." 
 
 In the Student of Salamanca: 
 
 "Vedla, allf va que suefia en su locura 
 Presente el bien que para siempre huy6: 
 Dulces palabras can amor murmura: 
 Piensa que escucha al p^rfido que amo." 
 
 "Dulces horas de amor, yo las bendigo!" 
 
290 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 " Dulce armonia 
 Que inspira al pecho 
 Melancolia. . . ." 
 
 In "Diablo Mundo": 
 
 "Besos de dulce sabor; 
 La dulce queja del primer amor. 
 Dulce rayo de Amor que los suaviza." 
 
 Sonnet : 
 
 "Y vertiendo dulcisimo desmayo 
 Cual balsamo suave en mis pesares, 
 Endulzard to acento el llanto mio." 
 
 In both ancient and modern writings of poetry 
 and prose the idea of sweetness is commonly expressed 
 verbally in the indicative, imperative, infinitive, and 
 participle; substantively in many forms; and also 
 adverbially; but with the greatest frequency adjec- 
 tively in the positive, comparative, and superlative; 
 the adjective sweet being employed to qualify sub- 
 stantives expressive, through the outer senses, of 
 the appreciation of the beauty of color and form, and 
 of quality and quantity, of concordant sounds and of 
 speech, wit, humor, jests, laughter, etc.; of pleasing 
 odors; of agreeable savors; and of delicate touch; 
 and through the inner sensibilities, of the feeling of 
 happiness, of contentment, of prosperity, of adversity, 
 of grief, of misery, etc. This adjective is figuratively 
 employed to qualify life, humanity, health, person, 
 thought, philosophy, memory, home, mercy, friend- 
 
METAPHORIC USES OF SWEETNESS 291 
 
 ship, love, time, rest, sleep, death, etc., etc.; also as a 
 term of endearment, of propitiation, of satire, of irony, 
 and even to qualify revenge. The following are fair 
 examples culled from the works of eminent men of 
 letters, principally from Shakspeare's plays and poems 
 in which alone the idea of sweetness is expressed, by 
 the words sweet, sugar, candy, honey, philomel, 
 melodious, etc., more than eight hundred times. 
 
 The first, from Bailey, exemplifies the beauty of 
 color as qualified by sweetness superlatively used: 
 
 "Her cheek had the pale pearly pink 
 Of sea shells, the world's sweetest tint, as though 
 She lived, one half might seem, on roses sopped 
 In silver dew." 
 
 — Bailey's Festus. 
 
 In the second quotation how simply and charm- 
 ingly Longfellow expresses the idea of beauty of 
 color, form, landscape, by the adjective sweet! 
 
 "No tears 
 Dim the sweet look that nature wears." 
 
 — Sunrise on the Hills. 
 
 Sweetness to qualify the beauty of form occurs as 
 follows in Shakspearean sonnets: 
 
 "Against this coming end you should prepare, 
 And your sweet semblance to some other give. 
 
 . . . Then you were 
 
 Yourself again after yourself's decease, 
 
 When your sweet issue your sweet form shall bear." 
 
 — Sonnet 13. 
 
292 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 " In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, 
 Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, 
 Of hand, of foot, of life, of eye, of brow, 
 I see their antique pen would have express'd 
 Even such a beauty as you master now." 
 
 —Sonnet 106. 
 
 Here quality and quantity are qualified seriously 
 and humorously: 
 
 "The eye of Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful 
 thunder, 
 Which, not to anger bent, is music, and sweet fire." 
 
 — Love's Labour's Lost, 4, 2. 
 
 "Sweet plenty, daughter of the fruitful sun." 
 
 — From "Speed the Going — Welcome the Coming," 
 
 by Edward A. Jenks. 
 
 Costard to Moth — "My sweet ounce of man's flesh." 
 
 — Love's Labour's Lost, 3, 1. ■ 
 
 Concordant sounds could not be more sweetly 
 qualified than by the sweet bard of Avon, and by 
 the modern poets Holmes and Jenks. 
 
 "Why, rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, 
 Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee 
 And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, 
 Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, 
 Under the canopies of costly state, 
 And lull'd with the sound of sweetest melody?" 
 
 —Henry IV, Part II, 3, 1. 
 
 Metellus Cimber. 
 
 "Is there no voice more worthy than my own, 
 To sound more sweetly in great Caesar's ear 
 For the repealing of my banished brethren?" 
 
 — Julius Caesar, 3, 1. 
 
METAPHOKIC USES OF SWEETNESS 293 
 
 Alonzo. 
 
 "What harmony is this? My good friends, hark!" 
 Gonzalo. 
 
 "Marvellous sweet music!" 
 
 — Tempest 3, 3. 
 
 Lorenzo. 
 
 "The man that hath no music in himself, 
 Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
 Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; 
 The motions of his spirit are dull as night, 
 And his affections dark as Erebus: 
 Let no such man be trusted." 
 
 — Merchant of Venice, 5, 1. 
 
 " You think they are crusaders, sent 
 From some infernal clime 
 To pluck the eyes of Sentiment, 
 And dock the tail of Rhyme, 
 To crack the voice of Melody, 
 And break the legs of Time" 
 
 — The Music Grinders. O. W. Holmes. 
 
 "There floated down the river of my rhyme 
 A drowsy listener to the far-off chime 
 Of sweetest bells, that from the hazy shore 
 The throbbing ether to the Boatman bore." 
 
 — The Boatman. Edward A. Jenks. 
 
 The few selections to illustrate the sweet qualifica- 
 tion of speech and wit were culled from very many of 
 the best in the Shakspearean collection. 
 
 Caesar to Metellus. 
 
 . . . "Be not fond, 
 To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood 
 That will be thaw'd from the true quality 
 With that which melteth fools; I mean, sweet words, 
 Low-crooked court'sies and base spaniel-fawning." 
 
 — Julius Ccesar, 3, 1. 
 
294 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Cassius. 
 
 " Antony, 
 
 The posture of your blows are yet unknown; 
 But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees, 
 And leave them honeyless." 
 
 — Julius Ccesar, 5, 1. 
 Northumberland to Bolingbroke. 
 
 " And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar, 
 Making the hard way sweet and delectable." 
 
 — King Richard II, 2, 3. 
 Biron to Costard. 
 
 "When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name," 
 And Rosaline they call her: ask for her." 
 
 — Love's Labour's Lost, 3, 1. 
 Romeo. 
 
 "I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve 
 For sweet discourses in our time to come." 
 
 — Romeo and Juliet, 3, 5. 
 Rosaline speaking of Biron. 
 
 "That aged ears play truant at his tales 
 And younger hearings are quite ravished; 
 So sweet and voluble in his discourse." 
 
 — Love's Labour's Lost, 2, 1. 
 Armado to Moth. 
 
 "Sweet smoke of rhetoric! 
 He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he: 
 I shoot thee at the swain." 
 
 — Love's Labour's Lost, 3, 1. 
 
 "A sweet touch, a quick venew of wit: snip, snap, quick and 
 home; it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit." 
 
 —Love's Labour's Lost, 5, 1. 
 Costard. 
 
 "O' my troth, most sweet jests! most icony vulgar wit!" 
 
 — Love's Labour's Lost, 4, 1. 
 
 SWEET SAVOR. 
 
 "The time was once when thou unurged wouldst vow 
 That never words were music in thine ear, 
 That never object pleasing in thine eye, 
 
METAPHORIC USES OF SWEETNESS 295 
 
 That never touch were welcome to thy hand, 
 That never meat sweet-savour' d in thy taste, 
 Unless I spake, or looked, or touch'd, or carved to thee." 
 — Adriana to Antipholus of Syracuse. 
 
 Comedy of Errors, 2, 2. 
 "The setting sun, and music at the close, 
 As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last. . . ." 
 
 — The dying John of Gaunt, King Richard II, 2, 1. 
 
 SWEET TOUCH. 
 
 " So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not 
 To those fresh morning drops upon the rose." 
 
 — Love's Labour's Lost, 4, 3. 
 
 Friar. 
 
 ADVERSITY. 
 
 ''I'll give the armour to keep off that word; 
 Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy, 
 To comfort thee, though thou art banished." 
 
 — Romeo and Juliet, 3, 3. 
 
 "Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
 Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head: 
 And this our life, exempt from public haunt 
 Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones and good in everything." 
 
 — As You Like It, 2, 1. 
 
 HAPPINESS. 
 
 "True happiness is not the growth of earth, 
 The soil is fruitless if you seek it there: 
 'Tis an exotic of celestial birth, 
 And never blooms but in celestial air. 
 Sweet plant of Paradise! its seeds are sown 
 In here and there a breast of heavenly mould, 
 It rises slow, and buds, but ne'er was known 
 To blossom here — the climate is too cold." 
 
 — R. B, Sheridan. 
 
296 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 "Sweet, as the desert-fountain's wave 
 To lips just cooled in time to save." 
 
 — Bride of Abydos. Byron. 
 
 "The beauty of life, the murmur of contentment, the sweet- 
 ness of happiness, these marked many a tent of my people. ..." 
 
 — Mendes. 
 
 CONTENTMENT, PROSPERITY. 
 
 "Where then will be the fruits, the happiness, the honey of 
 contentment, the sweetness of prosperity?" — Mendes. 
 
 "Oh calm, hush'd rich content, 
 Is there a being, blessedness, without thee? 
 How soft thou down'st the couch where thou dost rest, 
 Nectar to life, thou sweet ambrosian feast." 
 
 — John Maston. 
 
 "The mind's content 
 Sweetens all suff'rings of th' afflicted sense." 
 
 -Nabb. 
 
 "Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, 
 That I shall say good night till it be morrow." 
 
 — Romeo and Juliet, 2, 2. 
 
 GRIEF. 
 
 "Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 
 Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; 
 Raze out the written troubles of the brain; 
 And with some sweet, oblivious antidote 
 Cleanse the stuff' d bosom of that perilous stuff 
 Which weighs upon the heart?" 
 
 — Macbeth, 5, 3. 
 
 MERCY. 
 
 "Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods? 
 Draw near them in being merciful : 
 Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge." 
 
 —Titus Andronicus, 1, 2. 
 
METAPHORIC USES OF SWEETNESS 297 
 
 HUMANITY. 
 '•'Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue: 
 Where patience, honour, sweet humanity, 
 Calm fortitude, take root, and strongly flourish." 
 
 — Mallet and Thomson's Alfred, 
 
 HEALTH. 
 
 "Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace!" 
 
 — Love's Labour's Lost, 2, 1. 
 
 PERSON. 
 
 "Sweet honey Greek, tempt me to no more folly." 
 
 — Cressida to Diomed. Troilus and Cressida, 5, 2. 
 
 "Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already: the clown bore 
 it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter 
 fool, sweetest lady." 
 
 — Love's Labour's Lost, 4, 3. 
 
 "Item: she can milk; look you, a sweet virtue in a maid with 
 clean hands." — Two Gentlemen of Verona, 3, 1. 
 
 "Sweet saint, for charity be not so curst." 
 
 —Richard III, 1, 2. 
 
 "Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try; 
 
 That ministers thine own death, if I die." 
 
 —All's Well That Ends Well, 2, 1. 
 
 "Three years! I wonder if she'll know me: 
 I limp a little, and I left one arm 
 At Petersburg, and I am grown as brown 
 As the plump chestnuts on my little farm; 
 And I am shaggy as the chestnut-burs, 
 But ripe and sweet within, and wholly hers." 
 
 — The Return. Edward A. Jenks. 
 
 MEMORY. 
 
 "Oh! he will tell thee that the wealth of worlds 
 Should ne'er seduce his bosom to forego 
 That sacred hour when stealing from the noise 
 
298 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Of care and envy, sweet remembrance soothes 
 With virtue's kindest looks his aching breast, 
 And turns his tears to rapture." 
 
 — Pleasures of Imagination. Akenside. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 " Glad that you thus continue to resolve, 
 To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy." 
 
 — Taming of the Shrew, 1,1. 
 
 "Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, 
 Where health and plenty cheer' d the lab 'ring swain." 
 
 — The Deserted Village. Goldsmith. 
 
 "Home, sweet home." 
 
 — J. Howard Payne. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 "Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul! 
 Sweet' ner of life, and solder of society! 
 I owe thee much. Thou hast deserv'd of me 
 Far, far beyond what I can ever pay. 
 Oft have I proved the labours of thy love: 
 And the warm efforts of the gentle heart, 
 Anxious to please." 
 
 — Blair's Grave, 
 
 "Oh! let my friendship in the wreath, 
 Though but a bud among the flowers, 
 Its sweetest fragrance round thee breathe— 
 'Twill serve to soothe thy weary hours." 
 
 —Mrs. Wells. 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 "Sweet suggesting love, if thou hast sinned, 
 Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!" 
 
 — Two Gentlemen of Verona, 2, 6. 
 
 "Sweet love! sweet lines! sweet life!" 
 
 — Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1, 2. 
 
METAPHORIC USES OF SWEETNESS %\ 
 
 " Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear, 
 Made tunable with every sweetest vow." 
 
 — John Keats. 
 
 "O hateful hands, to tear such loving words! 
 Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey 
 And kill the bees that yield it with your stings! " 
 
 — Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1, 2. 
 
 " Why, what ,a candy deal of courtesy 
 This fawning greyhound did then proffer me! " 
 
 —Henry IV, Part I, 1, 3. 
 
 "Good night, sweet Lord Menelaus." 
 
 "Sweet draught: sweet, quoth'a! sweet sink, sweet sewer." 
 
 — Troilus and Cressida, 5, 1. 
 
 "Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce." 
 "And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?" 
 
 — Romeo and Juliet, 2, 4. 
 
 "A blister on his sweet tongue, with his heart 
 That put Armado's page out of his part." 
 
 — Love's Labour's Lost, 5, 2. 
 
 "We have conversed and spent our hours together: 
 And though myself have been an idle truant, 
 Omitting the sweet benefit of time 
 To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection. 
 Yet hath Sir Proteus, for that's his name, 
 Made use and fair advantage of his days." 
 
 — Two Gentlemen of Verona, 2, 3. 
 
 " In our two loves there is but one respect, 
 Though in our lives a separable spite, 
 Which though it alter not love's sole effect, 
 Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight." 
 
 — Sonnet 36. Shakspeare. 
 
300 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 "Good night, good night! as sweet repose and rest 
 Come to thy heart as that within my breast!" 
 
 — Romeo and Juliet, 2, 2. 
 
 " And for we think the eagle-winged pride 
 Oi' sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts, 
 With rival-hating envy set on you 
 To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle, 
 Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep." 
 
 — King Richard II, 1, 3. 
 
 . . . "Let the sleep 
 
 Of sweet forgetfulness sit on your eyes 
 
 And dull your ears : so may your dreams be deep 
 
 The while you pass unconscious to the skies." 
 
 — The Princes in the Tower. Edward A . Jenks 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 " O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem 
 By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! 
 The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem 
 For that sweet odour which doth in it live. 
 The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye 
 As the perfumed tincture of the roses, 
 Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly 
 When summer's breath their masked buds discloses: 
 But, for their virtue only is their show, 
 They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade, 
 Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; 
 Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made: 
 And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, 
 When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth." 
 
 — Sonnet 54. Shakspeare. 
 
METAPHOBIC USES OF SWEETNESS 301 
 
 Note. — At a meeting of a literary society, during three hours 
 discussion which followed the introduction of the subject of 
 sweet metaphors and kindred figures of rhetoric, one of the scho- 
 liasts, whose words all treasure because they are golden in sapi- 
 ence and wit, reached the singular conclusion that the use of 
 metaphors "is but confession of verbal bankruptcy." This oft 
 perpetrated chestnut, although exact and true in respect to the 
 abuse of these vivid figures, can scarcely be applied to those 
 metaphors that are so skilfully employed by the accomplished 
 scholars who have graced the literature of past ages, and by 
 modern writers of eminence. However greater may become the 
 exchequer of words, metaphors will generally find their right 
 place in the literature of civilised nations and in Oriental lan- 
 guages, and their use is not likely ever to be abandoned notwith- 
 standing the strictures of hypercriticism. Language necessarily 
 teems with figures of rhetoric, without which it would be so dry, 
 tedious, and uninteresting. If all these figures were discarded 
 there would be little left for the concise and elegant expression 
 of thought, the clear conveyance of ideas, the pleasing instruction 
 of the young, and the agreeable entertainment of all readers and 
 listeners. It may be opportune to call attention to the fact that 
 the learned critic, in denouncing metaphors, did inconsistently 
 use the distinctly metaphoric phrase "confession of verbal 
 bankruptcy," possibly because he then thought of no more 
 forcible mode of expressing his condemnation. 
 
XX 
 
 SLANG SPEECH 
 
 "As thou wouldest be cleane in arraye, 
 So be cleane in thy speeche." 
 
 The discussion on the metaphoric uses of sweetness 
 suggested the subjoined examination of slang speech 
 which so abounds in metaphors. In beginning this 
 examination, the members of the society thought it 
 proper that certain figures of speech be clearly de- 
 fined, since all philosophers have so long insisted 
 upon the exact definition of terms, without which dis- 
 cussion would be profitless. 
 
 Figures of speech, which are simply the expression 
 of mental images, said Taxicus, should be placed in 
 the ordinal line, followed by the genus trope, from 
 trepein, to turn — which signifies the changing of an 
 expression from its original meaning to another — 
 and the species metaphor and allegory; while slang 
 should have but the lower rank of a sub-species — a 
 sort of rhetorical lance-corporal. 
 
 Metaphor, from metapherein, to transfer, is a 
 similitude reduced to a single word, said Aphoristicus. 
 
 Allegory, from alios, other, and agoreuein, is the 
 
 302 
 
SLANG SPEECH 303 
 
 description of one thing under the image of another, 
 said Rhetoricus. 
 
 Slang, itself a slang word, suggesting a connection 
 with to sling, is an unauthorised vulgar colloquial 
 mode of expression, said Onomatopoeiticus. 
 
 Marked as is the difference between metaphor and 
 allegory, these two figures are so often used in con- 
 juction that they should be examined together, and 
 there is in slang so much of both metaphor and alle- 
 gory that, though slang be of low cast, it should be 
 included in the examination. The many well coined 
 legitimate words and phrases which are too often 
 regarded as slang, even by intelligent people, and the 
 commonly used vicious locutions will, of course, be 
 excluded. 
 
 Metaphor was defined by a distinguished philo- 
 mathist as " a species of rhetorical trope founded on 
 the resemblance which one object bears to another. 
 It is in reality only comparison or simile expressed 
 in an abridged form. For example, the sentence, 
 'These men are lambs in the family, but lions in the 
 field,' is an example of metaphor; but to say, ' These 
 men are like lambs in the family, etc./ is an instance 
 of simile or comparison. In short, the peculiar dis- 
 tinction between these two figures is, that in simile 
 we say one object is like another, while in metaphor 
 we drop the word expressing the similitude, and say 
 one object is another. And hence the peculiar bold- 
 ness which characterises metaphor, and which is not 
 to be found in the same degree in any of the figures 
 
304 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 of rhetoric. Those ordinary metaphors which long 
 use has sanctioned have a tendency, in all languages, 
 to sink to the level of common terms." 
 
 Allegory is defined, by a near relation of the philo- 
 mathist just quoted, as "consisting in choosing a 
 secondary subject having all its properties and circum- 
 stances resembling those of the principal subject, 
 and describing the former in such a manner as to 
 represent the latter. The principal subject is thus 
 kept out of view, and we are left to discover it by 
 reflection." 
 
 From the many good examples of metaphor and 
 allegory given by the author of the foregoing para- 
 graph, the following are quoted partly to illustrate 
 the commingling of the two figures.* 
 
 " Edward's sev'n sons, whereof thyself art one, 
 Were sev'n fair branches, springing from one root; 
 Some of these branches by the dest'nies cut: 
 But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Glo'ster, 
 One nourishing branch of his most royal root, 
 Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded, 
 By Envy's hand and Murder's bloody axe." 
 
 —Richard II, 1, 3. 
 
 "Thou dwellest in the soul of Malvina, son of 
 mighty Ossian. My sighs arise with the beam of the 
 east: my tears descend with the drops of night. I 
 was a lovely tree in thy presence, Oscar, with all my 
 branches round me : but thy death came like a blast 
 from the desert, and laid my green head low; the 
 
 * A good example of the commixture of metaphor and alle- 
 gory occurs in Scene iv, Act v, of the third part of King Henry VI. 
 
SLANG SPEECH 305 
 
 spring returned with its showers, but no leaf of mine 
 arose." 
 
 As an example of strained metaphor, the same 
 author gives the following letter of Tamerlane to 
 Bajazet. 
 
 " Where is the monarch who dares resist us? Where 
 is the potentate who doth not glory in being num- 
 bered among our attendants? As for thee, descended 
 from a Turcoman sailor, since the vessel of thy un- 
 bounded ambition hath been wreck'd in the gulf of 
 thy self-love, it would be proper, that thou shouldst 
 take in the sails of thy temerity, and cast the anchor 
 of repentance in the port of sincerity and justice, 
 which is the port of safety; lest the tempest of our 
 vengeance make thee perish in the sea of the punish- 
 ment thou deservest." * 
 
 A little digression, by way of mental recess, may 
 not be untimely, moreover it pertains, though in- 
 directly, to the subject under consideration. The 
 value of figures of speech is so well illustrated by the 
 facetious Doctor Samuel Ferguson in his Father Tom 
 and the Pope, or a Night in the Vatican, that it is im- 
 possible to refrain from quoting the following passages : 
 
 "You see, says his Riv'rence — by this time they 
 wor mixing their third tumbler — the writings ov 
 them Fathers is to be thrated wid great veneration; 
 and it 'ud be the height of presumption in any one 
 to sit down to interpret them widout providing him- 
 
 * The author of limping Timur's letter could certainly have 
 given many "points" to the chronic metaphorist Bunyan. 
 
306 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 self wid a genteel assortment ov the best figures ov 
 rhetoric, sich as mettonymy, hyperbol, cattychrasis, 
 prolipsis, mettylipsis, superbaton, pollysyndreton, 
 hustheronprotheron, prosodpeia, and the like, in 
 ordher that he may never be at a loss for shuitable 
 sintiments when he comes to their high flown pas- 
 sidges. For unless we thrate them Fathers liberally 
 to a handsome allowance ov thropes and figures, 
 they'd set up heresy at ons't, so they would. 
 
 "It's thrue for you, says the Pope; the figures of 
 spache is the pillars ov the Church. 
 
 " Bedad, says his Riv'rence, I dunna what we'd do 
 widout them at all. 
 
 "Which one do you prefir? says the Pope; that is, 
 says he, which figure of spache do you find most use- 
 fullest when you're hard set? 
 
 "Metaphour's very good, says his Riv'rence, and 
 so's metonomy — and I've known prosodypeia stand 
 to me at a pinch mighty well — but for a constancy, 
 superbaton's the figure for my money. Divil be in 
 me, says he, but I'd prove black white, as fast as a 
 horse 'ud throt, wid only a good stock of superbaton. 
 
 "Faix, says the Pope, wid a sly look, you'd need 
 to have it backed, I judge, wid a small taste of 
 assurance. 
 
 "Well now, jist for that word, says his Riv'rence, 
 I'll prove it widout aither one or other. Black, says 
 he, is one thing and white is another thing. You 
 don't conthravene that? But everything is aither 
 one thing or another thing; I defy the Apostle Paul 
 
SLANG SPEECH 307 
 
 to get over that dilemma. Well! if anything be one 
 thing, well and good; but if it be another thing, then 
 it's plain it isn't both things, and so can't be two 
 things — nobody can deny that. But what can't be 
 two things must be one thing — ergo, whether it's 
 one thing or another thing, it's all one. But black 
 is one thing and white is another thing — ergo, black 
 and white is all one. Quod erat demonsthrandum! 
 
 "Stop a bit, says the Pope, I can't althegither give 
 into your second minor — no — your second major, 
 says he, and he stopped. Faix, then, says he, getting 
 confused, I don't rightly remimber where it was 
 exactly that I thought I seen the flaw in your pre- 
 mises. Howsomdiver, says he, I don't deny that it's 
 a good conclusion, and one that 'ud be ov materi'l 
 service to the Church if it was dhrawn with a little 
 more distinctiveness." . 
 
 Slang speech, nearly all philologists agree to have 
 arisen very soon after the principle of mine and thine 
 began to be violated; organized bands of evil doers 
 having early found it necessary to invent modes of 
 communication with each other unintelligible to 
 their victims. Such, doubtless, is the origin of slang. 
 Of the classes of vagabonds known as tramps, gypsies, 
 beggars and thieves, each formed a peculiar jargon or 
 gibberish suited to its purposes by the use of pithy 
 words and phrases, ingenious anagrams, strained 
 metaphors and extravagant allegory in the tongue 
 of its own country. From these turbid streams has 
 arisen the slang of the prize-ring, of the gaming table, 
 
308 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 of the farm, field, and turf, of the plains, of the 
 trades, of waggoners, of seafarers, of the railway, of 
 cyclers, of commerce, of the bourse, of the stage, 
 of the press, of the college, of the learned professions, 
 and of polite society. 
 
 A glance at the words used in some European 
 tongues to express our idea of slang clearly shows its 
 derivation from the locutions of the wicked. Slang 
 speech is rendered in German as gaunersprache, 
 thieves' tongue; in Spanish as lengua franca, which 
 was the jargon of rascally Levantine traders, or as 
 lengua tsigana, zinguela, or gitana (gitana being a 
 corruption of egiptiana); in Italian as lingua jur- 
 besca, roguish tongue, as gergo, jargon, gibberish, 
 and as lingua zingara or zingana; in French as argot, 
 from jargon, which is said to date no farther back 
 than the fifteenth century when certain associations 
 of vagabonds infested the dark, narrow streets of 
 Paris. Some historians say that nothing relating to 
 French argot could be traced anteriorly to the year 
 1427 when the gypsies, supposed to be Hussite refu- 
 gees from Bohemia — hence their name Bohemiens — 
 made their first appearance in Paris; and concluded 
 that these nomadic creatures furnished the elements 
 of the jargon. Other authors assert that slang has 
 nothing in common with the gypsy tongue which is 
 called Romany. 
 
 Borrow, in his work bearing the title of The Bible 
 in Spain, says, on the authority of an ancient his- 
 torian, that in or about 1416 the Peloponesus was 
 
SLANG SPEECH 309 
 
 inhabited by seven principal nations, one of which 
 was from Egypt. He further says that Bataillard 
 believed these "Egyptians" to be the same people 
 now known as Gypsies, and suggests that from these 
 seven nations originated the seven jargons; and also 
 says that the number seven seems, in a special way, 
 to be connected with the children of Roma. Bor- 
 row's "Lavengro" and "Romany Rye or the Gypsy 
 Gentleman," contain very many examples of gypsy 
 jargon. 
 
 The foregoing statement of the origin of the gyp- 
 sies is traversed by more recent writers who believe 
 that the original home of the so-called gypsies was in 
 India where they were low caste rope, basket, and 
 fan makers and generally thieves; their name Ro- 
 many being derived, as it is said, from rom, man — 
 plural roma — from the Hindi word domba, low caste 
 man; and their jargon is now called the Romany 
 tongue. It is written that, after they were driven 
 from India in 1400 by the destroying conqueror 
 Tamerlane, they scattered themselves throughout the 
 west, and were called Charami, thieves, by the Arabs; 
 Tchingenes, in Turkey; Cyganis, in Wallachia and 
 Moldavia; Pharaoh Nepec, Pharaoh's people, in Hun- 
 garia where they abound; Zigeuner, in Germany; 
 Tsiganes, Gitanos, etc., in Spain; Zingari, etc., in 
 Italy. It is also said that they were self exiled Hin- 
 doo pariahs who lived on the flesh even of diseased 
 animals. The true origin of the gypsies was still in 
 doubt early in this century, and this doubt is admi- 
 
310 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 rably set forth by the charming songster Beranger in 
 the following stanzas of 
 
 "les bohemiens. 
 Sorciers, bateleurs, ou filous, 
 Reste immonde 
 D'un ancien monde; 
 Sorciers, bateleurs, ou filous. 
 Gais bohemiens, d'ou venez vous? 
 
 D'ou nous venous, Ton n'en sait rien. 
 
 L'hirondelle, 
 
 D'ou nous vient-elle? 
 D'ou nous venons, l'on n'en sait rien. 
 Ou nous irons, le sait-on bien? 
 
 Sans pays, sans prince et sans lois, 
 
 Notre vie 
 
 Doit faire en vie; 
 Sans pays, sans prince, et sans lois 
 L'homme est heureux un jour sur trois." 
 
 Certain French writers, among them Victor Hugo, 
 are disposed to regard argot as a veritable language, 
 because, they urge, "it has a literature." This does 
 not seem to be a sufficient reason, since there do not 
 exist fixed rules for speaking or writing argot whose 
 name and synonyms are against this view.* It is 
 very generally acknowledged that gypsy and other 
 
 * Statisticians have striven to enumerate the Gypsies in 
 Europe, but so far have not been able to do so with precision, 
 partly owing to the fact that these nomads wander from coun- 
 try to country. However, the number is believed to be over 
 900,000, distributed through Hungary, Russia, Austria, Turkey, 
 Roumania, Servia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Germany, Poland, France, 
 England, Spain and Italy. The largest numbers are said to 
 be in Russia (250,000), in Roumania (250,000), in Hungary 
 (196,000), in Turkev (100,000), and the smallest in England 
 (20,000), and in France (5,000). 
 
SLANG SPEECH 311 
 
 rogue-jargons are as different as the languages of the 
 nations through whose territories these vagrants have 
 travelled. In whatever tongue the gypsy speaks, 
 he retains inverted and metaphoric words taken from 
 the Hindi, Hebrew, Latin, Turkish, Hungarian, Bo- 
 hemian, Polish, Russian, Lithuanian, German, Italian, 
 Spanish, Portuguese, French, or English, etc., etc. 
 His speech is simply slang of any of those tongues 
 and cannot, in reason, be classed as a single, fixed 
 and distinct language. La Rousse quotes a parody 
 on the ten commandments written in French argot 
 by a thief, but in this case the language is purely 
 French with extravagant metaphors. He also refers 
 to the argotic poems of the professional thief Frangois 
 Villon, and gives, in full, letters of assassins in charac- 
 teristic French argot, likewise a declaration of love 
 from a thief to a woman of whom he was enamored; 
 all of which productions were simply corrupted 
 French in strained metaphor and allegory. 
 
 " Declaration d' amour d'un voleur a une femme qu'il aime. Argot. 
 
 "Girofle largue: 
 
 "Depuis le reluit ou j'ai gambille' avec trezigue et re- 
 mouche' tes chasses et ta frime d'alteque, le dardant a coque" le 
 rifle dans mon palpitant, qui n'aquige plus que pour trezigue; 
 je ne roupille que poitou, je pommerai la sorbonne si ton palpi- 
 tant ne fade pas les sentiments du mien. Le reluit et la sorgue, 
 je ne rembroque que trezigue, et si tu ne me prends a la bonne, 
 to me verras bientot mourir." 
 
 TRADUCTION. 
 
 "Aimable femme, 
 
 "Depuis le jour ou j'ai danse 1 avec toi et vu tes yeux et 
 ta mine piquante, l'amour a mis le feu dans mon coeur, qui ne 
 
312 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 bat que pour toi; je ne dors plus; je perdrai la tete si ton coeur 
 ne partage pas les sentiments du mien. La jour et la nuit, je 
 ne vois que toi, et si tu ne m'aimes, tu me verras bientot mourir." 
 
 In England, the slang of vagabonds seems to have 
 become generally known in about the middle of the 
 sixteenth century when the "Caveat for Common 
 Cursetors, etc.," of Thomas Harman was published, 
 as shown by Francis Grose in the preface to the 
 second edition, 1788, of his "Classical Dictionary of 
 the Vulgar Tongue" where he gives a brief bibliogra- 
 phy of the rogues' jargon as follows: 
 
 "A caveat for common cursetors, vulgarly called 
 vagabones, set forth by Thomas Harman, for the utili- 
 ty and proffyt of hys naturall countrey. Newly 
 augmented, and imprinted, A. D. 1567. Lond." 
 
 "The canting Academy; or villanies discovered: 
 wherein are shown the mysteries and villanous prac- 
 tices of that wicked crew, commonly known by the 
 names of hectors, trapanners, gilts, etc. With several 
 new catches and songs. Also a compleat canting 
 dictionary, both of old words and such as are now 
 most in use. Second edition." (no date.) "the 
 dedication is signed R. Head." 
 
 "Hell upon earth; or the most pleasant and delec- 
 table history of Whittington's college, otherwise 
 (vulgarly) called Newgate . . . Lond. 1703." 
 
 "The scoundrels' dictionary; or an explanation 
 of the cant words used by thieves, house-breakers, 
 street-robbers, and pickpockets about town, etc. 
 Lond. 1754." 
 
SLANG SPEECH 313 
 
 In Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy of the Beggars' 
 Bush, Act 2, Scene 1, the following occurs: 
 
 ". . . provide me lum enough, 
 And lour to bouze with." 
 
 Lum then meant strong liquor, lour, money, and 
 to bouze, to drink. Bene bouze, good drink. Bouzing- 
 ken, ale-house. Duds, clothes. Pedlars' French, 
 equivalent to thieves' Latin. Clapper-dudgeon, a born 
 beggar. Abram-man, a sturdy beggar who counter- 
 feited madness* Dommerer, a beggar feigning dumb- 
 ness. A crank, a deceiver, a counterfeit. In the 
 "Coxcomb," by the same authors; argent (silver) is 
 corrupted into "argot." 
 
 "I will give dy worship two shillings in good argot." 
 
 — Act 3, Scene 3. 
 
 The bibliography of jargon, in one of the recent 
 slang dictionaries published in England, consists of 
 one hundred and twenty titles. 
 
 The following is a fair example of rogues' slang 
 among the Irish. f 
 
 "The night before Larry was stretched, 
 The boys they all paid him a visit; 
 A bit in their sacks, too, they fetched — 
 They sweated their duds till they riz it; 
 For Larry was always the lad, 
 
 When a friend was condemned to the squeezer, 
 
 * In King Lear, Edgar, to escape the fury of his persecutor, 
 is disguised as a bedlam beggar. " Poor Turlygod ! Poor Tom! " 
 
 f This song, which bears the title of the Death of Socrates, is 
 facetiously ascribed to the Rev. Robert Borrowes, Dean of St, 
 Finbar's Cathedral, Cork. — Reliques of Father Prout. 
 
314 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 But he'd pawn all the togs that he had, 
 
 Just to help the poor boy to a sneezer, 
 And moisten his gob 'fore he died. 
 'Pon my conscience, dear Larry,' says I, 
 
 'I'm sorry to see you in trouble, 
 And your life's cheerful noggin run dry, 
 
 And yourself going off like its bubble! 
 'Hould your tongue in that matter,' says he; 
 
 ' For the neckcloth I don't care a button, 
 And by this time to-morrow you'll see 
 
 Your Larry will be dead as mutton: 
 All for what? 'Kase his courage was good!' 
 The boys they came crowding in fast; 
 
 They drew their stools close round about him, 
 Six glims round his coffin they placed — 
 
 He couldn't be well waked without 'em." etc., etc. 
 
 Criticus says of slang that it is "a vocabulary of 
 genuine words or unmeaning jargon, used always 
 with an arbitrary and conventional signification, and 
 generally with humorous intent. It is mostly coarse, 
 low, and foolish, although in some cases, owing to 
 circumstances of the time, it is racy, pungent, and 
 pregnant of meaning. Cant is a phraseology com- 
 posed of genuine words soberly used by some sect, 
 profession, or sort of men, in one legitimate sense 
 which they adopt to the exclusion of others as having 
 peculiar virtue, and which thereby becomes peculiar 
 to themselves. Cant is more or less enduring, its 
 use continuing with no variation of meaning through 
 generations. Slang is very evanescent. It generally 
 passes out of use and out of mind in the course of a 
 few years, and often in a few months." * 
 
 * Words and Their Uses. Richard Grant White. 
 
SLANG SPEECH 315 
 
 Criticus mentions but one kind of cant — that par- 
 ticular form used in not a very distant past and in our 
 days — whereas other high authorities believe that 
 many centuries ago, cant or chant was originally the 
 style of utterance of mendicants who, to excite com- 
 miseration and secure alms, whiningly chanted their 
 affected ills and needs; thieves and other miscreants 
 also canting their jargon in peculiarly whining tones. 
 Slang, the critic says, soon passes out of use. This is 
 true of the great majority of slang words, but too 
 many, of inferior order, creep into and find permanent 
 lodgment in modern tongues. Those well coined pithy 
 slangs that serve to enrich and embellish language 
 are readily adopted, but generally their original 
 character of slang is soon forgotten. The occasional 
 assertion that language began in slang does not appear 
 to be well founded, and no trustworthy testimony 
 has been adduced as likely to sustain this view. It 
 has been well said that language was formed by agree- 
 ment among men that certain words or signs be used 
 to express their ideas of different objects, and it is not 
 likely that slang was used until luxury had existed 
 for a time, until there was enough superfluity to ex- 
 cite cupidity and finally to lead to the organisation 
 of bands of thieves who, for their purposes, began to 
 use words unknown to their victims. Doubtless the 
 beggars, thieves, gamins, and wits of Babylon, 
 Niniveh, Thebes, Memphis. Athens, and Rome used 
 slang speech or its equivalent, but nothing, so far, 
 has been deciphered from cuneiform inscriptions or 
 
316 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 from Egyptian hierogliphs to establish the existence 
 in those remote times, of a slang literature of the 
 wicked or of the learned; nor does anything like slang 
 appear in the writings of the facetious poets of Greece 
 or Rome. The difference between cant and slang is 
 that while cant is the chanting of genuine words and 
 phrases, slang consists ordinarily in the use of meta- 
 phors frequently joined to allegory in sentences 
 spoken naturally though often chaunted. Slang evi- 
 dently had its beginning in the cant, chant, or chaunt 
 of beggars and was soon adopted by thieves, probably 
 on account of the whining style of enunciation. 
 The particular kinds of cant spoken by some religious 
 sects, by modern Aminadab sleeks, by neotartufnans, 
 and by emotional persons, and which do not neces- 
 sarily contain metaphor or allegory, are quite distinct 
 from the cant of beggars and thieves. 
 
 Besides metaphorical and allegorical slang, beggars, 
 thieves, street venders, and mountebanks in England 
 and in the United States use back slang, rhyming 
 slang, recitative cant, and patter. 
 
 The. variety of jargon known as back slang consists 
 of the inversion of words so that they form new words 
 or anagrams; as selppa for apples; as stuntsehc for 
 chestnuts; dlog for gold; revlis for silver; on doog 
 for no good; efmk for knife; erif for fire; mur for 
 rum; nig for gin, reeb for beer; occabot for tobacco; 
 nam for man; yad for day; soush for house; etc. 
 See Mayhew's "Poor of London." 
 
 Rhyming slang consists of the recitation in canting 
 
SLANG SPEECH 317 
 
 style of doggerel verses by street charlatans to vaunt 
 their spurious wares often wrapped in bright colored 
 papers on which are imprinted slangy songs composed 
 for them by needy rhymsters. 
 
 Recitative cant is used largely by gossiping, tale- 
 bearing, slandering, wheedling gaberlunzies (Scott) 
 mendicants, swindlers, and other evil doers. 
 
 Patter is of two kinds, one of which consists of 
 chattering jargon by mountebanks and by strolling 
 venders of fancy articles after the manner of Autoly- 
 cus in "The Winter's Tale"; while the other kind 
 is the glib talk used for the distraction of the audience 
 by the better class of "conjurers" in the performance 
 of their tricks. 
 
 Even of such a trifling subject as patter, the best of 
 examples is found in the great master's works. The 
 thieving stroller Autolycus is ushered among feasting 
 peasants and offers them his wares in pattering 
 rhyme : 
 
 'Lawn as white as driven snow; 
 Cyprus black as e'er was crow; 
 Gloves as sweet as damask roses; 
 Masks for faces and for noses; 
 Bugle bracelet, necklace amber, 
 Perfume for a lady's chamber; 
 Golden quoifs and stomachers, 
 For my lads to give their dears: 
 Pins and poking-sticks of steel, 
 What maids lack from head to heel: 
 Come buy of me, come; come buy, come buy; 
 Buy, lads or else your lasses cry: 
 Come buy." 
 
 — The Winter's Tale, 4, 4. 
 
318 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 The following are selected from the many fair ex- 
 amples of slang words and phrases which are not 
 metaphors: A violent snow-storm is called a ''bliz- 
 zard"; the "gamin, gutter-snipe, street urchin" calls 
 his sweetheart his "steady"; the mortally wounded 
 ruffian says that his "goose is cooked"; the "confi- 
 dence man and bunco steerer buncoes," cheats or 
 swindles unwary wayfarers; a "bummer" is a worth- 
 less wretch ever ready to receive gratuities or to be 
 regaled with strong drink; a simpleton is called a 
 "galoot" which is said to be derived from the Hebrew 
 word galuth, meaning bondage, captivity. To "shove 
 the queer" is to pass counterfeit money. The word 
 pal, comrade, is believed to have come from the 
 Spanish jargon plal, which signifies comrade. 
 
 In many other varieties of slang used by all classes 
 in France, England, and America neither metaphor 
 nor allegory enter. They are so well known that only 
 a few examples need be given. 
 
 Petit Creve, for the individual called dude, was 
 thirty years ago used in France. Since that time 
 many new words coined to express the same idea have 
 passed out of fashion. Fin de siecle was among the 
 slangy expressions lately used to convey the idea 
 of "up to date" which is dying out. 
 
 A certain British vessel very recently was to sail 
 from a well known harbor, but the order was revoked 
 because "the weather was altogether too dusty to 
 venture outside." 
 
 In an eating-house of "the slums," a customer 
 
SLANG SPEECH 319 
 
 calling for some food, the order was given to the cook 
 in the following style: "De cove will tackle a brace 
 of white wings wid de sunny side up." By this was 
 meant the man wants two eggs fried on one side. 
 
 Some years ago a slang arose, the origin of which 
 is unknown to the Castanean Fraternity. It appears 
 to be used with complimentary intent. Foi instance, 
 he who desires to convey the idea that a thing is good, 
 right, proper, or correct, says "there are no flies on 
 it," or that a woman is charming and beautiful, says 
 "there are no flies on her." It happened not very 
 long ago that a gentleman, who had entered the 
 political arena, found it expedient to give at his elegant 
 home an elaborate dinner to his new friends. At the 
 end of the feast the guests entered the drawing room 
 to take leave of the hostess. Each made his bow in 
 silence except one who said: "Missus there was no 
 floys on the dinner, and there bees no floys on you 
 nayther," and honestly thought that he could not 
 have spoken more flatteringly. 
 
 The perversion of the adverb awfully is now of such 
 frequent occurrence that it is worthy of being placed 
 among the senseless slangs just mentioned. To ex- 
 press gratitude the gilded youth of to-day must need 
 say — "thanks awfully." He is "awfully glad" to 
 see his friends who are always "awfully good" to 
 him, and he is always "awfully happy" in the com- 
 pany of these "awfully sweet and pretty" girls. 
 
 A very common expression in the mouths of those 
 who fear to use certain expletives, is, "where the 
 
320 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 dickins has he gone." This word seems to have 
 been used in the Elizabethan period for it occurs in 
 "The Merry Wives of Windsor," 3, 2: Mrs. Page 
 loquitur — "I cannot tell what the dickins his name 
 is my husband had him of"; the dickins being a 
 contraction of devilkins. 
 
 Before concluding it may be well to append the 
 following excerpts from two English publications, as 
 they illustrate, in measure, the present state of slang 
 among people of culture of Anglo Saxon extraction. 
 
 "A lecture delivered in Carlisle, by the Rev. 
 Stowell Brown, contained the following amusing 
 but instructive passage : 'The point to which I have 
 next to direct attention is manliness in speech. 
 There are many young men who seem to consider it 
 essential to manliness that they should be masters of 
 slang. The sporting world, like its brother the swell- 
 mob, has a language of its own; but this dog-English 
 extends far beyond the sporting world. It comes 
 with its hordes of barbarous words threatening the 
 entire extinction of genuine English ! Now, just listen 
 for a moment to our fast young man, or the ape of a 
 fast young man, who thinks that to be a man he must 
 speak in the dark phraseology of slang. If he does 
 anything on his own responsibility, he does on his own 
 "hook." If he sees anything remarkably good, he 
 calls it a "stunner," the superlative of which is a 
 "regular stunner." If a man is requested to pay a 
 tavern bill, he is asked if he will " stand Sam." If he 
 meets a savage-looking dog, he calls him an "ugly 
 
SLANG SPEECH 321 
 
 customer." If he meets an eccentric man, he calls 
 him a "rummy old cove." A sensible man is a "chap 
 that is up to snuff." Our young friend never scolds 
 but " blows up "; never pays, but " stumps up"; never 
 finds it difficult to pay, but is "hard up"; never feels 
 fatigued, but is " used up." He has no hat, but shelters 
 his head beneath a "tile." He wears no neck-cloth, 
 but surrounds his throat with a "choker." He lives 
 nowhere, but there is some place where he "hangs 
 out." He never goes away or withdraws, but he 
 "bolts," he "slopes," he "mizzles," he " makes himself 
 scarce," he "walks his chalks," he "makes his tracks," 
 he "cuts his stick," or, which is the same thing, he 
 "cuts his lucky." The highest compliment you can 
 pay him is to tell him that he is a "regular brick." 
 He does not profess to be brave, but he prides him- 
 self on being "plucky." Money is a word which he 
 has forgotten, but he talks a good deal about "tin," 
 and the "needful," "the rhino," and "the ready." 
 When a man speaks he "spouts"; when he holds his 
 peace, he "shuts up"; when he is humiliated, he is 
 "taken down a peg or two," and "made to sing 
 small." Mow a good deal of this slang is harmless; 
 many of the terms are, I think, very expressive ; yet 
 there is much slang that is objectionable."' 
 
 "origin and meaning of words commonly used, 
 but unworthy the dictionary. 
 
 "From the London Mail. 
 
 "The use of slang is spreading alarmingly in all 
 
322 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 classes of London society. Even at the best 'At 
 Homes' the regrettable practice is more noticeable 
 than ever. Slang has one, and only one, advantage. 
 It often conveys to the mind a clearer and more dis- 
 tinct sense of what is meant than would classic 
 language. 
 
 "'High-falutin' is much in evidence just now as a 
 slangism. It means 'putting side on,' being 'stuck 
 up,' 'showing off,' and such like human failings. 
 'Come now, none o' yer high-falutin',' when expressed 
 in an angry voice by a big man, is a solemn warning 
 to the other man not to appear what he is not, neither 
 to 'show off' nor imitate the 'swell' or the 'fancy.' 
 
 "The vernacular is particularly rich in slang syno- 
 nyms for 'money,' many of which are remarkable in 
 their appropriateness. In scores of ways one may 
 speak of our coin, among them being 'the actual,' 
 'the needful,' or 'the wherewithal'; 'tin,' 'brass,' 
 'blunt,' 'chips/ 'dibs,' or 'pieces'; 'dust,' 'chink,' 
 'shot,' 'shekels,' or 'spondulics'; 'stamps,' 'feathers,' 
 or 'palm-oil,' which last is such an obviously appli- 
 cable word for it that 'shin-plaster' seems feeble by 
 comparison. 
 
 "These epithets, however, are not more curious 
 than the technical and trade slang which was brought 
 to the notice of the Royal Commission on Labor. 
 Among the quaint terms, as set forth in the report 
 of the evidence, are these: 'Bell-horse,' 'caunched,' 
 'fudd,' 'mungs,' 'slop-dash work,' 'sprigger,' 'tingles,' 
 and 'slugger.' 
 
SLANG SPEECH 323 
 
 " 'Booze ' has become familiar through a song, 
 'Come Where the Booze Is Cheaper.' In this con- 
 nection a story, said to be authentic, is being told. 
 
 " On the terrace, beneath the windows of the Royal 
 apartments at Windsor Castle, the Guards' band was 
 playing a livery air, which immensely pleased the 
 Queen. She sent a gentleman to find out the title of 
 the music. He returned with hesitancy, trying his 
 utmost to avoid telling Her Majesty the name of the 
 piece. He, however, was forced to report, and the 
 Sovereign was told that the tune was 'Come Where 
 the Booze Is Cheaper!' 
 
 "Universities are happy hunting-grounds for slang- 
 isms. A student always goes 'up' to the "Varsity.' 
 'Little go' and 'smalls' are the names given respect- 
 ively at Cambridge and Oxford to a student's first 
 examination. The final exam., on which degrees 
 are obtained, is called 'greats' at Oxford, and the 
 ' great go ' at Cambridge. 
 
 "When a man failed at an exam, he used to say 
 that he was ■ plucked ' ; now, however, such an event 
 is more frequently referred to as being 'ploughed.' 
 The greatest calamity that can befall a student is to 
 be 'rusticated,' that is, sent 'down' from the univer- 
 sity for a term or for good. 
 
 "A genius for quaint metaphor and a natural pic- 
 turesque use of language made American slang 
 humorous. Sometimes it is even tinged with poetry. 
 Here are a few American slangisms which are be- 
 coming at home on this side of the Atlantic. 'Tan- 
 
324 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 glefoot,' which has the ring of poetry about it, as a 
 name for ardent spiiits, is a happy thought. The 
 patient labor of the gold washers and the finality 
 of its results is very graphically expressed by 'pan 
 out,' which is also used to denote a climax. What 
 a concrete image is conveyed to the mind by the 
 designation 'push buggy/ as compared with our 
 meaningless equivalent 'perambulator!' 
 
 "To 'have a hard row to hoe' is said of a person 
 who has a difficult undertaking in hand. England 
 has become familiarized with 'coon' (a contraction 
 of 'raccoon') and 'a gone coon,' the latter signifying 
 one in such an 'awful fix' as to be absolutely 'past 
 praying for.' Its origin is from the American civil 
 war, in which a spy dressed in a raccoon skin hid him- 
 self up a tree. A soldier came upon him, and think- 
 ing he was a real coon prepared to fire at him with his 
 rifle. This was too much for Mr. Spy, who shouted: 
 'Don't shoot; I'll come down; I know I'm a gone 
 coon.' Thereupon he came to earth, which as it 
 were so 'flummuxed' his would-be destroyer that 
 the latter at once 'made tracks' from the scene."* 
 
 This meagre sketch of the history of slang is in- 
 tended to call attention to its very early beginning; 
 to its general characters; to the abundance of meta- 
 phors and allegories entering therein; to the nature 
 of its varieties; to the absence of metaphor and 
 allegory in some of these varieties; to the difference 
 
 * The stoiy has been told of Captain Scott and also of Colonel 
 David Crockett. 
 
SLANG SPEECH 325 
 
 between cant and slang; to the real origin of the so 
 called gypsies and of their gibberish; to the perma- 
 nency of the rogues' jargon; to the retention of some 
 slangs in literary language; and to the evanescence 
 of the vast majorities of the slangs used in polite 
 society. 
 
 Although Baboo English cannot exactly be placed 
 in the category oi slang speech, a specimen, so inter- 
 esting and illustrative as the following, furnished by 
 one of the Brethren, may well be appended to this 
 paper. It is an application for a government position 
 by a native who had learned his English at one of 
 the schools in India. 
 
 " Respectfully showeth, that your lordship's honour's servant 
 is a poor man in agricultural behavior and much depends upon 
 seasons for staff of life. 
 
 " Wherefore he prays that you will favor upon him and take 
 him into your saintly service, that he may have some permanently 
 labor for the support of his soul and of his family. 
 
 " Wherefore he falls on his family's bended knees and implores 
 to you of this merciful consideration to a damnable miserable 
 like your honour's unfortunate petitioner. 
 
 " That your lordship's honour's servant was so poorly during 
 the late rains and was resuscitated by such medicines which made 
 magnificent excavations in the coffers of your honorable servant 
 whose means are already circumscribed by his large family of 
 five female women and three masculine, the last of whom are 
 damnably noiseful through pulmonary catastrophe of the in- 
 terior abdomen. 
 
 "That your honour's damnable was officiating in several 
 capacities during past generations, but has become too much 
 old for espousing hard labor in this time of his bodily life, but 
 was not drunkful, not thief, nor swindler, nor any of these kind, 
 but was always pious and affectionate to his numerous family, 
 
326 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 consisting of the aforesaid five female women and three mascu- 
 line. 
 
 "That your generous lordship's honour's damnable servant 
 was entreating magistrate for employment in state to remove 
 filth, etc., but was not granted petition. 
 
 " Therefore, your lordship will give me a light work in the de- 
 partment for which act of kindness your noble lordship's mean 
 servant will, as in duty bound, ever pray for your lordship's 
 life's longevity." 
 
XXI 
 
 THE PLEASURE OF EATING AND THE PLEASURES OF 
 THE TABLE 
 
 "Here let us feast, and to the feast be joined 
 Discourse, the sweeter banquet of the mind." 
 
 Ye fluent post-prandium orators, whose sweet dis- 
 courses and learned comments are so charming to 
 the senses and so gladdening to the spirit, you know 
 well that without curiosity man would have continued 
 to occupy a rank not much above the beast; that had 
 he not been a persistent inquirer from childhood, 
 social interchange of ideas would have been impossi- 
 ble; that the gratification of the irrepressible desire 
 to find out the why, what, where, and when of things 
 has given him the knowledge which is the foundation 
 of the higher intellectual relations and of civilisation; 
 and that this same spirit of inquiry leads even the 
 thoughtful man of to-day to ask himself why he eats, 
 and why he likes to dine in company. It is hoped 
 that the definement of these questions will "suffer 
 no perdition" in the words that follow. 
 
 We are told by Deipneus Deipnophilus that all 
 organized beings must absorb a sufficiency of nutri- 
 ment to maintain individual integrity and preserve 
 the species; that from the lowest bacteria to the 
 
 327 
 
328 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 loftiest giants of the forest, from the veriest monads 
 to the hugest beasts and to man, the process of nutri- 
 tion is carried on by an apparatus whose organs are 
 conformable to the needs of each species of plants 
 and animals, increasing in complexity from the most 
 primitive to the highest types of life; and that plants 
 and certain low forms of animals feed, as it were, 
 passively, that is to say, from the earth, air, or water, 
 absorb their nutriment by a sort of affinitive process, 
 while higher forms, as insects, Crustacea, molluscs, 
 fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals actively seek and 
 select their food; man alone having the faculty of 
 preparing his aliments, and civilised man of consum- 
 ing them at a well appointed table in congenial 
 company. 
 
 This same lover of the good things of the earth says 
 that we dine gregariously not only to fortify body and 
 mind, but to enjoy the intellectual feast which follows 
 the act of eating to appease hunger and gratify the 
 senses, because that particular time is a period of 
 leisure, of general bodily rest rendered necessary to 
 the process of digestion. Instead of lying down in- 
 ertly to sleep, like the anaconda gorged with its prey; 
 like the ravenous wolf glutted with the remains of one 
 of its kind; like the famished Indian of the plains who 
 has devoured his half-cooked game; or like the glut- 
 tonish boor after a full feed; civilised man ends his 
 physical with a mental feast which broadens his hori- 
 zon and elevates him far above the brute, the savage, 
 and the illiterate. 
 
THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE 329 
 
 The deipnosophic Brillat-Savarin very forcibly 
 contra-distinguishes feeding and eating as follows: 
 " Les animaux se repaissent; I'homme mange; Vhomme 
 d 'esprit seul sail manger." 
 
 The high art of dining gregariously, rationally, 
 daintily, and soberly, belongs exclusively to men of 
 culture; the gratification of their outer senses react- 
 ing upon their inner nobler sensibilities and, by the 
 incidental converse, rendering them morally and intel- 
 lectually edifying to their fellows and to society at 
 large. Their labor of eating and the wear-and-tear 
 of the masticatory apparatus are fortunately com- 
 pensated by the nutritive properties and savor of 
 the ingested aliments, by the excellence of the bever- 
 ages, and by the pleasure of exchanging ideas during 
 and after the refection. 
 
 We get the verb to eat from the Latin edere, equiva- 
 lent to the Greek edein. To eat, in German, is essen; 
 in Spanish, comer, from comedere, which gives to the 
 French the substantive comestible, while their infinitive 
 manger is from manducare, to masticate, from which 
 the Italians take mangiare, which is generally under- 
 stood as masticating and swallowing solid food but, 
 strictly, to eat, as applied to the animal creatures, is 
 to convey to the mouth and to swallow victuals 
 (from vivere, to live), that is to say, solid as well as 
 liquid aliments for the purpose of sustaining life. 
 But custom has decreed that the ingestion of liquids 
 be styled drinking. Wild carnivorous beasts and 
 savages eat what and when they can, once a day or 
 
330 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 once a week, but civilised men are not content with 
 less than two daily refections; the principal meal 
 being the dinner, from disnare, contracted from 
 dis jejuna/re, to break a fast. The Greek substantive 
 deipnon seems to have led some writer to invent the 
 word dipner, to replace dinner, regardless of the Latin 
 derivation of dinner. 
 
 To eat "requires hunger or at least appetite," 
 between which there is a wide distinction and a very- 
 essential difference; hunger being an imperative need 
 of nourishment manifested by a sensation of fatigue 
 with more or less epigastric uneasiness,* whereas 
 appetite is a desire for any substance likely to gratify 
 some of the senses by its form, consistence, color, 
 odor, or savor. Hunger and appetite aften coexist, 
 but there may be appetite without hunger, or hunger 
 without appetite. A hungry man may feed regard- 
 less of the quality of aliments and may be concerned 
 mainly with their quantity; the taste being a sec- 
 ondary consideration. Hunger is appeased by the 
 ingestion of a sufficiency of food, but cannot be pro- 
 voked or augmented, while appetite may be aroused 
 by the sight of dainty edibles or developed by savory 
 
 * Rabelais sketches in very terse style the hungry, thirsty, fam- 
 ished man in the person of Panurge, who, when he had first seen 
 Pantagruel and had declared his wants in divers foreign tongues, 
 to the confusion of his hearers, finally said in plain French: 
 . . . "Pour eeste heure, j'ai necessity bien urgente de re- 
 paistre; dents agues, ventre vuide, gorge seiche, appetit strident; 
 tout y est delibere'." 
 
 "At this hour I have urgent need to feed; teeth sharp, belly 
 empty, throat dry, appetite ardent; all is here determined." 
 
 — Book II, Chapter IX. 
 
THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE 331 
 
 sauces,* and may be checked or even abolished by 
 the diner's view of a gross or of an unsightly dish, 
 by his tasting an unsavory morsel, or by anything 
 that offends his olfactive sense. Early in the nine- 
 teenth century the distinction between hunger and 
 appetite was clearly stated as follows: "Depuis que 
 V Almanack des Gourmands a paru pour la premiere 
 fois (en 1803), on s'est accoutume a etudier, a appro- 
 fondir le grand Art de la gueule. On a laisse la faim 
 au vulgaire, parce qu'elle est funeste a l'Art, en 
 s'accomodant de tout, et Ton s'est reserve l'appetit, qui 
 appelle la Science a son secours pour etre stimule.f 
 
 Other deipnologists do not generally make this 
 nice distinction, or are inconsistent, as is Brillat- 
 Savarin who, in his Physiologie du Gout, says in one 
 place, that the pleasure of eating demands, if not 
 hunger, at least appetite, while in another he has an 
 article with the title of Grands Appetits with illustra- 
 tions of voracity rather than appetite proper. (A later 
 author quotes Dr. Roques as saying: "Gardez vous 
 de confondre l'appetit de l'estomac avec l'appetit 
 du palais; le quod sapit nutrit est un chant de sirene 
 dont il faut se mefer.") His fifth aphorism is another 
 example of this lack of distinction between these two 
 conditions: " Le Createur, en obligeant Vhomme a 
 manger pour vivre, Vy invite par Vappetit, et Ven recom- 
 
 * The old saying, "appetite comes with eating," probably used 
 originally to coax invalids to#take nourishment, is often em- 
 ployed ironicly to convey the idea that the more (wealth) some 
 men acquire, the more they desire. 
 
 f Almanach des Gourmands, Vol. 8, p. 61. Annie, 1812. 
 3ieme edit. 
 
332 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 pense par le plaisir." To be consistent he should have 
 said . . . I'y invite par la faim, ou par l'appetit, 
 et Ven recompense par le plaisir. 
 
 Some lexicons make the words appetite and hunger 
 synonymous, while they define hunger, substantially, 
 as a strong need of food, and appetite as a desire for 
 palatable food. Appetite comes directly from the 
 Latin appetitus, from appetere, to desire, whereas 
 hunger is from the Anglo-Saxon hungor. Skeat says 
 it is " probably allied to the Sanskrit kunch, to make 
 narrow, contract, kunchana, shrinking;* so that hun- 
 ger denotes the feeling of being shrunk together, like 
 the provincial English clemmed, literally, pinched, 
 used in the phrase clemmed wi' hunger." 
 
 Neither hunger nor appetite requires that the in- 
 dividual dine in company, for either can be gratified 
 in solitude. The glutton generally likes to satisfy 
 his hunger without witnesses, and the deipnolatric 
 gourmet prefers to dine daintily alone, for he thinks 
 there should be no presence at his feast but the choice 
 morsels and himself. 
 
 It is clear that we dine gregariously not merely to 
 appease hunger and gratify appetite, but to enjoy the 
 pleasures of the table in the most congenial assembly 
 in order to exchange views with our fellows, and to 
 
 * In the seventh book of the Odyssey, verses 294-298, Pope's 
 tr., Ulysses speaks thus of his famished condition: 
 "But still long-wearied nature wants repair, 
 Spent with fatigue, and shrunk with pining fast, 
 My craving bowels still require repast. 
 Necessity demands our daily bread; 
 Hunger is insolent, and will be fed." 
 
THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE 333 
 
 improve our minds by the absorption of the good that 
 comes out of the conversation and of the conviviality. 
 
 To drink is to suck, to draw in and swallow liquid 
 aliments. To drink requires thirst or at least a 
 desire to taste and ingest pleasant beverages for the 
 gratification of the senses* Thirst is manifested by 
 a dryness of the mouth and throat and by sensations 
 similar to those of hunger. The Anglo-Saxon word 
 thurst is traceable to the Sanskrit tarsh, thirst. The 
 soif of the French, the sed of the Spanish, and the 
 sete of the Italian — all from the Latin sitis — are, like 
 the English thirst, expressive of the idea of dryness, 
 aridity, combustion; as in the common expression 
 "a burning thirst." Many English speaking people 
 use the word drouth for thirst, and when thirsty, say 
 they are dry. 
 
 The following Anacreontic verses, already quoted, 
 are here reproduced because they illustrate so well 
 the imperative need of water. 
 
 "The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, 
 And drinks and gapes for drink again; 
 The plants suck in the earth, and are 
 With constant drinking fresh and fair." 
 
 * " L'homme seul, parmi les animaux, a le privilege de boire 
 
 sans soif et de manger sans fain: de la Vivresse et les indigestions." 
 
 — Almanack Perpetuel des Gourmands, 1830. 
 
 This reference to animals clearly relates to the wild beasts, 
 for when domesticated they soon learn from their masters to be- 
 come fond of dainties and even to drink spirits with relish when- 
 ever offered to them. Dogs in particular and pet monkeys eat 
 much food of a kind unsuited to their economy and therefore 
 harmful, and often ingest strong drink to intoxication. Many of 
 the menagerie elephants are allowed daily their drink of beer, 
 gin, or whiskey. Even horses become regular "topers." 
 
334 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Thirst cannot be provoked, but the appetite, the 
 desire for drinking may be excited and fostered by 
 sipping beverages that are pleasing to the taste or 
 by eating sweet or salty dainties. Just as hunger is 
 a manifestation of the need of solid aliments, so is 
 thirst a sure sign of the need of the liquid aliment water 
 of which no less than four pints are daily required 
 by the human economy. Nothing but water can 
 quench the fire of thirst; this fact is too well estab- 
 lished to demand extended commentary, and there 
 have been cited almost countless instances exempli- 
 fying the much longer endurance of hunger than of 
 thirst. Certain beasts do not drink until some time 
 after consuming their solid aliments, while men, at 
 least the civilised, drink before, during, and after 
 meals, not alone to keep up the equilibrium of the 
 bodily constituents, not alone to maintain the normal 
 seventy per centum of water in the system, but for 
 the pleasure, stimulation, and hilarity caused by 
 luxurious beverages which, used in moderation, are 
 salutary to body and mind. It is only excess in 
 tippling, as in other self-indulgences, that harms 
 and debases man. The inordinate desire to imbibe 
 stimulating liquids, even tea or coffee, is a perverted 
 mental process tending to gratify morbid senses. 
 Thirst and this longing for strong drink do too often 
 coexist, and abundant drinking without thirst is 
 rightly classed among the most pernicious of human 
 vices. 
 
 In the memorable year of 1861, a well known 
 
THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE 335 
 
 gluttonish gourmet — for some guzzlers do love dainty 
 bits — after dining sumptuously and imbibing several 
 bottles of excellent wines, and after sipping his demie- 
 tasse and two petits verres of fine-champagne eau-de-vie, 
 said that these delicious beverages had excited in his 
 vast economy the strongest desire for "the only sub- 
 stantial thirst quencher, the best of all drinks, cold 
 water," of which he forthwith gulped a full pint 
 with the greatest satisfaction. Another glutton and 
 incorrigible wine-bibber had the keenest appetite for 
 a large potation of iced-water after he had ingulfed 
 seven quart bottles of sparkling champagne wine at 
 a noted carousal. 
 
 A glance at the contrast of dinners in the past and 
 the present would be of interest to epicures of our 
 time, but enough has already been said of the nature 
 of the Greek estiama and deipnon, of the Roman 
 epulum and caena, and of the gross feeding of the 
 Barons in the middle ages. There are still deipno- 
 latric gourmets who generally prefer to dine alone 
 although they seldom lose the opportunity to enjoy 
 savory morsels in company and to gloat over those 
 dishes of acknowledged excellence whose apparition 
 excites their sensuous appetites in the highest degree, 
 and which Brillat-Savarin styles eprouvettes gastro- 
 nomiques. 
 
 The following is given in "The Art of Dining" 
 (second edit. 1853) as an illustration of positive and 
 negative eprouvettes. "Cardinal Fesch, a name of 
 honor in the annals of gastronomy, had invited a 
 
336 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 large party of clerical magnates to dinner. By a 
 fortunate coincidence, two turbots of singular beauty 
 arrived as presents to his Eminence on the very morn- 
 ing of the feast. To serve both would have appeared 
 ridiculous, but the Cardinal was anxious to have the 
 credit of both. He imparted his embarrassment to 
 his chef. 'Be of good faith, your Eminence,' was the 
 reply; 'both shall appear; both shall enjoy the re- 
 ception which is their due.' The dinner was served: 
 one of the turbots relieved the soup. Delight was in 
 every face — it was the moment of the eprouvette 
 positive. The Maitre d'hdtel advances; two attend- 
 ants raise the turbot and carry him off to cut him 
 up; but one of them loses his equilibrium: the at- 
 tendants and the turbot roll together on the floor. 
 At this sad sight the assembled cardinals become pale 
 as death, and a solemn silence reigned in the conclave 
 — it was the moment of the eprouvette negative; but 
 the Maitre d'hdtel suddenly turns to the attendants — 
 'Bring another turbot,' said he, with the utmost 
 coolness. The second appeared, and the eprouvette 
 positive was gloriously renewed." 
 
 In the Almanack Perpetuel des Gourmands, 1830, 
 nine years before the death of Cardinal Fesch, the 
 story was charmingly told with a clear implication 
 but no mention of the word eprouvette. It is here 
 reproduced for the delectation of deipnophilists. 
 
 "On citera long-temps la table du Cardinal Fesch. 
 Son maitre-d'hotel joignait a des talens pratiques du 
 premier ordre, un grandiose d'imagination remar- 
 
THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE 337 
 
 quable. Son Eminence recut un jour deux turbots. 
 . . . Quels turbots! . . . Celui de Domitien 
 n'etait, aupres, qu'une limande. lis arrivaient tout 
 a point: ce jour la, meme plusieurs princes de l'Eglise 
 devaient diner chez le primat des Gaules. Le Car- 
 dinal aurait bien voulu que les deux poissons fissent 
 ensemble les honneurs de sa table . . . Quelle 
 gloire pour le clerge! mais aussi quelle faute en 
 matiere de service! Ce rendez-vous de turbots eut 
 paru ridicule. II fait part de son embarras a son 
 maitre d'hotel. 'Que Votre Eminence se rassure! 
 . . . lis paraitront tous deux, dit-il, et recevront 
 raccueil dont ils sont dignes.' 
 
 On sert le diner: l'un des turbots releve le potage. 
 Exclamations unanimes, enthousiasme religieux et 
 gastronomique. Le maitre-d'hotel s'avance alors; 
 deux officiers de bouche s'emparent du monstre et 
 l'emportent pour le decouper; mais un d'eux perd 
 l'equilibre, l'officier et le turbot roulent ensemble sur 
 le parquet. A ce triste spectacle, il fallait voir les 
 beates figures se couvrir d'une paleur subite! un 
 morne silence regnait dans l'assemblee! quand tout 
 a coup le maitre-d'hotel se retourne vers l'office: 
 'Qu'on en apporte un autre/ dit-il avec sang-froid. 
 . . . L'autre parut, et Ton juge de l'effet!" . . . 
 
 The question as to what aliments should be served 
 first at dinner has long been under debate, but the 
 disputants disagree only on points of detail; all 
 favoring the use of some provocative of, or whet to,, 
 appetite — propoma, from propinein, to drink before. 
 
338 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 The Greeks almost always began with a cup of wine 
 or vinegar sweetened with honey, and the Romans 
 did likewise but added solid to their liquid whets. 
 Thus, for the whet, Horace recommended an egg, and 
 Pliny, radishes and snails, while Macrobius, the learned 
 author of " Satumaliorum Conviviorum" advocated 
 oysters, and we have wisely followed his good ex- 
 ample; unnecessarily, however, multiplying our hors 
 d'ceuvres by adding caviar, anchovies, sardellen, 
 pickles, olives, etc., besides continuing the pernicious 
 ancient habit of taking strong drink before eating. 
 Would that the ingestion of antepast cocktails, ab- 
 synth, vermuth, sherry-and-bitters, and all other 
 liquid whets were discountenanced at respectable 
 banquets, for these drinks not only fail as whets to 
 appetite but their continued use proves injurious to 
 the delicate gastric glands besides tending to blunt 
 the sensitive nerves of gustation! Dinner is too 
 important an event to be marred by unsuitable 
 beverages. In a rightly arranged feast with tasteful 
 appurtenances and carefully selected congenial guests, 
 the eleventh and twelfth aphorisms of Brillat-Savarin 
 should be scrupulously adhered to; the order of the 
 comestibles, after the whet, being from the most sub- 
 stantial to the lightest, and the order of beverages 
 from the mildest to the strongest and highest flavored. 
 It may be properly added that whenever practicable 
 the table should be round and its figureless snow- 
 white cloth be sparsely sprinkled with natural flowers 
 and leaves; that some artisticly prepared hors 
 
THE PLEASUKES OF THE TABLE 339 
 
 d'oeuvres and fresh and candied fruit be placed among 
 the floral decorations; that no large dishes or even 
 entrees appear; that the chairs be without arms; 
 that the plate-service be from the simpler to the 
 more elaborate in ornamentation; that the wine 
 glasses, within proper limits, so varied in form and 
 color as to be pleasing to the sight, and be not removed 
 until near the close of the feast; that no other recep- 
 tacles for fluids be upon the table; that the knives 
 and silver implements needed by each guest be placed 
 on either side of his plate; that the wishes of the 
 diners be always anticipated; and that all the ser- 
 vants be dumb. 
 
 A dinner to a company of true lovers of good cheer 
 who abide by the golden rules of the Goddess Hygeia 
 should begin with a whet of plump, medium sized, 
 adolescent oysters opened only five minutes before 
 and served in their shells placed upon cracked ice in 
 suitable plates — structural disintegration begins so 
 soon after oysters are opened that they should be 
 consumed with the least possible delay. Not more 
 than five should be apportioned to each guest, who 
 should ingest them slowly and deliberately and thus 
 enjoy their exquisite flavor without such impediments 
 as bread, biscuit, or condiment of whatsoever sort. 
 Nothing should touch the flesh of this extremely deli- 
 cate mollusc after it has received its death blow from 
 the oyster-knife, but a tiny, three pronged silver fork 
 with which the ostreophagist gracefully conveys it to 
 his mouth, when the first bite crushes its fat succulent 
 
340 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 liver, the scattered particles of which soon diffuse 
 the enticing ostrean flavor throughout the buccal 
 cavity. After the five delightful sensations there is 
 a strong desire for more, but this is not to be gratified 
 as it should be remembered that the main object is 
 to whet appetite for what is to follow, but, as a diver- 
 sion to the aroused nerve filaments of gustation, a 
 glass of Rhenish or of Sauterne is taken with the 
 desired effect, and in a short time the stomach is in 
 proper condition to receive substantial aliments. 
 
 The pleasure of eating begins with the solid whet 
 and the vinous propoma and is continuous to the last 
 dish and the concluding beverage. The special senses, 
 thus gladdened by the savory and nutritious viands 
 and delicious wines, the inner sensibilities are in turn 
 aroused, and the mental faculties receive additional 
 stimulation through fragrant nicotian fumes, the 
 tongue becomes more pliant, and the real pleasure of 
 the table begins. A torrent of ideas soon rages, and 
 wit, humor, erudition, sagacity, flow in such abun- 
 dance as to cause a vast flood of individual and col- 
 lective pleasure. Such are the reasons why we love 
 to dine gregariously! 
 
DEIPNOPHILIC MISCELLANIES 
 
"Hear; for I shall speak of excellent things." 
 
THE DESSERT 
 
 "Un service elegant, d'une ordonnance exacte, 
 Doit de notre repas marquer le dernier acte. 
 Au secours du dessert appelez tous les arts, 
 Surtout celui qui brille au quartier des Lombards." 
 
 These few lines of Berchoux constitute a summary 
 of the requisites of the last service of a dinner, and 
 are suggestful to all lovers of good things that they 
 give a willing ear to what may be said of those sweets 
 that gladden vision and gustation, promote digestion, 
 and foster conviviality. 
 
 A modern arbiter edendi showed his good taste and 
 sound judgment by saying that the dessert, for the 
 elaboration of which the gastronomic world is in- 
 debted to Italy, is the most brilliant part of any 
 feast; its advent being always delightful to dainty 
 guests, and precursory to the real pleasure of the table. 
 All that has gone before having satisfied gustation, 
 the dessert should appeal chiefly to vision, cause sen- 
 sations of surprise at, and admiration of, the elegance 
 in the service of its sweet dainties, and thus be a fit 
 complement to the enjoyment of the repast. That 
 it is not a mere relish is attested by the castanian 
 aphorism: As appetite is often stimulated by the 
 preliminary ingestion of some light food and drink, 
 
 343 
 
344 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 so is digestion promoted by moderate in^u gence in 
 sweets; therefore the dessert is as much a necessity 
 as it is a luxury. 
 
 A renowned chestnut-smith asserted that the word, 
 though sometimes spelled desert, is in no way related 
 to Yuma, Gobi, Sahara, or to other barren regions, 
 or to that air on which so much sweetness is wasted, 
 or to the deserts of a deserter. Another erudite cas- 
 tanist said that it was suggested by the sudden de- 
 sertion of all table appurtenances of the prior service; 
 whilst a third logomachist regarded dessert as French 
 from the Latin deservire, and further said that, by 
 a long stretch of logophilic imagination, it might be 
 derived from the old English word disservice to ex- 
 press the idea of the removal of things no longer 
 needed at the table. Finally, the castanist brought 
 in evidence the views of Sigmore Anania Boccadolce, 
 offirier de bouche to His Serenissime Highness Candito 
 Melianto Glicerio Abdiel Shekar, Crown Prince of 
 Shekaria. The aforenamed Anania, in his exhausting 
 poetico-heroico-historic treatise on the ancient and 
 modern ambrosia, speaks of the last course of both 
 celestial and terrestrial feasts as having always con- 
 sisted of sweet dainties served after the complete 
 clearance of the table, and says that all civilised 
 nations have long recognised the great worth of this 
 indispensable service, and that even the frugal Spar- 
 tans, after their common phiditia greatly enjoyed 
 the epaiklon of sweetmeats and of meal steeped in 
 oil. . . . 
 
THE DESSERT 345 
 
 It is doubtful if a sumptuary law could have ever 
 abolished the service of sweets after dinner. Charles 
 IX of France, in his edict forbidding, in any great 
 feast, more than three services, did not dare to omit 
 the dessert; "Entree, roti, et dessert'' being therein 
 specified. The words used by some of the modern 
 Latin races to designate the dessert distinctly convey 
 the idea of a last course, as the Italian pospdsto, and 
 the Spanish postres to signify the last edibles in order, 
 such as sweets and fruits. 
 
 In his Essai Didactique sur le Dessert, Perigord 
 made an epigrammatic statement which is now quoted 
 on account of its extravagance and lack of harmony 
 with the sound principles of deipnophily, saying: 
 "Here profusion is necessary, economy fatal, and 
 superfluity indispensable." This aphorism is not 
 likely to be sanctioned by those who believe that while 
 parsimony is unpardonable in the dessert following 
 an elegant entertainment, wise economy is surely 
 commendable, and that moderation may well stand 
 against wasteful profusion, but that superfluity is 
 never justifiable. 
 
 An old custom, unwarrantable, however, by good 
 taste, was the crude and excessive decoration of the 
 refectory and of the table. At nearly all state din- 
 ners, even less than half a centuiy ago, the table, 
 from the beginning of the feast, was crowded with 
 flour-paste or plaster models of monuments, or with 
 sugar figures of rocks, plants, beasts, and men, be- 
 sides lofty pagodas of nougat, pyramids of fruits, 
 
346 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 and other contrivances that only served to obstruct 
 the view of opposite guests and so interfere with the 
 exchange of courtesies between friends. These ob- 
 jects are now to be seen chiefly in the show windows 
 of bakers and confectioners. The simplest table 
 decoration with leaves and flowers spread upon the 
 white cloth suffice to effect a pleasing visual sensation. 
 This happy innovation of the end of the nineteenth 
 century is surely an excellent substitution for the 
 elaborate, but unartistic, ornamentation previously 
 in such great vogue. Electric illumination now ren- 
 ders unnecessary the use of those awkward candelabra 
 which, like the pikces-montees of old, only encumber 
 the table to no good purpose. An attempted revival 
 of profuse floral decoration of the room and table 
 occurred at a banquet spread in a public establishment 
 a few years ago. It is not likely that the example 
 will be followed, even by the jeunesse dorm, for in 
 that class of the wealthy there are some individuals 
 who believe that intellectual ornamentation is the 
 richest that can grace convivial reunions. 
 
 In the modern dessert are included delicate sweet 
 pastry, jams, jellies, ices, sweet wines, as well as 
 cheeses, the soft kinds of which are often eaten with 
 jams, or in the form of cakes that are remindful of 
 the dainty Syracusan sweet cheese-cakes so often 
 consumed and so highly prized in olden times es- 
 pecially during the Athenians' epideipnon, at which 
 there was no lack of savory fruits and enticing roasted 
 
THE DESSEET 347 
 
 chestnuts. Then too, among the many luxuries that 
 entered into the last course of the Roman cena lau- 
 tissima and rich epulum, nuts and figs were ever 
 present — "Et nux ornabat mensam cum duplice ficu." 
 In the middle ages the so-called four mendicants first 
 appeared at the dessert and, in many countries, have 
 continued to form the last part of this last service; 
 and down to the present time the munching of a few 
 nuts is regarded as an essential preliminary to the 
 full enjoyment of a glass of old wine. 
 
 The feast could not be more fittingly crowned than 
 by a tiny cup of swarthy Arabian nectar with its 
 attendant thimbleful of ardent liquor slowly sipped 
 to arouse the spirit of loquacity kept within bounds 
 by the blissful inhalation of fragrant fumes of the 
 nepenthic herb that has ever been the delight of our 
 red brothers of the plains to whom we owe a debt 
 of lasting gratitude for the wide diffusion of this 
 wholesome virtue whose practice long since reached the 
 distant Persians to whom is due the old proverb: 
 "Coffee without tobacco is meat without salt." 
 
II 
 
 ANNIVERSARY FEASTS 
 
 "A perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, 
 Where no crude surfeit reigns." 
 
 Modern associations of deipnophilists who love 
 retrospection are wont to follow the ancient custom 
 of celebrating the birth of their organisations by 
 splendid refections moistened with luscious wines, 
 by orations, by song, by the recitation of poems, and 
 by dissertations on gastronomy and allied subjects. 
 On one of these occasions a member who had been 
 requested to prepare an address in commemoration 
 of the Club's earliest acts, read the following sketch 
 with an epigraph borrowed from Saint Paul: "To the 
 Greeks and to the Barbarians, to the wise and to the 
 unwise I am a debtor." 
 
 Antiquarian researches into the alimentary his- 
 tory and periodical deipnophilic celebrations of the 
 Chinese, Hindoos, Chaldeans, Arabians, Hebrews, 
 Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, early Christians, and 
 Mohammedans, have led to the inevitable conclusion 
 that these veiy modern peoples and sects had learned, 
 only by tradition, of the custom of anniversary cele- 
 brations among their remotest predecessors, and that 
 the first feast in commemoration of a great event 
 
 348 
 
ANNIVERSARY FEASTS 349 
 
 was given by a father whose only son had been pre- 
 served from impending death. There is indubitable 
 proof, he said, that the worthy sire of the lad who 
 discovered the use of fire and invented cookery did, 
 at the expiration of twelve moons, commemorate, 
 by thanks-giving to the Great Spirit, by parley, by 
 song, and by dance, the miraculous escape of his son 
 and heir from incineration during the conflagration 
 which had resulted from woody friction in the hands 
 of this forward child of the soil, who involuntarily 
 converted a fat ruminant beast into very palatable 
 roast beef and thus unwittingly instituted the feast 
 now known as a barbecue. On that anniversary 
 day the fond parent did cause to be served at his 
 bountiful board, for the delectation of his family and 
 friends, the choicest viands, with parched chestnuts 
 galore, such as truffled bustards, venison steaks with 
 broiled mushrooms, all washed down by lashings of 
 cocoanut milk then regarded as sufficient to appease 
 man's longing for fluidity. . . . 
 
 Let us now ascend by easy gradations from the 
 fanciful to the real, from the grotesque to the sublime. 
 Our confraternity was organised to afford diversion 
 to men whose labors are of such a nature as to permit 
 little relaxation, but who can spare one evening each 
 month to interchange ideas and further good-fellow- 
 ship; excluding those individuals who can neither 
 make nor take a joke, who fail to distinguish the 
 ludicrous from the serious, the gay from the grave, 
 the witty from the dull, the humorous from the prosy. 
 
350 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Our main objects have been and still are, the further- 
 ance of hygienic gastronomy and of conviviality, 
 and the cultivation of literary, scientific, and classical 
 lore. Our members have been wont, in satiric spirit, 
 to use long, composite, hybrid, and obsolete words 
 for purposes of illustration. Some of their essays 
 were intended to correct imperfections in the language 
 of science, and to expose literary blunders and " scien- 
 tific frauds"; always, however, with a suitable ad- 
 mixture of gravity, pleasantry, wit, and drollery. . . . 
 A distinguished explorer vouches for the serious- 
 ness of the Esquimaux; an eminent physiologist as- 
 serts that savages neither laugh nor weep; and an 
 illustrious psychologist declares that, among civilised 
 men, the lack of receptivity of pleasantry, the in- 
 ability to give expression to jollity, and the incapacity 
 of appreciating the comical side of a question consti- 
 tute a real atavistic mental sluggishness intensified 
 by disordered digestion. The following is a fair 
 example. A young gentleman, with more scholar- 
 ship than sense of humor, strolling with a friend, took 
 au grand serieux and denounced as inflated pedantry 
 the drollery of his companion's characterisation of a 
 certain beautiful woman in these terms, which he con- 
 fessed were not original: "The atoms momentarily 
 associated to compose this creature present a combi- 
 nation which is agreeable to the eye." 
 
 The lamented Joe, or some other Milleric moralist, 
 has uttered the following profound apothegm: 
 
ANNIVERSARY FEASTS 351 
 
 "The gravest beast is an ass; 
 The gravest bird is an owl; 
 The gravest fish, an oyster; 
 The gravest man, a fool." 
 
 Wit has been denned as the vivacious utterance of 
 congruous ideas so combined as to please and surprise. 
 And also as "the keen perception and apt expression 
 of those connections between ideas which awaken 
 pleasure and especially amusement." Crabb regards 
 wit in the light of a genus to which he accords three 
 species, humor, satyre, and irony. Wit, he says, 
 "like wisdom, according to its original, from wissen, 
 to know, signifies knowledge, but it has so extended 
 its meaning as to signify that faculty of the mind 
 by which knowledge or truth is perceived, and in a 
 more limited sense the faculty of discovering the agree- 
 ments or disagreements of different ideas. Wit, in 
 this latter sense, is properly a spontaneous faculty, 
 and is, as it were, a natural gift. . . . Reflection 
 and experience supply us with wisdom; study and 
 labor supply us with learning; but wit seizes with an 
 eagle eye that which escapes the notice of the deep 
 thinker, and elicits truths which are in vain sought 
 for with any severe effort." Humor, he further says, 
 "is a species of wit which flows out of the humor of a 
 person. Wit, as distinguished from humor, may 
 consist of a single brilliant thought : but humor runs 
 in a vein; it is not a striking, but an equable and 
 pleasing flow of wit. . . . Humor may likewise 
 display itself in actions as well as words, whereby it 
 
352 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 is more strikingly distinguished from wit which dis- 
 plays itself only in the happy expression of happy 
 thoughts. 
 
 Irony and sarcasm are scarcely tolerable among 
 friends. "A true sarcasm," said Sydney Smith, "is 
 like a sword-stick; it appears at first sight to be much 
 more innocent than it really is, till, all of a sudden, 
 there leaps something out of it — sharp and deadly, 
 and incisive — which makes you tremble and recoil." 
 
 In the beginning of every new year it is profitable 
 and pleasant to look backward and take account of 
 the occurrences of the expired year in order to be 
 guided in future plans of action. Such retrospection 
 scarcely ever fails to be helpful in the realisation of 
 the most exalted prospection. Annual inquiries into 
 the proceedings of this confraternity, during and after 
 its mensual agapae, have done much to increase its 
 interest and will doubtless serve to perpetuate its 
 usefulness. Its general character is unchanged; the 
 reunions being still typified by a happy commixture 
 of reason and pleasure and wisdom and mirth, by 
 sweet discourses, and by the exquisite enjoyment of 
 dainty aliments, fragrant beverages, and the nepen- 
 thic fumes of the sacred herb. 
 
 In our convivial reunions we have generally followed 
 in spirit though not always in letter, the wise sugges- 
 tions of the learned Varro who wrote so well on social 
 assemblies and who said of the guests that they should 
 
ANNIVERSARY FEASTS 353 
 
 be at least of the number of the graces but never ex- 
 ceed that of the muses. . . . Although at our 
 last reunion we did not exceed the prescribed nine, 
 the brotherhood has often more than doubled that 
 number without inconvenience, partly owing to the 
 use of an ample refectory with vast round table and 
 comfortable chairs in the most marked contrast to 
 the fittings of the ancient triclinium. . . . The 
 feast, said the astute Roman, will be perfect through 
 the union of these four conditions : the guests rightly 
 chosen; the place suitable; the time opportune; and 
 the repast prepared with care. The diners, he further 
 said, should be neither too loquacious nor dumb; 
 eloquence belonging to the senate, and silence to the 
 study; adding that conversations should not be on 
 intricate questions but on entertaining subjects en- 
 nobling to the mind. He might also have said that 
 the matter of after-dinner discourses should not be 
 indifferent but always useful, agreeable, and delivered 
 in simple, pleasing style. 
 
 It is delightful to think that mental and proper 
 sensual cultivation, and moderation in the use of ali- 
 ments have been, are, and are likely to be always the 
 most prominent features in our mensual gatherings, 
 and that in these we can never do better than to con- 
 tinue to follow the sapient dicta of Varro, and the 
 admirable maxim of the later philosopher, who said: 
 
 "The mind shall banquet though the body pine: 
 Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits 
 Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits." 
 
354 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 In the spirit of these sage precepts, do each of you 
 bring into play both cogitative and nutritive appara- 
 tus during our feasts designed as much for your intel- 
 lectual as for your physical well being. Since, like 
 the rest of mankind, you live to think and dine to 
 live, do, for mental aliment, invoke the aid of the lov- 
 ing Mnemosyne and at least two of her fair daughters, 
 besides the genii of science, art, letters, and numbers; 
 for bodily sustenance, pay due devotion to bountiful 
 Gasterea, the tenth muse; and for avoidance of Bac- 
 chic and other excesses, be obedient to the wise 
 Hygeia. Your discourses, characterised as they have 
 always been, by rigorous exactitude in expression and 
 Attic elegance in diction, will ever be gustfully sea- 
 soned with the purest intellectual salt, and your 
 sensual appetites will as surely be under the restraint 
 of your determined volition. 
 
Ill 
 
 DINING CLUBS 
 
 "Au premier age . . . 
 L'homme eut pour lois ses grossiers appetits." 
 
 The first dining club was formed in Elysium, but, 
 after the earth had cooled, was transferred to Mount 
 Olympus where Castanopolis was built in the center 
 of a vast forest of chestnut trees which Ceres caused 
 to spring up and bear a great abundance of marrons 
 already glaces for the special delectation of the God- 
 desses. 
 
 The Gods then granted to Grecian men, as a reward 
 for their great piety, sufficient land to build the sacred 
 city, and a charter for the club, with authorisation to 
 establish a branch in the future city of Nea Castana 
 to be erected on a distant continent to be discovered. 
 
 There have been so many simulations of the origi- 
 nal Club and of its Nea Castana branch, that it is 
 meet to inquire into their inception and purposes. 
 Hence the following faint introductory tracery of their 
 general characters, which leaves many lacunae to be 
 filled. 
 
 The earliest mimicry of the Elysian Club bears no 
 definite date as to month of the year, day of the week, 
 or hour of the day, but occurred some time before 
 
 355 
 
356 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 noon tide, about one thousand eight hundred and 
 ninety-seven centuries ago, when three anthropoid 
 creatures assembled, for a picnic and cosy chatter, 
 in the shade of a cocoanut grove, each provided with 
 a sufficiency of bananas. While enjoying the luscious 
 fruit they were startled by the dropping of a nut upon 
 the trunk of a near-by fallen tree. Turning, to see 
 what had happened, they found that the nut had 
 rolled out of its fibrous envelope, and contrived to 
 break it open, when they soon learned that it contained 
 both meat and drink, and at once climbed the parent 
 tree to gather the newly discovered aliment which 
 did so much more for the happiness of simiankind 
 than the subsequent discovery of hosts of double 
 stars. After several gastronomic reunions, they in- 
 creased their coterie by selecting, with special care 
 and unanimous consent, six congenial new members, 
 making the nine prescribed by their aping emules the 
 Romans, and the club, thus enlarged, met daily for 
 refection. Simian cocoanut clubs then increased and 
 multiplied and are still flourishing in jungle and 
 forest, although many of their proceedings are still 
 inedited. 
 
 The second mimicry was by some distant relatives, 
 in ascending scale, of the progeny of the first nine. 
 These new comers were the pithecanthropoi who, hav- 
 ing witnessed cocoanut feasts from a respectful dis- 
 tance, profited by the experience and added these 
 and other nuts to their own daily rations, and estab- 
 lished clubs of nine for the purpose of nut cracking 
 
DINING CLUBS 357 
 
 and for the cultivation of the expression of thought 
 by gestures, from which was evolved the sign language 
 of deaf mutes. They were the progenitors of the 
 tribe of casse-noisettes so well pictured by the literary 
 artist Honore de Balzac. 
 
 The third mimicry arose many ages after the 
 pithecanthropic era when a higher type of beings was 
 evolved. The new race then strove to improve on 
 the ways and the meager dietary of their seventh 
 cousins the pithecanthropoi. Their first essays at 
 talking were made during feeding time when they en- 
 deavored to give names to some of those edible sub- 
 stances which nourished and were pleasing to the 
 taste, chiefly bananas, cocoanuts, mushrooms, small 
 nuts, and a few of the sweet fruits. Very slow pro- 
 gress was made by them toward the acquirement of 
 the difficult art of rightly naming things, and their 
 ascendants to the present time are by no means far 
 advanced in the practice of this precious art. During 
 the time devoted to refection and conversation, all 
 nine were squatted on the ground in a circle in the 
 center of which the food was placed; each helping 
 himself, for they had no pampered servitors. Such 
 was the beginning of the evolution of the round table 
 whose knights afterward exceeded in number the 
 original chimpanzic nine, and such was the beginning 
 of the evolution of those after-dinner orations, puns, 
 jests, and Milleric chestnuts with which even grave 
 statesmen have endeavored to entertain good hum- 
 ored guests at modern banquets. 
 
358 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 The fourth mimicry of the celestial club was by the 
 discoverer of the properties of sour-juiced fruits. He 
 was the chief of a powerful troglodytic clan, and the 
 organiser of the first Amlarasa * club where the dain- 
 ties of each season were so greatly enjoyed. Hors 
 d'ceuvres of sour pickles of fruit, fish, and flesh orna- 
 mented his vast marble slabs and were thereon con- 
 sumed with much relish as promoters of appetite and 
 digestion. The parle during each meal was chiefly on 
 the divers aliments served, and on the best way to 
 render them pleasing to the taste. . . . The 
 discovery of one of the sweetest condiments was 
 made by a sporting member who had a slight mis- 
 understanding with a four-footed creature in the 
 neighborhood of a swarm of bees. The question of 
 proprietorship of the hive was promptly and defi- 
 nitely settled by the aforenamed member, and bear- 
 steak was served at the next day's refection, and 
 honey-comb answered for the dessert. 
 
 Such were the four prehistoric mimicries of the 
 Olympian dining club. 
 
 Nothing noteworthy was gathered respecting the 
 early nomadic tribes of featherless bipeds who had no 
 time or inclination for conviviality and good-fellow- 
 ship. So the mimicries that followed the fourth are 
 only traceable to the Babylonians, Medes, Persians, 
 and Hindoos, all of whose clubs were but poor simu- 
 lations of the celestial institution. 
 
 * The Sanskrit word for sour juice. 
 
DINING CLUBS 359 
 
 The phiditia of the Spartans bore no resemblance 
 whatsoever to the feasts of the Olympic club. That 
 stolid people had not the extreme felicity of knowing 
 the tenth muse Gasterea, and cared not to observe 
 the reverence paid to the other nine Goddesses by 
 their simian ancestors, but were content to swill the 
 nauseous black broth, devour boiled pork, and gulp 
 the epaicla while talking politics and athletics. Even 
 long afterward, when they became as luxurious as 
 Spartans could be, they were never gourmets in spirit 
 or action. The refined Athenians, however, were 
 strict observers of the amenities of the refectory, for 
 during the deipnon, which was furnished with daintily 
 prepared aliments, they regaled their guests with 
 vocal and instrumental music, and devoted a great 
 part of the time to entertaining conversation and to 
 the embellishment of their purest of tongues, particu- 
 larly from the period of the honey-mouthed Pericles, 
 and after Archestratus had so greatly helped in the 
 improvement of their dietary, and shown them that 
 the real pleasure of eating could only be enjoyed 
 through the right exercise of their senses. At the 
 Athenian dinner coteries, original poems were recited 
 by rhapsodic members selected for the purpose; then 
 roasted chestnuts galore were consumed while many 
 of the old and new jests of the noted sixty of Diomea 
 were enacted or told. . . . 
 
 Although Cicero and a few congenial spirits were 
 wont to meet socially in confraternity for refection 
 and conversation, other Romans, who spent so much 
 
360 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 time at the baths, had no clubs of nine except at their 
 orgies in stuffy triclinia, and were devoid of the Athe- 
 nian appreciation of roasted chestnuts, logomachies, 
 clever jests, and good-fellowship. . . . The mili- 
 tant Caesar, the gross feeder Brutus, the sour dyspep- 
 tic Cassius, the deboshed voluptuary Antony, the 
 good-natured weak Lepidus, the sedentary, high-liver, 
 gouty, Setine wine drinker Augustus, were all dis- 
 qualified for true epicurism. Hence it is that deip- 
 nophilic clubs were not fashionable Roman institu- 
 tions in their time. But Maecenas, Horace, and his 
 dearly beloved Virgil, had all the needed attributes 
 and could have formed a splendid permanent coterie 
 at the Sabine farm where its meetings would have 
 been enlivened by the sweetest discourse and the 
 richest poesy inspired by the mellow juice of Falernian 
 grapes. 
 
 In his description of Trimalchio's feast, Petronius 
 gave a not much overdrawn portraiture of Romans in 
 their entertainments during the time of the brutal 
 Nero and even later when excess, debauchery, and 
 profligacy continued until the fall of the empire. . . 
 
 The individuals of the succeeding nation though 
 milder mannered than their truculent predecessors, 
 do not appear to possess the sacred fire of true deip- 
 nophilists. . . . Polenta, spaghetti, and Par- 
 mesan cheese, apparently content their gustation; 
 and their digestion is promoted by Chianti and other 
 Tuscan wines which inspire song but do not seem to 
 
DUSTING CLUBS 361 
 
 foster that sort of post-prandium merriment such as 
 the wines of Gallia induce among the natives of that 
 happy land of the troubadours. A few examples of 
 Gallic conviviality and good-fellowship may not be 
 without interest. 
 
 While at the convent of Fontenay-le-comte, the 
 facetious Chinonian Francois Rabelais formed a 
 coterie of three for the secret study of the tongues of 
 antiquity and of astronomy, besides fun and frolic; 
 all of which got him and his fellows into no little 
 trouble as attested by his biographer who, in speaking 
 of the chief object of their reunions, said: 
 
 "II s'etait forme dans ce couvent un petit noyau 
 d'erudits qui n'etait pas sans importance. ... II 
 se composait de Pierre Amy, de Rabelais, et d'un 
 autre moine qu'on nommait Phinetos. lis etu- 
 diaient passionnement l'antiquite grecque et latine. 
 lis acquirent en outre des connaissances 
 astronomiques." . . . 
 
 They soon increased their coterie by the association 
 of several notabilities of the town, amongst whom 
 were the distinguished lawyer Jean Brisson, and the 
 eminent Judge Andre Tiraqueau, and later, had, as a 
 powerful adherent, the erudite hellenist Guillaume 
 Budee. The great learning of the three friends to- 
 gether with their very frequent carousals, caused 
 them to be expelled from the convent by the intoler- 
 ant monks, so the master spirits of the enlarged coterie 
 being scattered, the club went out of existence. 
 
 Another oinophilic coterie, but of much shorter life, 
 
362 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 is worthy of special mention. It began and ended 
 "on the occasion of a Duke of Clarence's visit to Milan 
 to marry the daughter of Galeas II. . . . Thither 
 came Froissart, Chaucer, and Petrarca, by one of 
 those chance dispositions of fortune which seem the 
 result of a provident foresight, and the triple genius 
 of French, English, and Italian literature had presided 
 over their reunion. It was a literary congress of 
 which the consequences are felt to the present day, 
 in the common agreement of international feeling 
 in the grand federal republic of letters." (Father 
 Prout.) The three poets never met afterward. . . . 
 In those early times there were throughout France 
 many little literary coteries where interesting ques- 
 tions were discussed, lively songs intoned, delicate 
 aliments enjoyed, and much good wine imbibed. It 
 was not, however, until the beginning of the eigh- 
 teenth century that regular dining clubs were formed, 
 in Paris, under the title of Academies Chantantes, 
 wherein letters, vocal music, and wine were cultivated 
 at monthly dinners. These academies generally held 
 their sessions in the cellar of some inn, from which 
 circumstance one of them adopted the simple title 
 of Caveau. The members of the Caveau were men of 
 the highest distinction, and represented the liberal 
 professions. The founders added to the membership 
 of this first Caveau such celebrities as Duclos the his- 
 torian, Gentil-Bernard, Helvetius the philosopher, 
 Boucher the painter, Rameau the musician, and 
 Favart the dramatist. Among the occasional guests 
 
DINING CLUBS 363 
 
 were the learned philologist Freret, and Maurepas, 
 the clever writer of epigrammes and songs. This 
 Club, formed in 1729 and closed in 1739, was after- 
 ward known as VAncien Caveau. 
 
 A second Caveau was instituted, in the year 1759, 
 by the eminent literateur Marmontel, the statesman 
 Boissy, and by Suard and Lanoue, who associated 
 with them the younger Crebillon, Helvetius, Bernard, 
 the renowned chansonnier Colle, and other celebrities. 
 Some of their foreign guests were Sterne, Garrick, 
 and Wilkes. This second Caveau came to an end in 
 a few years. 
 
 The Diners du Vaudeville were established in 1796. 
 Among the members of that coterie were the most 
 gifted men of the time. Records of their discourses 
 and songs were carefully made and printed in nine 
 small volumes. This club was reorganised under the 
 chairmanship of the clever and witty Desaugiers and, 
 in 1806, became the Caveau Moderne. Among its 
 leading spirits were Armand Gouffe and the bibliopole 
 Capelle who gathered all the monthly speeches and 
 songs of the gay company which he published an- 
 nually. The dinners were served in divers places, but 
 chiefly at Baleine's celebrated restaurant, the Rocher 
 de Cancale, noted for the excellence of its oysters. 
 These mensual feasts of mind and body were delight- 
 fully conducted by the charming songster Desaugiers, 
 aided by his coterie of friends and able men, not the 
 least of whom was Grimod de la Reyniere, author of 
 the Almanack des Gourmands. It was there, in 1813, 
 
364 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 that Beranger appeared first, as a guest of Desaugier, 
 and sang several songs of his own composition, among 
 them the Roi d'Yvetdt, which created a profound sen- 
 sation and was the nucleus of his great celebrity as 
 chansonnier and poet. This Caveau Moderne ceased 
 to exist in 1817, but its proceedings were afterward 
 printed in eleven 18mo volumes. 
 
 Les Soupers de Momus was the next deipnophilic 
 club and was really contemporaneous of the Caveau 
 but lasted longer. The feasts were held at Beauvil- 
 lier's, a famous restaurant of the time. There, also, 
 many songs were sung and the orations were not few. 
 The organisation ended in 1828, after a life of fifteen 
 years and the publication of fifteen volumes of its 
 proceedings. 
 
 Those clubs, although facetiously styled Academies 
 chantantes, were truly important centers of high in- 
 tellectuality, of letters, and of art. It is fortunate 
 for the modern Athens that their spirit has not van- 
 ished, and that there are still many of the same sort in 
 the capital and in the provinces; sometimes bearing 
 quaint names. One of them, in the South, is called 
 La Tomate. This cognomen suggests that the love- 
 apple is much prized by the members, and that it is 
 an aliment oblige at all their monthly gatherings. 
 
 Collegians in that part of France have long been 
 wont to celebrate certain events by such banquets as 
 their moderate means permit ; the feasts being mostly 
 of the mind, and their sallies and songs being inspired 
 less by the beverages than by the seasoning of their 
 
DINING CLUBS 365 
 
 aliments which is effected through the free use of a 
 sauce that consists chiefly of an oily emulsion of garlic 
 known as Vayoli, which would scarcely be flattering 
 to the gustation of modern Anglo-Saxon epicures. 
 
 Mental diversion has ever been regarded as essen- 
 tial to the felicity of all kinds of human creatures, 
 and to peace and good will. The wail of the Roman 
 people in distress of body was not alone for bread; 
 they wanted something more, hence the cry, partem 
 et cir -censes. After some sad experiences the French 
 realised that bread alone is sufficient for the body 
 only, and that the mind of the plain people of great 
 cities needs such aliments as are likely to divert and 
 content it. Music was among the divers amusements 
 suggested to effect these wise purposes, and several 
 public spirited men were ready to carry out the design. 
 The pioneer was Wilhelm, the life-long dear friend of 
 Beranger. Then followed the gifted ballad writer 
 Debraux, who sang his own songs in coteries styled 
 goguettes held in the streets and in wine shops. Be- 
 ranger, who had a very high appreciation of the young 
 poet, said of him: 
 
 " Debraux, dix ans, regna sur la goguette, 
 Mit l'orgue en train et les choeurs des faubourgs, 
 En roulant, roi, de guinguette en guinguette, 
 Du pauvre peuple il chanta les amours." 
 
 England also had and still has many deipnophilic 
 clubs; the first being ''La Court de Bone Compagnie/' 
 which existed as early as the reign of Henry IV. 
 
366 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Among the most celebrated of later dining clubs were 
 "The Brothers," succeeded by the noted Scribblerus 
 Club of Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, Bolingbroke, and 
 other notabilities. In the following century there 
 sprang up another admirable deipnophilists' coterie 
 of eminent lettered men who met at Ambrose's tavern 
 under the leadership of Professor Wilson, so well and 
 so favorably known as Christopher North, who pub- 
 lished its transactions, as everybody knows, under the 
 title of Noctes Ambrosianae in mimicry of the Noctes 
 Olympianae. 
 
 In speaking of dining clubs of Great Britain and 
 Ireland, it would be unpardonable to omit mention of 
 the never-to-be-forgotten carousal of the learned and 
 saintly Father Andrew Prout with the sacred nine at 
 his simple but so heartily hospitable board, and among 
 these nine worthies, of the presence of the dear, good, 
 jovial Sir Walter Scott, who contributed so much 
 pleasing erudition mingled with such genuine humor, 
 between the melodies intoned by, and the many dis- 
 courses of the other clever and witty guests; all being 
 the creation of Oliver Yorke's inventive and fertile 
 mind. Nor should be forgotten those occasional 
 convivial reunions of such eminent men of letters as 
 Maginn, Frazer, Lockhart, Theodore Hook, Ains- 
 worth, Thackeray, Southey, Mahoney, D'Orsay, and 
 other bright lights of modern literature. The efful- 
 gence of those convocations was truly characteristic 
 of the great lettered men of the first half of the nine- 
 teenth century, who displayed their wit to the best ad- 
 
DINING CLUBS 367 
 
 vantage at the festal board. A passing reference 
 should also be made to Ferguson's comic portraiture 
 of the Reverend Thomas Maguire the eloquent 
 alumnus of Maynooth college, who is described as 
 making a night of it at the Vatican while paying his 
 -respects to the Holy Father and discoursing learnedly 
 on the ancient tongues, theology, metaphysics, logic, 
 mathematics, gastronomy, milk posset, punch, and 
 tobacco. The greatest satire since the appearance 
 of the extraordinary production of the Cure de 
 Meudon. . . . 
 
 In America, very many dining clubs have flour- 
 ished during the nineteenth century under divers 
 names. Their membership was almost invariably 
 derived from men of letters, science and art. The 
 earliest of these clubs consisted of historians, novelists, 
 poets, artists, and physicians, who, once each month, 
 dined, wined, chatted, and spent many joyful hours 
 together. There are now several excellent gastro- 
 nomic coteries in Nea Castana whose proceedings are 
 similar to those of the original Olympian Club. The 
 fraternity of each of these clubs will doubtless fill the 
 many gaps, left wide open, relating to the existence 
 and ceremonies of such clubs in the lands of caviare 
 and vodka; of sourkrout, pumpernickel, and beer; 
 of ducks, turnips, cabbage sprouts, and schnapps; 
 of olla podrida, gazpacho, and val de penas; of rice 
 and sake; of beans and sam shoo; of couscous and 
 palm spirit; besides many other terrestrial regions 
 where may have flourished, or are still in existence, 
 
368 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 any institutions bearing the slightest resemblance to 
 the Olympic Club. 
 
 The study needed to prepare this sketch, of the his- 
 tory of ancient and modern dining clubs has led to a 
 conclusion similar to that reached by the sages of the 
 remotest antiquity and told in such simple yet very 
 forcible style by the Ecclesiast: "The thing that hath 
 been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done 
 is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing 
 under the sun." 
 
IV 
 
 TABLE JESTS 
 "Learn to laugh at things without offence to men." 
 
 This essay was read at the close of a dinner given by 
 men of letters and science, and was suggested by 
 Deipneus Deipnophilus that true lover of good cheer, 
 generous wines, melodious music, pretty women, 
 fragrant tobacco, old books, droll stories, and jolly 
 fellows. The paper should bear the title notes on 
 some mental vagaries and on chestnuts gathered 
 from the most prolific trees in the blooming groves 
 of Miller, Lemon, Fenn, Twain, Wheatley, and other 
 notorious castaniculturists at home and abroad. 
 
 "To err is feminine, 
 To blunder masculine." 
 
 These notations are intended for the diversion of 
 junior amateurs of post-prandium humorous stories. 
 Experienced exegetists are agreed that there are no 
 new stories, but infinite varieties and sub-varieties of 
 these mental vagaries, many of which date from the 
 earliest period of human conviviality. It is truly 
 refreshing to hear an exegetical tyro gravely give out 
 a Joe Miller as a new story which he had learned per- 
 haps only the day before! ... It was formerly 
 
 369 
 
370 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 the custom in the wardroom of American warships for 
 the officers to listen patiently to a new-comer's after- 
 dinner story and then for the whole mess to applaud, 
 by the clapping of hands, and by loud hear! hear! 
 with interjections of J. M., to the confusion of the 
 neophyte whose consequent rising anger filled him 
 with a savage desire for revenge, which, however, 
 would soon be calmed by the reflection that he could 
 not very safely challenge all of his ten or twelve jeering 
 fellow-officers. In despair of obtaining satisfaction 
 and in fear of further ridicule he would, at length, 
 consent to listen to one of his elder's statement to 
 the effect that his story was very old, that it was not 
 anecdotal, since it had long before appeared in print; 
 that there were no new stories, and, moreover, it 
 was the invariable rule of the mess that the narrator 
 begin by giving the pedigree of his first jest. He 
 would then see that the performance was only a part 
 of his initiation to the ancient guild of stoiy tellers, 
 and gracefully accept the situation. . . . 
 
 A commonly told story is to the effect that an 
 American gentleman, who bore a close resemblance 
 to the reigning monarch, being on a mission to the 
 French court, was asked by the King if his mother 
 had ever been in France. No, replied the American, 
 but my father has. This is a veritable Joe Miller; 
 only the names and countries being changed. From 
 what original did Joe Miller get No. 103 in the edition 
 of 1739? It is supposed to have come from Francis 
 Bacon, who gets it from X who learned it from XX 
 
TABLE JESTS 371 
 
 and so on to the first lost in memory's mists. This 
 No. 103 of Joe Miller is as follows: "The Emperor 
 Augustus being shown a young Grecian who very 
 much resembled him, asked the young man if his 
 mother had not been at Rome. No, answered the 
 Grecian, but my father has." There is no end to 
 such transformations which constitute the many 
 varieties and even sub-varieties of tales from, and 
 perhaps anterior to, the distant time of Aristodemus' 
 catalogue of jests. . . . 
 
 Before going any farther, it may be proper to make 
 mention of a suggestion toward tracing the origin 
 of the popular slang term chestnut as applied to often 
 repeated tales. The rising generation of exegetists 
 knows little of the departed comic actor Joseph 
 Miller, who was never known to be merry or to be in 
 funds, and who could neither read nor write, but under 
 whose name in 1739 John Mottley published The 
 Wits' Vade Mecum to secure a small sum of money 
 for the penniless Miller family bereft of its impecunious 
 head. Since the Wits' Vade Mecum does not give 
 the derivation of the expression a chestnut as applied 
 to the repetition of an old tale, it was necessary to 
 invoke the aid of an aged pandit who offered the 
 following: "In the old Chestnut Street Theatre there 
 were what are now called variety shows during which, 
 night after night for months or even for years, the 
 same stories were told so that they became familiar 
 to every boy in the town. When, perchance, such a 
 stoiy was related by a guileless parent, the children, 
 
372 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 in loud chorus, chanted — Chestnut Street story, 
 chestnut story, and finally for brevity, chestnut. 
 This is likely to bring out some other form in which the 
 idea of repetition of old tales may have been expressed 
 many ages ago. 
 
 Here may be a proper place to insert the Columbian 
 egg stoiy, which was an old chestnut in the time of 
 Columbus, and there is no proof whatever that he 
 tried the experiment. Had he done so, it is likely 
 that he would have succeeded in making the egg 
 stand on end without cracking the shell, as he was 
 alleged to have done. The original chestnut was 
 related of Philippo Brunelleschi who lived more than 
 fifty years before Columbus* That architect had 
 conceived the idea of a plan for raising the cupola of 
 the church of Santa Maria del Fiori and had declined 
 to make known publicly the details of this plan. 
 Some of his Florentine friends jestingly urged him 
 to divulge his secret while gaily chatting, toward the 
 close of a feast at the service of salad and hard boiled 
 eggs. To escape from the embarrassment thus 
 caused, he took one of the eggs and asked his com- 
 panions to do likewise and try to make them stand. 
 They all failed, but he cracked slightly the shell and 
 his egg stood. "Now," said he, "that I have shown 
 you how, you will all be able to do as I have." Had 
 he thought a little more at that time of the centre of 
 
 * See Tarducci's Life of Columbus. 
 
 In the capitolat Washington may be seen an "historical" 
 painting intended to represent Columbus in the act of making an 
 egg stand by force, and thus soiling the table linen! 
 
TABLE JESTS 373 
 
 gravity, he would surely have made the egg stand 
 without cracking the shell, a thing which any light 
 fingered person, or a child, can do, and which you will 
 proceed to effect as others have done on many oc- 
 casions.* . . . 
 
 A few exegetical maxims may here be permitted, 
 as designed for the edification of junior members of 
 the worshipful guild of post-prandium exegetists who 
 should not lose sight of the following old saw : 
 
 " A raUlerie sans offence, 
 II faut esprit et science. " 
 
 This short adage tells more than is apparent at 
 first sight. It is a protest against personalities and 
 other improprieties in jests; it suggests that the 
 truly witty and humorous should not contain any- 
 thing offensive or shocking to the sensibilities of 
 refined persons; and it implies intellect and learning 
 hedged by a dignity which represses both triviality 
 and coarseness. Some of the great wits of past 
 times were among profound and reverend scholars 
 who invariably regarded personalities, practical jokes, 
 and unseemingly bantering as puerile and vulgar 
 perversions of intellect, as contrary to legitimate wit 
 and humor, and as neither instructive nor entertain- 
 ing. . . . 
 
 " Immodest words admit of no defense, 
 For want of decency is want of sense." 
 
 * A number of fresh, uncooked eggs were brought in and nearly 
 all the diners were able to make the eggs stand without cracking 
 the shells, and some of them were stood first on the large end and 
 then on the small end. 
 
374 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 1. A good story loses much by being too brief or 
 unduly compressed, but, on the other hand, too great 
 expansion, too much circumstance, particularly after 
 the manner of Sancho Panza, makes it excessively 
 tedious; therefore either extreme method should be 
 avoided. 
 
 2. An excellent story has little if any effect when 
 told in an indifferent manner, whilst a commonplace 
 tale related with art and with suitable embellishments 
 is almost always gleefully received. 
 
 3. The same story may be told in many varying 
 ways and be thus repeated much to the diversion of 
 the hearers; the expression, intonation, accentuation, 
 gestures, all contributing to the happy climax. 
 
 4. A good old story, well told with humorous em- 
 bellishments, may be called a marron glace. 
 
 5. A variety of an old story, with alterations in 
 time, place, names, and incidents, may properly be 
 styled a marron deguise. 
 
 6. An ordinary ancient story, not too hackneyed, 
 is a plain chestnut, chataigne. 
 
 7. A poor old pointless story carelessly told is only 
 a diminutive, wormy chincapin, dwarf chestnut, 
 chataigne naine vereuse. 
 
 8. An ancient bull is ahorse-chestnut, marron d'Inde. 
 
 9. The story teller should possess sufficient skill to 
 avoid the use of any language likely to shock the 
 auditive sense of the most refined persons. Coarse, 
 lewd, and vulgar stories are never interesting or even 
 amusing; therefore " sint sales sine vilitate." 
 
TABLE JESTS 375 
 
 10. It is almost needless to say that a story should 
 always be pertinent to the occasion, illustrative of 
 whatever proper subject may have been introduced, 
 or suggested by a tale told by an immediate or perhaps 
 a remote predecessor; otherwise, even if good, it is 
 not likely to be effective. 
 
 "Entre les verres et les pots 
 Ne se disent que bons propos." 
 
 11. Stories that are not aptly satirical, suggestive 
 of human foibles, or parodical of current events, are 
 scarcely worth telling in the company of cultured 
 men. 
 
 12. A good narrator does not laugh when telling 
 a tale. 
 
 13. All mental vagaries are not necessarily ex- 
 pressed in the form of stories, nor are all stories mental 
 vagaries, but the vast majorities of humorous stories 
 are true mental vagaries demanding a full play of wit, 
 fancy, imagination, and invention, together with a 
 keen perception of the ridiculous. Some mental 
 vagaries are expressed in short jests, in puns and their 
 allies, conundrums, in charades, in enigmas, etc. 
 These jests are the least amusing, the most uninter- 
 esting, and the lowest forms of wit; often requiring 
 for their perpetration a maximum of insipid verbiage 
 with but very little intellectual exertion. Our Gallic 
 cousins, perhaps too censoriously, qualify puns as: 
 
 " Jeux de mots, Plays upon words, 
 
 Jeux de sots." Games of dullards. 
 
376 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 "Puns," says Sydney Smith, "are in very bad re- 
 pute, and so they ought to be. The wit of language 
 is so inferior to the wit of ideas * that it is very 
 deservedly driven out of good company. Sometimes, 
 indeed, a pun makes its appearance which seems for 
 a moment to redeem its species; but we must not be 
 deceived. . . . It is a radically bad race of wit." 
 Of charades, he says, "if they are made at all, they 
 should be made without benefit of clergy, the offender 
 should be instantly hurried off to execution, and be 
 cut off in the middle of his dullness without being 
 allowed to explain to the executioner why his first is 
 like his second, or what is the resemblance between his 
 fourth and his ninth." . . . "Professed wits, 
 though they are generally courted for the amusement 
 they afford, are seldom respected for the qualities 
 they possess." 
 
 A gentleman of leisure and good taste wishing to cure 
 his heir apparent of the mental infirmity of punning, 
 took an indirect, but quickly successful, way to accom- 
 plish his object. He refrained from quoting Sydney 
 Smith on puns and charades, and, not until the cure 
 was effected, did he read to him the following from 
 the family's encyclopedia : "Pun, or punn,an expres- 
 sion where a word has at once different meanings. 
 The practice of punning is the miserable refuge of 
 those who wish to pass for wits, without having a 
 grain of wit in their composition. James the First 
 
 * The French make a clear distinction between jeu de mots 
 and jeu d'esprit; the first being equivalent to pun, quibble, 
 quirk; the second implying wit of ideas. 
 
TABLE JESTS 377 
 
 of England delighted in punning; and the taste of 
 the sovereign was studied by the courtiers, and even 
 by the clergy. Hence the sermons of that age abound 
 with this species of false wit. It continued to be more 
 or less fashionable till the reign of Queen Anne, when 
 Addison, Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot, with other real 
 wits of that classical age, united their efforts to banish 
 punning from polite composition. It is still admitted 
 sparingly in conversation; and no one will deny that 
 a happy pun, when it comes unsought, contributes to 
 excite mirth in a company. A professed punster, 
 however, who is always pouring forth his senseless 
 quibbles, as Sancho Panza poured forth his proverbs, 
 is such an intolerable nuisance to society, that we do 
 not wonder at Pope or Swift having written a pam- 
 phlet with the title of God's revenge against punning." 
 The wise father said not a word against punning, 
 but, one morning, at breakfast, began to make puns 
 on the edibles, then on almost every phrase uttered; 
 sending forth volley after volley of the most silly 
 verbal plays, punning upon the very word pun, and 
 ending with a history full of puns of many noted pun- 
 sters whom he had known, much to the merriment of 
 his punning son who responded in kind without de- 
 tecting the vein of satire which now and then was 
 manifested in the father's speech. At luncheon, the 
 galling fire of puns was renewed, but, to the surprise 
 of all present, the replies of the junior punster were few. 
 At dinner, the punning contagion had affected every 
 member of the large family and each poured out his 
 
378 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 share of puns or conundrums, except the junior pun- 
 ster, who listened in silence. On the next day two 
 new series of puns, together with a liberal allowance 
 of conundrums, charades, and enigmas were served 
 up at breakfast and luncheon, but when dinner was 
 announced and the facetious exercises of the day were 
 renewed, the culprit, having seen his folly through the 
 mirror thus presented to his imagination, exclaimed, 
 in contrite manner and pitiful accent, that he could no 
 longer withstand the mental torture of the past two 
 days, and that since he had been the one to introduce 
 to the family circle this kind of stupid witticism, 
 which had become so unendurable, he would solemnly 
 promise to forswear pun-provoking, thyme-flavored 
 meats,* and never again to perpetrate a pun or conun- 
 drum if they all would agree to stop punning. The 
 order to cease firing was then given by the chief of 
 the family, the cure being complete. 
 
 14. There was a species of witticism, for a long 
 time in vogue among junior students, consisting in 
 the substitution of words, sometimes of the same 
 measure and sound as the original, often incongruous 
 and having an entirely different significance, either 
 in proverbs or other short adages, as, for instance, 
 "a feast of reason and a flow of soul" is done into 
 "a feed of bacon and a stew of sole." Balzac gives 
 many examples of these kinds of mental frolics as 
 uttered by Mistigris, the student nickname of Leon 
 
 * "The tufted basil, pun-provoking thyme." 
 
 — The School Mistress. Shenstone. 
 
TABLE JESTS 379 
 
 de Lora.* The epigraph to these notes is but a poor 
 illustration of the kind of verbal substitution in ques- 
 tion. . . . 
 
 The after-dinner humorous tale seems to be the 
 outcome of a delightful reverie, a ramble, a gambol, a 
 frolic of the narrator's mind; sharpening the hearer's 
 wits, loosening his tongue, and soon impelling him to 
 stand on his hinder limbs in the attitude of orator. 
 
 " A merrie laugh helpeth digestion." 
 
 Hence the introduction of those tales without 
 which a banquet would be as tedious and uninterest- 
 ing as a wineless refection of dyspeptics, for "from 
 a dry meal there arise no jokes." . . . The im- 
 portance of this salutary institution was realized in 
 very early days and was often taken advantage of by 
 statesmen who, during the conviviality and good- 
 fellowship thus engendered were able to settle grave 
 questions sometimes affecting the policy and interests 
 of perhaps several nations. It was the custom among 
 wealthy Greeks and Romans to have, during their 
 banquets, not only vocal and instrumental music and 
 dancing, but the relation of jests which, according 
 to Athenseus, numbered not less than ten thousand. 
 Jest books have since appeared in great profusion. 
 The Joe Miller contribution amounted in 1739 to only 
 two hundred and forty-three, and was increased in 
 subsequent editions to fifteen hundred and forty-six 
 jests, at least in an edition printed for Scott and 
 Webster, London. . . . 
 
 * Balzac, " Comedie Humaine." 
 
380 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 In a critical examination of human vagaries, the 
 states of vagabondism of the mind called mental 
 vagaries would naturally be placed in the ordinal 
 line; the wanderer from the truth known as error 
 would stand as a genus; inaccuracy as a species; 
 and blunder and bull as sub-species. 
 
 Inaccuracy, this lack of mental care, of mental 
 exactitude, although one of the characteristics of the 
 uncultured, is not necessarily incompatible with fair 
 general ability. When the incorrigibly inaccurate 
 man happens to be in good company, he is soon 
 detected by the general character of his speech, his 
 defective early training being betrayed by many 
 crudities which are intensified by his positive and 
 illogical assertions and by inaccuracies and blunders 
 which do not fail to render him ridiculous. He is 
 sometimes allied to the japer- punster parasite who 
 seeks to be the oracle of the refectory, who is a chronic 
 trifler with words, who is familiar with all the town 
 slangs and other trivialities which he flippantly uses 
 on every occasion, who gabbles emptily and disjoint- 
 edly, whose tales are of the maggoty chestnut kind, 
 and whose witticisms are generally gross and always 
 unseasonable. 
 
 Blunder, this offspring of a gross and often stupid 
 confusion of thoughts, may be made by the lettered 
 as well as by the unlettered. A blunder may also 
 arise from the dread of blundering. An example or 
 two may be given in illustration. 
 
 An unsophisticated lad about to be introduced to 
 
TABLE JESTS 381 
 
 a beautiful young lady was told — "do not say oleo- 
 margarine, because, you know, her father has been in 
 that business." The young man, though trying to 
 bear in mind the injunction, became confused and 
 blurted out — "I am charmed to make your acquaint- 
 ance Miss Margarine." 
 
 A learned but timid man, unexpectedly called upon 
 to make a speech, began with — Gentlemen and Ladies, 
 when a friend opposite looked at him significantly and 
 coughed. Thus apprised of his blunder, and though 
 blushing deeply, he unconsciously turned it to good 
 account by saying with increased emphasis — Ladies 
 and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, LADIES — 
 when he broke down and took his seat amid great 
 applause. . . . 
 
 The blunders in acts are too frequent to need illus- 
 trative examples. . . . 
 
 The bull, that gross form of mental vagary, says 
 Sydney Smith, "is an apparent congruity and real 
 incongruity of ideas suddenly discovered. „ . . 
 Bulls . . . are the very reverse of wit; for as 
 wit discovers real relations that are not apparent, 
 bulls admit apparent relations that are not real. 
 The pleasure arising from wit proceeds from our sur- 
 prise at suddenly discovering two things to be similar 
 in which we suspected no similarity. The pleasure 
 arising from bulls proceeds from our discovering 
 two things to be dissimilar in which a resemblance 
 might have been suspected. . . . The stronger 
 the apparent connection, and the more complete the 
 
382 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 real disconnection of the ideas, the greater the sur- 
 prise and the better the bull. The less apparent, 
 and the more complete the relations established by 
 wit, the higher gratification does it afford." Other 
 writers have defined the bull, but their definitions 
 are substantially the same, though not so happily 
 clad as the foregoing. 
 
 "A bull," says Coleridge, quoted by Wheatley, 
 "consists in a mental juxtaposition of incongruous 
 ideas with the sensation but without the sense of con- 
 nection." 
 
 Wheatley, in endeavoring to trace the origin of 
 the sub-species of error commonly called a bull, says : 
 "Sir Thomas Trevor, a Baron of the Exchequer, 
 1625-49, when presiding at the Bury Assizes, had a 
 cause before him about the wintering of cattle. He 
 thought the charge immoderate and said, 'Why, 
 friend, this is most unreasonable; I wonder thou art 
 not ashamed, for I myself have known a beast win- 
 tered one whole summer for a noble. The man, at 
 once, with ready wit, said, ' That was a bull, my lord.' 
 Whereat the whole company was highly amused." 
 Wheatley quotes this passage from Thorns' Anecdotes 
 and Traditions, 1839. 
 
 Inaccuracy, blunder, and bull frequently spring 
 from inadvertence, inattention, misapprehension, mis- 
 conception, or misunderstanding, and lead to fallacy, 
 mistake, misinterpretation, misstatement, or mis- 
 print, besides other misdoings; inaccuracy itself 
 leading to blunder and to bull. 
 
TABLE JESTS 383 
 
 The subjects of legitimate humorous stories and of 
 other jests are endless; embracing human frailties 
 in general, besides vanity, pride, humility, virtues, 
 vices, wisdom, wit, art, science, literature, chronology, 
 history, politics; the past, present and future of man, 
 his relations to organic entities, his occupations, 
 thoughts and acts howsoever expressed, and too 
 many other things to record. 
 
 Only a few examples need now be given of the men- 
 tal vagaries which have served for post-prandium 
 recreation from the many taken at random from the 
 sources already indicated. They will suffice for the 
 present purpose of illustrating those aberrations of 
 the mind known as inaccuracy, blunder and bull. 
 These examples are taken chiefly from supposed 
 school-boy examinations. The answers only are here 
 given with suitable headings. 
 
 BIBLICAL. 
 
 "Jonah was the father of Lot and had two wives. 
 One was called Ishmale and the other Hager; he 
 kept one at home, and he turned the other into the 
 dessert, when she became a pillow of salt in the day 
 time and a pillow of fire at night." 
 
 "Elijah was a good man who went to heaven with- 
 out dying, and threw his cloak for Queen Elizabeth 
 to step over." 
 
 CRITICO-BIBLIOGBAPHICAL. 
 
 "Some people say that the Homeric poems were 
 
384 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 not written by Homer, but by another man of the 
 same name." 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL, CHRONICAL, AND 
 GEOMETRICAL. 
 
 "George Washington was born in 1492. St. Bar- 
 tholomew was massacred in 1492. The Brittains 
 were Saxons who entered England in 1492 under 
 Julius Caesar. The earth is 1492 miles in circum- 
 ference." 
 
 FLUVIAL, GEOGRAPHICAL, POLITICAL, AND COMMERCIAL. 
 
 "The Nile is the only remarkable river in the world. 
 It was discovered by Dr. Livingstone and rises in 
 Mungo Park." 
 
 " Constantinople is on the Golden Horn, has a strong 
 fortress, a University, and is the residence of Peter 
 the Great. Its chief building is the sublime Port. 
 Its principal product is Port wine." 
 
 MYTHICAL AND GASTRONOMICAL. 
 
 "The Gods live on nectarines and drink am- 
 monia." 
 
 PSYCHICAL. 
 
 "Queen Mary was as wilful as a girl and as cruel 
 as a woman. But what can you expect from anyone 
 who has had five stepmothers!" 
 
 This answer was from a little half-orphan girl whose 
 father was much addicted to remarriage. 
 
TABLE JESTS 385 
 
 MARTIAL. 
 
 " A fort is a place to put men in, and a fortress is a 
 place to put women in." 
 
 "Two twentifications make a fortification." 
 "Gorilla warfare was where men rode on gorillas." 
 
 CLIMATICAL AND METEORICAL. 
 
 "Climate lasts all the time, and weather only a few 
 days." 
 
 POLITICO-ECONOMICAL. 
 
 "The imports of a country are the things that are 
 paid for, the exports are the things that are not." 
 
 ETYMONICAL. 
 
 "Restaurant is a word of Latin derivation, from 
 res, a thing, and taurus, a bull; therefore it is a bully 
 thing." 
 
 "The District of Columbia got its name on account 
 of the great swarms of wild pigeons in that part of 
 the country; columba being the Latin for dove." 
 
 LINGUISTICAL AND RHETORICAL. 
 
 "Sanscrit is not so much used as it used to be, as 
 it went out of use 1500 B. C." 
 
 TAURICAL. 
 
 Inscription on the obelisk near Fort William, in 
 the Scottish Highlands: 
 
 " Had you seen these roads before they were made, 
 You would hold up your hands and bless General Wade." 
 
386 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Bulletins of the last illness of Clement XIV: 
 
 1. "His Holiness is very ill." 
 
 2. "His Infallibility is delirious." 
 
 Health proposed by a colored citizen : " De Gober- 
 nor ob our State! He come in wid much opposition; 
 he go out wid none at all." 
 
 "A man was run over by a passenger train and 
 killed; he was injured in a similar manner a year 
 ago." 
 
 "Mike went to see a friend who gave him nothing 
 to drink but cigars." 
 
TABLE SUPERSTITIONS 
 "Ignorance is the parent of credulity." 
 
 No true castanophilist will be likely to traverse 
 this apothegmatic horse chestnut if, for a moment, 
 he thinks of the many queer notions that inspire awe 
 or fear among over-credulous persons. The sugges- 
 tion to write this brief sketch, made by one who con- 
 tributed much to the beatitude of his fellows, could 
 not have been more opportune for the discussion, at 
 the table, of such a subject is certain to evoke from 
 the diners many diverting sallies on credulity in gen- 
 eral and all manner of superstitions in particular. 
 
 Since the definition of terms is always expected by 
 thinkers and inquirers, an endeavor will be made to 
 give the logophilists' definitions of superstition before 
 undertaking an examination of special delusions. 
 
 Although man has been superstitious from the 
 beginning, the word superstition is said to be com- 
 paratively modern, though Latin — superstitio, from 
 superstare — and first applied to irrational religious 
 beliefs resting on supposed supernatural intervention, 
 and afterward employed to signify awe, amazement, 
 wonder, fear of something not likely to happen. An 
 eminent author defines it as literally a survival of sav- 
 
 387 
 
388 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 age or barbarous beliefs generally outgrown. That 
 same writer regards it as "modern and entirely foreign 
 to Roman thought," despite the fact that the poly- 
 theistic Romans stood in great awe and fear of their 
 unreal gods, and were credulous in the extreme con- 
 cerning prodigies, such as the rising and walking of 
 the dead in the night time, the appearance of ghosts, 
 signs in the skies, good or bad omens from the flight 
 of birds or from the condition of the entrails of sacri- 
 ficed animals, etc., etc. Surely Roman thought was 
 full of general and special irrational beliefs, including 
 table superstitions, among which was their attribution 
 to the hare the virtues of the fountain of youth, and 
 their belief that he who had eaten hare for seven 
 consecutive days was thereby embellished and as it 
 were rejuvenated. Imbued with this notion Alex- 
 ander Severus was wont to eat hare at every meal. 
 
 Superstitio was used to signify amazement, awe, 
 wonder, dread, fear of the gods, etc., by Cicero, 
 Quintillius, Seneca, and other Latin writers. 
 
 " Omnium pestium pestilentissima est superstitio." 
 " Nulla scabies scabiosior superstitione." 
 
 In his "Characters," the Grecian philosopher 
 Theophrastes used the word deisidaimonia to desig- 
 nate superstition which he defined as fear of demons; 
 and for the adjective superstitious, used deisidaimon, 
 and told of the many irrational beliefs and acts of 
 the superstitious man. 
 
 The highly religious Greeks, who lived in the awe 
 
TABLE SUPERSTITIONS 389 
 
 and fear of their many gods, were imbued with count- 
 less superstitions as evinced by their absolute credu- 
 lity in the predictions of the several oracles which, 
 even in affairs of the State, they habitually consulted ; 
 founded as they were on imposture. From the earli- 
 est period of Grecian civilization every imaginable 
 form of superstition existed in all classes of society 
 from the humblest to the greatest, and included divi- 
 nation by means of air, water,- earth, and fire, and 
 by an immensity of objects derived from the mineral, 
 vegetable, and animal kingdoms. The Iliad and 
 Odyssey abound with records of superstitious notions 
 and odd interpretations of strange occurrences or 
 even of natural phenomena. For instance the belief 
 that sudden death, among males, was owing to in- 
 visible wounds inflicted by arrows discharged by 
 Apollo, and among females by the arrows of Diana. 
 
 "Apollo comes, and Cynthia comes along 
 They bend their silver bows with tender skill, 
 And, void of pain, the silent arrows kill." 
 
 The iatroi who flourished prior to the Homeric 
 age were all soothsayers; one of them, Melampus, is 
 said to have accomplished marvels by means of in- 
 cantations and to have left a large progeny of con- 
 jurors to prey upon the people's blind credulity. In 
 olden times witchcraft, necromancy, divination, and 
 all sorts of superstitions were so common that they 
 were forbidden and punished as told in Exodus where 
 appears the command: "Thou shalt not suffer a 
 
390 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 witch to live," and that command has been obeyed to 
 the letter, even in modern times, both in Europe and 
 in free America! All of these evil practises were 
 condemned and forbidden in Deuteronomy, Micha, 
 Malachi, Kings, and Samuel, notwithstanding which 
 Saul, in distress of mind, went disguised at night to 
 consult the witch of Endor. Saint Paul lectured the 
 Athenians on their many superstitions. 
 
 In France, superstitions found their cleverest satir- 
 ist in Frangois Rabelais whose great romance teems 
 with the quaintly irrational beliefs of the people of 
 his time. 
 
 In England none more ably than Shakspeare ex- 
 posed the fatuity of the superstitious. Alchemists, 
 astrologers, and conjurers then abounded in the 
 isles as well as on the European continent; largely 
 disseminating their pernicious imposture among peo- 
 ple ever ready to give it credence. 
 
 Besides classic literature and the effusions of great 
 poets, folk-lore and a glance at other sources of the 
 history of human foibles and eccentricities, show that 
 strange beliefs have always been rife in every nation, 
 ancient and modern, savage and civilised, as well as 
 in hosts of individuals, uncultured and cultured, who 
 all have entertained irrational awe or fears of spectres, 
 vampires, ghouls, sorcerers, the evil eye, peries, jinns, 
 sprites, fairies, elves, trolls, kobolds, mixes, poukes, 
 brownies, leprechauns, urisks, etc., etc. These be- 
 liefs are so often recounted at meal time, when the 
 incident leisure leads to conversation on many different 
 
TABLE SUPERSTITIONS 391 
 
 subjects, that vast numbers of them may well be 
 placed in the category of table superstitions. 
 
 The occurrence of thirteen persons seated at a table 
 to eat has long been regarded as an ill omen. When 
 the superstition arose, is unknown, but it has been 
 suggested as barely possible that some personage in 
 authority having had "bad luck" in odd numbers, 
 particularly when the number three occurred, as in 
 13, 23, 33,, 43, etc., or for other reasons, started the 
 notion that thirteen persons should never sit at any 
 table without incurring heavenly displeasure and so 
 coming to grief. However, the general belief is that 
 the superstition is founded on the part of the Gospel 
 of Matthew describing the "last supper" at which 
 thirteen were seated. From that time the presence 
 of thirteen diners has been supposed to portend the 
 death of one of the company within a twelvemonth. 
 This belief is now entertained even by men of culture 
 and distinction. It is related that, at a dinner of the 
 Royal Society Club, London, "one of the Philosophers 
 entering the Mitre Tavern, and finding twelve others 
 about to discuss the fare, retreated and dined by 
 himself in another apartment in order to avert the 
 prognostic," notwithstanding the fact that the super- 
 stition had been so generally derided privately and 
 publicly and that already there were so-called "Thir- 
 teen Clubs" designed to satirise this singularly absurd 
 creed. These "Thirteen Clubs," many of which are 
 still flourishing in civilised countries, make it a rule to 
 dine always on the thirteenth day of the month. 
 
392 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 The first four verses in Beranger's song "Treize a 
 Table," fairly exemplify the serious view taken of the 
 portent of thirteen at the table, and of the accidental 
 spilling of salt. The good old chansonier's effusion 
 was with intent to disabuse the people whom he so 
 much loved, and this he did in no little measure 
 through the charming simplicity of his delectable 
 poesy. 
 
 "Dieu! mes amis, nous sommes treize a, table, 
 Et devant moi le sel est repandu. 
 Nombre fatal! presage epou van table! 
 La mort accourt; je frisonne eperdu." 
 
 The spilling of salt at the table is still regarded by 
 many as a fearful presage, and is worthy of attention. 
 But perhaps a few words relating to salt in general 
 may suggest the citation of interesting examples, 
 some of them doubtless similar to the metamorphosis 
 of Lot's wife and possibly divers others of the same 
 sort. 
 
 When Hebrew warriors destroyed a town, they 
 spread salt on its site, believing that thereby the soil 
 would be rendered forever sterile; the adjective 
 salty in Hebraic language being synonymous with 
 barrenness. The Egyptians and Romans enter- 
 tained this belief and acted in accordance therewith. 
 But it is said that by the salt spread upon lands to de- 
 stroy their fertility was sometimes meant asphalt. 
 Among some eastern nations salt, to this day, is the 
 recognised emblem of friendship. To eat salt with 
 an Arab was and is regarded as the most sacred tie 
 
TABLE SUPERSTITIONS 393 
 
 of amity and hospitality. So much importance was 
 attached to this that the mere touch of a man's salt 
 in his home is sufficient to be friendly and afford him 
 protection. An Arab thief, on entering a house, in 
 the dead of night, and stumbling upon a lump of salt 
 abstained from committing the intended robbery 
 and retired. 
 
 Anciently no sacrifice was thought to propitiate 
 the gods unless an abundance of salt were used, as 
 the most pleasing offering to these gods. 
 
 In the early centuries of the Christian era the salt, 
 in a large receiver, was always placed in the center 
 of the table. Later it took a new position near the 
 head of the table; the chief of the family having the 
 place of honor, "above the salt." 
 
 In modern times, for the benefit of those who be- 
 lieved in the ill omen of salt spilling at the table, 
 many salt-cellars were given such form as to guard 
 against their upsetting. 
 
 Before the closure of these desultory remarks, a 
 few additional examples of table superstition may 
 not be inappropriate. 
 
 An old French officer who firmly believed that the 
 flesh of pigeons possessed a consoling virtue, said 
 that whenever he had lost a friend or relative he 
 would order his cook to serve roasted pigeons for 
 dinner, and also said that after having eaten two 
 pigeons he was always less sorrowful. 
 
 In French communities, no small boys can be in- 
 duced to eat of the excellent salad of dandelion or 
 
394 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 even to touch the plant, so fearful are they of the 
 nightly consequence. From this superstition, the vul- 
 gar name given to the herb is pissenlit. 
 
 Superstitious persons regard as bad omens: the 
 accidental crossing of a knife and fork on the table- 
 cloth; the breaking of a drinking vessel at table; 
 the spilling of wine as foreboding the shedding of 
 blood; and, in Spanish America, the transverse cutting 
 of a banana, because on the surface of the clean cut 
 the dark seeds are noticed to be so disposed as to 
 take a crucial form, portending despair and death. 
 The accidental dropping on the floor of a piece of 
 bread is a sad omen to be mitigated only by its im- 
 mediate recovery; but he who voluntarily casts away 
 the smallest bit of bread is certain to come to want 
 and misery. It 'is an ill omen to drink water to a 
 friend's health. 
 
 \ 
 
VI 
 
 FASTING AND FRUGALITY; LUXURY AND EXCESS 
 
 " Le laitage, le miel et les fruits de la terre 
 Furent longtemps des Grecs l'aliment ordinaire." 
 
 In its relation to frugality and to excess, man's diet 
 has long been an interesting question for discussion 
 among lovers of good cheer. His tendency to pass 
 from the one extreme of merely tasting only dainties 
 to the other extreme of feeding inordinately, is surely 
 noteworthy. In the one case he gratifies gustation 
 without regard to the nutritive properties or to the 
 wholesomeness of edibles; in the other he brutally 
 strives to appease a niorbid craving for quantity. 
 The first is a pampered gastrolater, the second a 
 beastly glutton, whilst the true gourmet is he who 
 combines exquisite daintiness with sound judgment 
 in the selection of such wholesome aliments as are 
 pleasing to the senses and nourishing to the body when 
 consumed in moderation. 
 
 The subject of fasting and frugality, luxury and 
 excess, is well worthy of examination at any time but 
 more particularly in the lenten season. It embraces 
 not only religious and moral, but hygienic, social, 
 and economic questions which merit the most serious 
 consideration, since they so deeply concern the in- 
 dividual, the family, the community and the nation. 
 
 395 
 
396 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 The evolution of the institution of fasting began 
 with aboriginal man who had to fast when he could 
 obtain no food. This transient famine, in all like- 
 lihood, often depending on accident, could not be 
 forestalled by him, so that he was probably obliged 
 to labor assiduously to increase the intervals of his 
 involuntary abstinence which too often must have 
 lasted many days. When, however, he did secure a 
 supply of edible material he fed to repletion and, 
 gorged like the long-fasting python, fell into a state of 
 coma which lasted until digestion was far advanced. 
 Down to very recent times, such was the life of the 
 North American Indian. 
 
 This kind of involuntary abstinence is too common 
 in our days, and its occurrence is ill provided against, 
 even by civilised nations, despite the precedent of 
 Joseph's wise economy in the years of plenty to supply 
 all wants during the years of scarcity. Witness the 
 famines of the nineteenth century in the Orient and 
 in Europe. 
 
 Some of the flesh-eating Tartar soldiery were known 
 to fast during three days' fighting and, after victory, 
 to gorge themselves for three consecutive days. The 
 Chinese pariahs, unable to purchase flesh-meat, for 
 ages have lived on the most meagre diet, fish being 
 to them a great luxury. 
 
 But, without scarcity, voluntary fasting, or at 
 least great frugality, has been observed by some na- 
 tions, notably those Hindoos whose religious creed 
 forbids the use of flesh-meat, and yet they have always 
 
FASTING AND FKUGALITY 397 
 
 thriven on a spare vegetable diet. The early Spartans 
 are said to have kept certain days of abstinence ; and 
 also the Athenians who, on the eve of some festivals, 
 fed exclusively on figs and honey. According to 
 Stefano Morcelli, Numa fitted himself, by fasting, 
 for an interview with the mysterious inmate of 
 Egeria's grotto. The Romans observed with great 
 strictness a special fast before the beginning of the 
 quinquennial festivities in honor of Ceres. 
 
 Among the many men of great eminence who lived 
 frugally, sparingly (oligositoi) , the following are men- 
 tioned by historians and by writers on diet and lon- 
 gevity, namely: Pythagoras, who often contented 
 himself with a simple meal of honey; Epictetus, 
 Democritus, Aristides, Epaminondas, Phocion, Phor- 
 mio, and Manius Curius, the general who lived on 
 turnips all his life, and who, when the Sabines sent 
 him a large sum of gold pieces, said that he had no 
 need of wealth while he lived on such food; lastly, 
 Cornaro, the Venetian, who led an exemplarily ab- 
 stemious life to the great age of one hundred and 
 twenty years. 
 
 Hygienists have long regarded abstention from 
 flesh-meat for two or three days in the week during 
 the spring season as conducive to bodily health, and 
 hailed its practice as one of the wisest of the measures 
 imposed as religious duties in many countries. It is 
 almost needless to say that it is exacted chiefly by the 
 Roman, Greek, Lutheran, and Episcopalian churches, 
 and that this lenten abstinence is in commemoration 
 
398 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 of Christ's forty days' fast. Although, in the second 
 century, Tertullian had already written his Tracta- 
 tus de Jejuniis, the institution of the lenten fast did 
 not occur until the year 325 when it was proclaimed 
 by the first general council at Nice in Bithynia, and 
 ratified in 364 at Laodicea. The Roman church now 
 varies the lenten regulations in different countries 
 and climates, and in accordance with the condition 
 and occupations of the laity. In the south of Europe 
 these regulations are very strict regarding abstention 
 from butchers' meats; not so in some northerly lati- 
 tudes where such meats are allowed on at least four 
 days in the week, and fish on other days but none on 
 meat days. 
 
 Before dismissing the subject of lenten abstinence, 
 brief mention may be made of a custom which once 
 caused a little tempest in the chocolate pot. The 
 lady parishioners of certain Mexican places of wor- 
 ship were so fond of their morning cup of chocolate 
 that they had formed the habit of taking this broth 
 in church at early mass even during lent. This came 
 to be regarded as a breach of the lenten regulations 
 by the parish priests whose protests, however, were 
 not heeded and who appealed to the higher clergy. 
 After hearing the cause, the Bishops decided in favor 
 of the ladies and, in justification of their decision, 
 quoted the aphorism of Father Escobar: " Liquidum 
 non frangit jejunium." Long afterward, this aphor- 
 ism was done into polite Keltic by the chronicler of 
 Father Tom's acts: "There is no fast on the dhrink;" 
 
FASTING AND FRUGALITY 399 
 
 and his "Riv'rence" gave ample evidence, on that 
 memorable night at the Vatican, of his firm belief that 
 there is no fast on "tobaccay" either, by coaxing 
 his Holiness to "take a blast ov the pipe." But 
 Father Escobar's aphorism had a precedent very long 
 before his time for, the founder of one of the heretical 
 sects of Islam that arose soon after Mohammed's 
 death, instituted a new fast which was not broken by 
 liquids and therefore more liberal than the fast of the 
 month Ramadan; lashings of wine being allowed, 
 but absolute silence enjoined, as an essential part of 
 the fast, probably to prevent gossip or contention so 
 likely to arise from too free vinous imbibition. 
 
 Although the effects of frugality and moderation, 
 luxury and excess have been contrasted so often in 
 works on human dietary, it may not be inopportune at 
 this time to set forth in brief the benefits of the first 
 and the evils of the second category for the considera- 
 tion of lovers of good cheer, particularly those belong- 
 ing to the wealthy. 
 
 When primitive man, dwelling in the open air, felt 
 the need of raiment, he clothed his body with the 
 skins of such creatures as he was able to overcome; 
 but the civilised man, sheltered in his palace, used the 
 pelts gathered by his serfs only as ornaments to his 
 rich robes. To appease hunger, the ancient denizen 
 of the forest, in imitation of certain wild beasts, 
 plucked from the ground, the bush, or the tree and 
 ate of, and was refreshed by, such objects as seemed 
 to be relished by his four-footed fellows. He was 
 
400 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 therefore frugal in the strict sense of the word — he 
 was a fruit eater. That fire burned flesh was un- 
 doubtedly discovered by a wild man who, however, 
 knew not that it could be so regulated as to render 
 certain foods more palatable; the institution of 
 cookery having been reserved for his ascendants in 
 knowledge. 
 
 As man reached a higher intellectual state, he 
 gradually became acquainted with the principles of 
 alimentation and to be appreciative of good cheer 
 which he too often abused by over-indulgence of his 
 appetite. The more thoughtful man then began to 
 realise that there are times for frugal living and even 
 abstinence, and that moderation in all things is always 
 becoming, while excess is hurtful to body and mind. 
 He saw that men who lived rationally, moderately, 
 soberly, were the happiest, had the greatest enjoy- 
 ment in life, retained the fullest bodily and mental 
 vigor, and lived the longest. He saw how often the 
 pampered heir — with more sensual than mental 
 .resources, more wealth than discretion, more flat- 
 terers than real friends — satiated with luxurious ali- 
 ments and unwholesome beverages, was obliged to 
 resort to injurious artificial means to promote his 
 labored digestion and jaded appetite which had long 
 ceased to be excited by those dainties the culinary 
 artist knows so well how to prepare. He saw that 
 this life of luxurious self-indulgence gave no real 
 pleasure to the decayed, weary, modern Sybarite, 
 whom early excesses had rendered prematurely old 
 
FASTING AND FRUGALITY 401 
 
 and infirm and who apparently was not destined to 
 pass the prime of life; and he saw how many of his 
 other wealthy contemporaries had come to grief, 
 like King Solomon, from unbounded luxury and un- 
 restrained excesses! 
 
 Indolence, self-indulgence, luxury and excess are 
 too often the results of quickly acquired great gains, 
 as exemplified by the case of the Romans, the ill- 
 gotten wealth of some of whom was counted by 
 hundreds of millions which they squandered in de- 
 bauchery; spending as many as five millions annually, 
 a supper costing the equivalent of four hundred thous- 
 and of our dollars, and in one instance paying the 
 same sum for a single dish. Robbery by the great, 
 bribery, corruption, and dissipations of many kinds 
 prevailed among them until their fatal fall. Our own 
 people now threatened with the awful fate of those 
 dissolute successors of a once happy nation, will 
 surely come to grief unless those chiefs of families 
 who expect to bequeath to their sons such wealth as 
 is more than sufficient to maintain them in affluence, 
 exact from these presumptive heirs the adoption of 
 some rational occupation which, besides the good it 
 must accomplish by example, will give them so much 
 satisfaction and such genuine, lasting pleasure as 
 compared to the momentary gratification of frivolous 
 whims for those idle pastimes whose emptiness is so 
 soon realised. Wise parents surely will not be un- 
 mindful of the ill effects of spurious amusements and 
 lack of employment upon morals, refinement, domes- 
 
402 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 tic relations, social obligations, happiness, ultimate 
 pecuniary resources, and length of life. Thoughtful 
 fathers cannot be too prompt in taking heed of the 
 tocsin that everywhere is so loudly and constantly 
 sounding to warn all men of the dangers likely to 
 arise from the actual rapid accumulation of wealth 
 which so seriously threaten America with the great 
 evils that befell Rome of whose downfall luxury and 
 excess were among the chief causes, just as the very 
 sudden enrichment of Spain with its consequent 
 profligacy, in the sixteenth century, was so much of 
 a detriment to the individual and the nation. It is 
 said that the early settlers, in Spanish America, who 
 gathered more gold than they had ever dreamed 
 of, soon returned to the mother country to spend it 
 so lavishly and recklessly as to reduce many of them 
 to want; and that afterward new comers made money 
 more slowly, often in the humblest stations. Profit- 
 ing by the sad experiences of their rash predecessors, 
 these new immigrants throve by hard work and pen- 
 ury, but their hoarded pesetas were destined to be 
 frittered away by idle sons who left the grandsons in 
 utter poverty. Hence the old saw: 
 
 "Padre bodeguero, Father publican, 
 
 Hijo caballero, Son gentleman, 
 
 Nieto pordiosero." Grandson mendicant! 
 
 How often it has occurred that the lives of rich heirs 
 who shunned serious occupation while they made 
 the broadest and deepest inroads on wealth attained 
 
FASTING AND FRUGALITY 403 
 
 at the cost of the most arduous labor, untiring in- 
 dustry, great economy, and long self-denial, have 
 ended in bankruptcy and beggary! Thoughtless 
 gilded youths have never lacked false friends to lead 
 them to extravagance and debauchery and then 
 desert them as they became insolvent. When, more 
 than three hundred years ago, the greatest of dra- 
 matists gave his version of that Timon who had 
 come to grief by hearkening to his flatterers and 
 disregarding the warnings of a truth-teller, he drew 
 a prodigious pen-picture that may well answer for 
 that of the profligate of our days whose chief purpose 
 is to vie with other spendthrifts in the lavishness of 
 entertainment of "friends" who will abandon him 
 when his exchequer is exhausted; then, having no 
 remunerative occupation, he will not retire to a cave 
 and die in the wilderness as did his ancient prototype, 
 but will inevitably become a tramping vagabond 
 doomed to end his days in the poor-house. 
 
 Should luxury, effeminacy, and dissoluteness ever 
 unfortunately prevail in America, it is more than like- 
 ly that the generation of profligates of such an evil 
 day would be in quite as bad a moral condition as the 
 ancient Sybarites, but no Delphian oracle would need 
 to be consulted to determine the fate of such neo- 
 Sybarites if, like their exemplars of old, they should 
 disregard all warnings. 
 
 "You shall be happy, Sybarite — very happy, 
 And all your time in entertainments pass, 
 While you continue to th' immortal gods 
 
404 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 The worship due: but when you come, at length, 
 To honor mortal man beyond the gods, 
 Then foreign war and intestine sedition 
 Shall come upon you, and shall crush your city." 
 
 Idleness, that first link in the evolutionary chain of 
 vice, that forerunner of prodigality and profligacy 
 is certain to be the primary factor in the ultimate 
 degradation of the individual and the state unless 
 the fatal link is promptly shivered; and this first 
 link can be destroyed only when chiefs of families 
 become fully impressed with the idea that no human 
 being is in a proper moral, physical, and social con- 
 dition unless he rightly occupy his mind and body for 
 the good of his fellow beings. Many young men can 
 be redeemed from idleness by being led into pursuits 
 which quickly yield substantial and pleasing results. 
 Fortunately men who live on their wealth are not all 
 given to idleness and many of them even decry it and 
 show consistency by passing much of their time in 
 occupations that prove recreative to themselves, of 
 great aid in the furtherance of the noble objects of 
 benevolent organizations, or of much practical utility 
 to the people or to the world of science. Whenever 
 these patient laborers take the opportunity to en- 
 courage their friends in awakening the dormant power 
 for beneficence, for the improvement of the moral and 
 physical condition of the people, and for the acquire- 
 ment and dissemination of useful knowledge, all the 
 institutions of great cities throw open their doors to 
 the new converts; showing them how much good they 
 
FASTING AND FRUGALITY 405 
 
 may accomplish during a few hours of each day. 
 The wealthy heirs of this twentieth century can derive 
 real pleasure and happiness, can enjoy sound mental 
 and physical health, and can save the nation from 
 ruin only by devotion to pursuits of practical utility 
 than which there is no better way to prevent profli- 
 gacy. In that case the pitiable lament of "killing 
 time" would no longer be heard; there would be no 
 dyspeptic idler for a modern Abernethy to advise 
 living on a shilling a day and earning it by hard work; 
 and there would be no danger of reversion to the age 
 when man had for all laws his gross desires. 
 
 It is fervently hoped that the great and increasing 
 wealth of very many individuals will never give rise 
 to an unoccupied class of men, in view of the glaring 
 fact that this wealth is such a serious menace to the 
 rising generation. A "leisure class" in our cherished 
 country would be a monstrosity, entirely at variance 
 with the American spirit, constituting an intolerable 
 plutocracy which would inevitably end in inter- 
 necine dissention and so rend the very fabric of this 
 great republic. 
 
VII 
 
 GLUTTONY 
 
 " Swinish gluttony 
 Ne'er looks to heaven amidst his gorgeous feast, 
 But with besotted base ingratitude 
 Crams, and blasphemes his feeder." 
 
 The virtues of frugality and fasting having been 
 duly commended in the preceding essay, it is meet 
 that the enormities of the opposed vices of voracity 
 and ebriety receive their merited censure. 
 
 The peremptory demand that writers define their 
 terms, renders it necessary to begin this dissertation 
 with a concise statement of the derivation and defi- 
 nition of some of the expressions therein used. 
 Hence the nature of the next paragraph. 
 
 The word gluttony (the sin) — from glutton (the 
 sinner) which, in old French and middle English was 
 gloton, gluton, glotoun, and in modern Spanish gloton — 
 is derived from the Latin infinitive glutire to glut, 
 to swallow greedily, to gulp, to gorge, to devour, and 
 signifies the habit of eating voraciously and exces- 
 sively as expressed by the Greek term polyphagia. 
 Certain French authors make unwarrantable and 
 purely arbitrary distinctions between gourmandise, 
 goinfrerie, gulosite, and gloutonnerie. The gourmand, 
 i. e. the gastronome, they say, loves good cheer and 
 
 406 
 
GLUTTONY 407 
 
 eats with judgment. The goinfre is endowed with a 
 brutal appetite and gorges himself without distinc- 
 tion in edibles. The goulu eats with avidity; gulping 
 his food. The glouton devours noisily and greedily 
 all aliments within his reach. Other French writers, 
 adopting the definition of the older editions of the 
 Academy's dictionary, make no such distinctions and 
 regard gourmandise as synonymous with gloutonnerie. 
 The gourmand, said Hoffman, is the helluo, the gurges 
 of Cicero, the gulce deditus of Terence, the vorax of 
 Ovid. In good modern French the word gourmet is 
 used, instead of gourmand, to signify a prudent eater, 
 skilled in the art of dining, who knows well the quali- 
 ties of his aliments, whilst the friand is a true lover of 
 dainty morsels, particular^ sweets. Gourmet was 
 originally applied to the connoisseur in wines, and to 
 the professional wine taster. In English, gluttony 
 is the synonym of gormandism, greediness, edacity, 
 crapulence, gulosity, and voracity styled limosis 
 ovens by Dr. Good. The glutton gorges, gluts him- 
 self voraciously with food as well as with drink * . . . 
 The carnivorous beast commonly known as the 
 wolverine was named glutton on account of its 
 voracity. The wolves, foxes, and dogs are glutton- 
 ous, greedy food bolters; not so the cat tribes who 
 eat more deliberately. Of the omnivora, the gulous 
 hog is one of the highest types of greedy feeders. 
 But the herbivora are the slowest eaters, because of 
 
 * Rabelais uses the word machefains (mache foin, hay chewing) 
 to designate those who have an insatiable appetite, i. e., gluttons. 
 
408 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 the necessity of thorough mastication and insaliva- 
 tion. Among reptiles, the voracious boa-constrictor 
 is the colossal glutton. Skeat traces the word vo- 
 racity through the Latin uoraci the crude form of 
 vorax, from uor-are, to devour, thence uorus which 
 stands for guorus, from an older form garus, as shown 
 by the allied Sanskrit gara, devouring, as in aja-gara, 
 a boa-constrictor, literally goat devouring, from aja, 
 a goat, and gri, to devour. Of insects, those incessant 
 feeders, the larvae of butterflies typify gluttony in 
 the highest degree. The sea anemones may be placed 
 in the category of gluttons. The insectivorous plants 
 are likewise gluttons. The microscopic rotifera, that 
 so constantly gorge themselves with diatomes and 
 other minute edible things, are good illustrations of 
 gluttony among animalcules. And those masters of 
 the world, the bacteria, prey ravenously and often 
 fatally upon all forms of life. So gluttonous men 
 may properly be likened to any of the creatures noted 
 for voracity. . . . 
 
 The words glutton and gluttony are often used 
 metaphoricly to express the idea of excessive mental 
 and physical exertion, and are applied to some of the 
 acts of diligent students, of certain men of business, 
 or of greedy corporations. The elder Pliny was called 
 a literary glutton because he mentally devoured all 
 accessible writings. Even such a strained metaphor 
 as " orgies of labor " is used, in a recent work of fiction, 
 to convey the idea of over-indulgence in mental and 
 physical work, and "mental debauchery" is not un- 
 
GLUTTONY 409 
 
 commonly used. "Orgies of horror" is also used in 
 another work of fiction. Glut is employed metaphor- 
 iclyin "The Tempest," 1, 1: 
 
 " He'll be hanged yet, 
 Though every drop of water swear against it 
 And gape at widest to glut him." 
 
 The present participle gluttoning appears in the 
 seventy-fifth sonnet: 
 
 "Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, 
 Or gluttoning on all, or all away." 
 
 The gluttonous human animal differs from his 
 cousins the carnivora and omnivora in the particular 
 that the appetite, the manner of feeding of these is 
 natural, whilst his is unnatural and often morbid. 
 The aphorism to the effect that beasts feed, men eat, 
 but only men of genius know how to eat, is very per- 
 tinent to this subject. The genuine gastronome eats 
 in moderation with elegance, daintiness, discernment, 
 and with good judgment as to the quality of his ali- 
 ments. Some men are large eaters without being 
 gluttons. But the human glutton is generally a gross 
 feeder to whom quantity is essential and quality 
 secondary, and who gorges himself with avidity and 
 fierceness. His eyes glare, his countenance is flushed, 
 his facial veins are turgid, and his teeth clatter. His 
 whole frame is in motion, he feeds, as it were, with 
 his eyes, ears, nose, jaws, and hands; grunting swin- 
 
410 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 ishly and stamping his feet. He is a true type of the 
 vorax. There are, however, exceptional gluttons who 
 are careful in the choice of their food and drink, but 
 they all come to grief and die either from surfeit or 
 from the remote effects of their excesses. 
 
 Among the illustrious and eminent men who have 
 succumbed suddenly from over-indulgence in food 
 and drink may be mentioned Alexander the Great 
 who died from the effects of a prolonged debauch; 
 the Emperor Septimus Severus who died from acute 
 indigestion and vinous excess; and, in modern times, 
 the Due d'Escars who died within twelve hours after 
 eating too freely of the famous dish of "trujfes h la 
 puree d' ortolans" invented by Louis XVIII. Many 
 other cases might be cited in which gluttony and alco- 
 holism had caused sudden death, and many more in 
 which the remote effects of voracity and of habitual 
 drunkenness were equally fatal. . . . 
 
 The glutton's picture was drawn with wondrous 
 exactitude by the great artist, in the case of Sir John 
 Falstaff whose career was traced from the lean youth, 
 the middle-aged big-bellied gormandiser, to his later 
 years, his decline and his death. And disgusting in- 
 temperance, with all its horrors, was painted with 
 equal skill in the persons of Stephano and the monster 
 Caliban, in The Tempest; Sir John and Bardolph, 
 in The Merry Wives of Windsor; Bernadine the drun- 
 ken prisoner, in Measure for Measure; Borachio, in 
 Much Ado about Nothing; Christopher Sly, in the 
 Induction to The Taming of the ShreW; Sir Toby 
 
GLUTTONY 411 
 
 Belch, in The Twelfth Night; Michael Cassio, in 
 Othello, etc., etc. . . . 
 
 Voracity does not always lead to Falstaffian cor- 
 pulency, and many cases are cited of emaciated glut- 
 tons; notably one of a soldier whose feats of gulosity 
 are recorded by Doctor John Mason Good. That man 
 not only devoured his own allotment of food but the 
 filthy refuse of his mates' rations and, when promoted 
 from the ranks, was better able to indulge his insa- 
 tiable canine appetite. Accused of eating up a child, 
 he vanished, and some time thereafter died in a state 
 of marasmus. Grimod de la Reyniere mentioned the 
 case of a lean glutton who had frequently made the bet 
 that, at one meal, he would eat four hundred and thir- 
 ty-two small pasties, and said that the man had always 
 won the wager. A distinguished statesman, very lean 
 and lank, was, for many years, in the habit of eating 
 rapidly and steadily for twenty minutes and of gulping 
 a full bottle of champagne wine, then sleeping in his 
 chair for fifteen minutes; waking suddenly, he would 
 begin to eat and drink as much as before ; then again 
 falling asleep, and, for the third time awake consume 
 the same enormous quantity of food and drink. Al- 
 though he never took any exercise,' his appetite was al- 
 ways ravenous, and his leanness as remarkable as ever. 
 
 A few additional illustrations of gluttony, even the 
 mythical, may be interesting to the reader, particu- 
 larly those related by Athenaeus; as that of Hercules 
 whom Epicharmus describes as the type of the greedy 
 gormandiser; eating with all his might and main: 
 
412 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 " For if you were to see him eat, you would 
 Be frighten'd e'en to death; his jaws do creak, 
 His throat with long, deep-sounding thunder rolls, 
 His large teeth rattle, and his dog-teeth crash, 
 His nostrils hiss, his ears with hunger tremble." 
 
 Amongst the birds sacred to Hercules was the cor- 
 morant, on account of its being emblematic of 
 voracity. 
 
 Many of Homer's heroes were pictures of carnivo- 
 rous gluttons and great guzzlers of wine. Ulysses, 
 even in his old age, says the poet Sardanapalus: 
 
 "Voraciously he endless dishes ate, 
 And quaff' d unceasing cups of wine." 
 
 Athenseus cites the case of the athlete Milo of Cro- 
 tona, who, at a meal, would eat about twenty pounds 
 of meat and an equal quantity of bread, and drink 
 nine quarts of wine; and who at Olympia carried on 
 his shoulder, round the course, a four years old bull 
 which he then struck dead and ate up in a day. The 
 same author refers to another athlete, Theagenes of 
 Thasos, who "ate a bull single handed." Among 
 his other illustrations of gormandisers he cites, on 
 the authority of Xanthus, the case of Cambales, King 
 of the Lydians, who was a great epicure though an 
 excessive feeder and drinker. One night this king 
 cut up his own wife and ate her. In the morning, 
 finding one of her hands still sticking in his mouth, 
 he killed himself. 
 
GLUTTONY 413 
 
 To deipnophilic pandits it is only necessary to 
 name the voracious, swinish Heliogabalus as a notable 
 illustration of the typical glutton, and to remind them 
 that luxury, debauch, and gluttony were not the least 
 causes of the decadence of the Roman Empire as they 
 had been of the Persian and Greek monarchies. But 
 the cases of Albinus, Phagon, Maximinus, and Geta 
 merit more than casual notice, partly because they 
 are celebrated in the charming verses of the gastro- 
 nomic poet Berchoux. 
 
 "Albinus engloutit dans une matinee 
 De quoi rassasier vingt mortels affam6s. 
 Phagon fut en ce genre un des plus renommes; 
 Son estomac passa la mesure ordinaire: 
 Tel qu'un gouffre effrayant que nous cache la terre, 
 II faisait disparaitre, en ses rares festins, 
 Un pore, un sanglier, un mouton et cent pains." 
 
 During one morning, Albinus consumed five hun- 
 dred figs, one hundred peaches, ten melons, twenty 
 pounds of muscat grapes, one hundred fig-pickers 
 and four hundred and eighty oysters. 
 
 In the presence of Aurelius, Phagon devoured an 
 entire wild boar, a hog, a sheep, a hundred loaves, 
 and drank the equivalent of a cask of wine. 
 
 The Emperor Geta passed three consecutive days 
 at the table; causing to be served to him a series of 
 dishes whose names began, each by a letter of the al- 
 phabet from the first to the last letter. Thus says 
 Berchoux : 
 
414 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 " Je ne puis oublier l'appetit m^thodique 
 De Get a, qui mangeait par ordre alphabetique.'* 
 
 Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, and other Tartar war- 
 riors, were great carnivorous gluttons and heavy 
 drinkers, as were the beef-eating and beer-guzzling 
 Barons in the middle ages. 
 
 A sudden transition, in the relation of remarkable 
 cases of voracity, from the middle ages to the nine- 
 teenth century, seeming permissible, two examples of 
 excessive gulosity, mentioned by Grimod, are there- 
 fore quoted in brief abstract. A cavalry officer, with 
 a prodigious appetite which he always managed to 
 gratify, became so corpulent that no horse could be 
 found to bear him, and he was obliged to leave the 
 army. His old regiment once halted in the town to 
 which he had retired, and eleven of his brother- 
 officers invited him to a twelve cover dinner the whole 
 of which he ate up, and to the surprise of all he was 
 disposed to eat much more although, just before 
 coming to this dinner he had taken a great quantity 
 of soup, and had eaten a whole leg of mutton to the 
 bone. . . . 
 
 A famished Gascon, foraging for his next feed, hap- 
 pened in a cafe where a gormandiser was boasting of 
 the copiousness of the d'nner which he had just eaten. 
 His hearers expressing doubts as to his gastric ca- 
 pacity, he said : Although full to bursting, I am ready 
 to begin again if anybody will bet. . . . 
 
 I accept the wager, said the Gascon, and besides, I 
 
GLUTTONY 415 
 
 shall hold my own with you though I too have been 
 eating largely and had intended to fast for eight 
 days. . . . 
 
 They both fell to, the gormand eating like — a gor- 
 mand, and the Gascon like a hungry Gascon. The 
 wager was that the first to give up should pay for 
 the feast. . . . The Gascon, knowing that he 
 could not pay, and feeling that he could no longer 
 hold out, let himself fall from his chair in a swoon. . . 
 Supposed to be dead of surfeit, his pockets were 
 searched and found empty; so the host looked to the 
 surviving guest for payment which was promptly 
 made. As soon as his opponent had departed, the 
 wily Gascon picked himself up and ran off laughing 
 and saying that he had ingested enough provender 
 to last him for the next eight days. . . . 
 
 In his fourth "Meditation," section Grands appe- 
 tits, Savarin gives the case of General Bisson who, 
 every day, at his copious breakfast, drank eight 
 bottles of wine; and also that of General Prosper 
 Sibuet who, when only eighteen years of age, on a 
 wager, devoured a whole turkey after having dined 
 bountifully. 
 
 Beranger, too, has recorded his protest against 
 gluttony, in his satiric song Les Gourmands, a few 
 lines of which only need be here transcribed : 
 
 "Et d'allieurs, a chaque repas, 
 D'6touffer ne tremblez vous pas? 
 Cest' une mort peu digne qu'on l'admire. 
 
416 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Pour gouter a point chaque mets, 
 A table ne causez jamais; 
 Chassez en la plaisanterie: 
 Trop de gens, dans notre patrie, 
 De ses charmes etaient imbus; 
 Les bons mots ne sont qu'un abus; 
 Pourtant, messieurs, permettez nous d'eu dire, 
 Ah! pour etouffer, n'etouffons que de rire; 
 N'etouffons, netouffons que de rire." 
 
 A brief account of two well known domestic high 
 feeders should not be omitted as they are fair exam- 
 ples of voracity and polyoinia: A middle-aged man, 
 noted for his insatiable appetite and unquenchable 
 thirst, once drank, during a dinner, seven quarts of 
 champagne wine, to the utter astonishment of the 
 other guests. Another giant in edacity consumed, 
 without apparent ill effect, during a night's carouse, 
 seventeen pints of beer, to the discomfiture of those 
 who had wagered that, at a specified time, he would 
 slide under the table. . . . 
 
 The sin of gluttony is committed in all periods 
 of life is well known, but is rare in childhood; a 
 few instances only of precocious gormandism having 
 been recorded. The following, related by Grimod, is 
 worthy of notation: "A very young boy, after gorg- 
 ing himself with food, at a dinner, suddenly burst 
 into tears. When asked what ailed him, he said: 'I 
 cannot eat any more!' 'Why do you not fill your 
 pockets/ asked his neighbor. 'They are already 
 crammed, sir/ replied the child." . . . 
 
GLUTTONY 417 
 
 The very ancient vice of gluttony, transmitted 
 from generation to generation, is still making sad 
 havoc with man! But in our times, there are no 
 instances of voracity comparable to those extreme 
 cases related by Athenseus, Berchoux, Grimod, and 
 Savarin. Even the four-bottle men, such as those 
 who caroused in the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, are now extremely rare. Nevertheless, the race 
 of gluttons is not yet extinct and there are awful 
 examples deserving recordation to frighten the young 
 who may be disposed to indulge inordinately their 
 craving for food and strong drink. 
 
 Civilised nations very justly regard gluttony not 
 only as a grievous sin but as a repulsive sensuality 
 fraught with the gravest consequences. In Proverbs, 
 23—20, 21, the faithful are told: 
 
 " Be not among wine-bibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh : 
 For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty." 
 
 The Christian church ranks gluttony among the 
 capital sins; and the Islamists believe that, in the 
 next life, the sinful glutton is to be consigned to that 
 particular hell, spoken of by the Magians, where he 
 will suffer the pangs of ungratified everlasting hun- 
 ger, and where also the drunkard will thirst in vain 
 for drink. 
 
 It cannot be too often iterated that excesses in 
 eating and in drinking are degrading to the individ- 
 ual, inprrious to his dependents, and demoralising 
 
418 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 to the multitude who are always too ready to follow 
 bad example; and that gluttony is the outcome of a 
 depraved state of mind and body generally leading to 
 disease and premature death. 
 
VIII 
 
 TRENCHER-FRIENDS 
 
 "This honest friend, that you so much admire, 
 No better is than a mere trencher squire." 
 
 Trencher-friends are commonly styled parasites 
 because they feed at the cost of their neighbors. But 
 all organisms, even the lowest, live at the expense of 
 other beings, as the microbia which may be regarded 
 as the primitive type of parasites; feeding as they do 
 on other vegetable organisms and on animal creatures, 
 just as these live upon their own kind, just as fleas 
 have smaller fleas which harbor little fleas which foster 
 still lesser fleas. All beings then are parasites and 
 nourish other parasites; existing because of their 
 parasites.* "In nature all things are relative; there 
 is neither great nor small." This intruding ancient 
 chestnut is a true parasitic sentence, for it has ab- 
 sorbed the quintessence of all that precedes. 
 
 When omnivorous man, the parasite of both vege- 
 tables and animals, feeds at the cost of other men and 
 at their boards, he becomes the trencher-friend, the 
 arch parasite, and it is that kind of parasite which is 
 intended as the subject of this parle. 
 
 * Certain microbia are essential to the growth of higher or- 
 ganisms, and others are as essential to the digestive process of 
 beast and man. 
 
 419 
 
420 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Trencher-friend, the parasite; trencher-man,* the 
 hearty eater; and trencher-knight, f the servant- 
 carver or waiter; should not be confounded. Tren- 
 cher, a noun in English, is from the French infinitive 
 trancher formerly spelled trencher, to cut, to carve. 
 The trencher-man received a happy metaphoric 
 designation from the French who styled Louis XVIII 
 11 la premiere fourchette de son royaume r '; the fork, in 
 polite society, having replaced the pocket knife which 
 until comparatively recent times, had been used to 
 convey food to the mouth. The trencher-friend is 
 not only a hearty eater, but the retainer, follower, 
 satellite, pensioner, creature, jester, buffoon of his 
 host who never treats him as a guest but as a leech, a 
 parasite which is his proper appellation. 
 
 To trace the word parasite (para, beside, sitos, grain, 
 food), to its original use, it is not necessary to go 
 beyond that precious treasury of ancient literary lore, 
 the book of Deipnosophists where it is writ that, in 
 former days, the name parasite was a respectable and 
 holy name equivalent to the title of messmate and 
 was used to designate the men appointed, from the 
 main body of the people, to be beside the sacred grain, 
 to be its custodians and distributors. In Athens there 
 were two parasites for each of the Archons and one 
 for the Polemarchs. They were the bursars and 
 companions of the priests, took a prominent part in 
 
 * "He is a very valiant trencher-man; he hath an excellent 
 stomach." 
 
 t"Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany, 
 some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Diek." 
 
TKENCHER-FRIENDS 421 
 
 the sacred mysteries, and a certain amount of grain 
 and other kinds of food entered into their allotment. 
 In time, however, they were seized with the greed of 
 public office and, as they were appointed for only one 
 year, they hastened to fill their coffers at the cost of 
 the people whom they misrepresented, as is too com- 
 monly the case in our own days of official corruption. 
 In consequence of their rapacity, they were adjudged 
 unworthy of trust, despicable and disreputable, and 
 were ever after spoken of with contempt. The ava- 
 ricious, shameless trencher-men among them then 
 assumed the characters of trencher-friends and man- 
 aged to feed at the cost of their neighbors, so that the 
 once honorable title of parasite came to be used in 
 the odious senses of smell-feast, toady, sycophant, 
 etc. 
 
 Among the gormandising cited by Athenseus were 
 Dromeas who called the multitudes of oysters and 
 the great variety of fish served at a feast as the pre- 
 lude to the banquet; and Chaerephon who, 
 
 . . . "Like a cormorant gazed upon the food, 
 Ever at others' cost well pleased to eat." 
 
 In Epicharmus' "Hope or Plutus," is a good pic- 
 ture of one of the gluttonous parasites: 
 
 "But here another stands at this man's feet, . . . 
 
 Seeking for food which shall cost him nothing, 
 And he will drink up an entire cask, 
 As if it were a cupfull." 
 
422 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 The parasite then says: 
 
 " I will sup with anyone who likes, if he 
 Has only got the good sense to invite me; 
 And with each man who makes a marriage feast, 
 Whether I'm asked or not, there I am witty; 
 There I make others laugh, and there I praise 
 The host that gives the feast. . . ." 
 
 The figurative use of parasite is by no means un- 
 common. The plagiarist is often styled literary 
 parasite. A good example of this use of the word 
 may be found in King Richard II, 2, 2. 
 
 " I will despair, and be at enmity 
 With cozening hope; he is a flatterer, 
 A parasite, a keeper back of death." . . . 
 
 The parasite, besides being a greedy trencher-man, 
 is a touter, toady, and fulsome flatterer of his patron 
 who, without stint, supplies him with food, drink, 
 raiment and shelter. The attributes of trencher- 
 friends are summed up by Timon when, disabused, 
 he cursed and dismissed his toadies: 
 
 "Live loathed and long, 
 Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites, 
 Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears, 
 You fools of fortune, trencher-friends, time's flies, 
 Cap and knee slaves, vapours, and minute-jacks! 
 Of man and beast the infinite malady 
 Crust you quite o'er!" 
 
 Of the many typical parasites named by the philo- 
 sophic bard, the more remarkable are: Parolles, the 
 
TRENCHER-FRIENDS 423 
 
 " militarist " ; Autolycus, the rogue; Iago, the mis- 
 chief maker; Pandarus, the bawd; and Thersites, 
 the sour, crabbed scold. 
 
 The trencher-friend's picture was drawn by Martial 
 in the fourteenth epigramme of his ninth Book : 
 
 "Think'st thou his friendship ever faithful proves, 
 Whom first thy table purchas'd? No, he loves 
 Thy oysters, mullets, boars, sowes' paps, not thee: 
 If I could feast him so, he would love me." 
 
 Men become trencher-friends through gormandism 
 or impecuniosity or avarice. The case of the Gascon, 
 related in the preceding essay is a fair example. But 
 the following case illustrates parasitism from avarice 
 and gormandism: A wealthy but miserly glutton, 
 who boasted that he had never spent more than ten 
 cents a day for his food and had always dined at the 
 expense of others, was once seen gorging himself, at an 
 evening entertainment, and asked if he had nearly 
 finished his supper, said: "Not yet; I am now on 
 ice-cream." In a few minutes he helped himself to a 
 huge portion of goose liver pie, then to more ice-cream 
 followed by two large cups of coffee, and finally to 
 double portions of stewed oysters and lobster salad, 
 washed down by a quart of champagne wine, topped 
 by half a gill of brandy. He was often drunk, always 
 hungry, ever ready to feed, but never to pay the scot 
 and was regaled generally for the amusement of those 
 who wished to witness his beastliness. . . . 
 
424 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Parasites have long been known to resort to queer 
 expedients for their living, but one of the most amus- 
 ing instances is that recorded in the Nouvel Almanack 
 des Gourmands for the year 1827. A man, calling 
 himself a friend of humanity, a philanthropic gastro- 
 nome, residing in a small town where the superstition 
 about the number thirteen prevailed, addressed the 
 following letter to the chiefs of families : 
 
 " Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 Nature has favored me with such a stomach that, at 
 any hour of the day, I may be called upon to take my place at a 
 repast. My appearance is good, my corpulence fair, and I 
 possess a select repertory of anecdotes, of couplets, and of im- 
 promptus which enable me to sustain the conversation when it 
 begins to linger, to sing at the end of the meal, and to improvise 
 a compliment on the occasion of a birthday feast. I carve and 
 do the honors ravishingly. I find no fault if placed between a 
 garrulous old woman and a greedy child, or if at my back is a 
 door which is alternately opened and noisily closed during the 
 entire entertainment. I have sufficient experience never to 
 touch a dish which is to be reserved for the next day's use; and 
 upon this point my discretion has been known ever since the con- 
 tinental blockade, when I was never seen taking coffee or sugar. 
 It seems to me that I possess even more than the needful qualities 
 to figure at a repast where it would be pitiful to have thirteen at 
 table. You will doubtless believe that it is better to feed an 
 honest man than to run the risk of dying during the year. There- 
 fore be no longer in dread of finding thirteen at your board, for 
 I shall always be ready to make the fourteenth." 
 
 (Signed) Gastrophile. 
 
 Flattery is the essential part of the stock in trade 
 of the parasitic trencher-friend who has always used 
 
TRENCHER-FRIENDS 425 
 
 it to secure the good graces of his patron. Hence it 
 is that parasite and flatterer are so often used synony- 
 mously. The flatterer not only indulges in fulsome 
 praise of his host, but in servile imitation of his dress, 
 his manners, his eccentricities, and even his infirmi- 
 ties. It is said that when Philip of Macedon lost an 
 eye, one of his flatterers soon appeared with a ban- 
 dage covering one of his eyes, and that when the king 
 hurt his leg, the same parasite began to limp. Like 
 history, the most ridiculous actions repeat themselves 
 from time to time. It is only a few years ago that, 
 at a certain court, several of the ladies were limping, 
 in imitation of a lame princess of whom they were 
 companions. 
 
 In a diatribe on abuses, Robert Burton said: 
 "Men like apes follow the fashions in tires, gestures, 
 actions: if the king laugh, all laugh. Alexander 
 stooped, so did all his courtiers; Alphonsus turned 
 his head, and so did all his parasites. Sabina Popcea, 
 Nero's wife, wore amber-colored hair, so did all the 
 Roman ladies in an instant ; her fashion was theirs. 
 ... . To see the cacozelian of our times, a man 
 bend all his forces, means, time, fortunes, to be a 
 favorite's favorite's favorite ... a parasite's 
 parasite's parasite, that may scorn the servile world 
 as having enough already! ... 
 
 The king of the Sotiani had six hundred picked men, 
 as companions, bound by a vow to live and die with 
 him. In return they were to dress like the king, eat 
 the same kind of food, and share his power; but they 
 
426 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 were bound to die when he should die, and none broke 
 the vow when the king died."* 
 
 The Sotianian custom of dying with the king is 
 suggestive of the suttee in connection with which will 
 be remembered the clever method employed by 
 Zadig to deter a handsome young widow from casting 
 herself upon the funeral pyle of her lord; also how 
 he succeeded in securing for her, without offense — 
 for she wanted him — a better husband than the 
 deceased, and how this finally caused the abolition of 
 the suttee in a certain part of Arabia. It will also be 
 remembered how well the superstitious Louis XI 
 cared for the health of the wily flatterer who had 
 predicted that he would die one day before the king. 
 
 Permit the citation of a final example of the ser- 
 vility of parasites with its degrading effect upon liter- 
 ary taste. James the First of England, affected with 
 the belittling mania of punning, so infected his flat- 
 terers that play upon words soon became a mental 
 plague upon the whole nation. It invaded the bar, 
 the bench, the pulpit, the stage; and members of these 
 several professions carried punning to the greatest 
 excess in and out of season. Even the foremost dra- 
 matist of the time was not absolutely .immune. He 
 indulged freely in the fashionable game, but played it 
 with such masterly skill as to render it almost ex- 
 cusable. However, he acknowledged that . . . 
 
 * It appears that, in ancient Peru, when an Inca died his ser- 
 vants were put to death after having been made drunk. 
 
TRESTCHEK-FRIENDS 427 
 
 "they who dally nicely with words may quickly make 
 them wanton/' and expressed great contempt for 
 small "shallow jesters and rash bavin wits"; and for 
 chronic punsters of whom he said: "How every fool 
 can play upon the word ! I think the best grace of wit 
 will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow 
 commendable in none only but parrots." 
 
 The punning epidemic had raged for more than a 
 century when Swift, Arbuthnot, and other men of let- 
 ters exposed its fatuity and showed so well the in- 
 feriority of wit of words to wit of ideas — equivalent to 
 the French contrast of jeux de mots et jeux aV esprit. 
 
 "A flatterer's life but a brief space endures, 
 For no one likes a hoary parasite." 
 
IX 
 
 RELATIONS OF PHYSICAL AND MENTAL DIGESTION 
 
 "Now good digestion wait on appetite, 
 And health on both!" 
 
 To true lovers of good cheer, perfect digestion, 
 dainty dishes, mellow wines, mild tobacco, modera- 
 tion, and congenial company are essential to whole- 
 some mental digestion and to the pleasure of eating 
 and the pleasure of the table regarded as so distinct 
 and different by the great master who said, substan- 
 tially, that the pleasure of eating is the actual and 
 direct sensation of a satisfied need, while the pleasure 
 of the table is the feeling which arises from the 
 impression made upon the mind by the cheering sur- 
 roundings, by the splendor of the feast and elegance 
 of its accessories, by the excellence of the edibles, 
 and by the words and acts of the host and guests. 
 It presupposes a high degree of artistic skill in the 
 preparation of the aliments, good taste in the choice 
 and adornment of the place, and sound judgment in 
 the selection of the guests. He further said that the 
 pleasure of eating demands, if not hunger, at least 
 appetite, whilst the pleasure of the table is generally 
 independent of either appetite or hunger. But he 
 might have said with propriety, that the pleasure of 
 
 428 
 
PHYSICAL AND MENTAL DIGESTION 429 
 
 eating and the pleasure of the table are generally 
 interdependent, since the prospective enjoyment of 
 good things to eat and to hear leads men to congre- 
 gate at the festal board where the mental attrition 
 of conviviality is so conducive to mutual pleasure 
 and improvement. That great apostle of good cheer 
 believed it was during the daily feed, among the 
 aborigines, that many words were invented, and the 
 means of oral interchange of ideas thus gradually 
 increased. It is more than likely that amongst the 
 earliest words spoken by primitive men were those 
 to designate objects fit to eat. The dinner table has 
 long been the favorite place for intellectual enter- 
 tainment from untechnical conference upon pleasing 
 questions in letters, science, and art, vividly illus- 
 trated by sparkling pleasantry to stimulate mental 
 digestion and conviviality and breed good-fellowship. 
 That physical digestio'n exerts much influence on 
 mental processes, and vice versd, was long ago recog- 
 nised by deipnosophists among whom may be cited 
 the author of "La Physiologie du Go-tit," who said: 
 
 " La mani&re habituelle dont la digestion se fait, et surtout se 
 termine, nous rend habituellement tristes, gais, taciturnes par- 
 leurs, moroses, ou melancholiques, sans que nous nous en 
 doutions, et surtout sans que nous puissions nous refuser." 
 
 From these words of the French sage came the sug- 
 gestion of the ideas of mental digestion and mental 
 indigestion. The metaphoric phrase mental digestion 
 may therefore be regarded as an expression intended 
 to convey the idea of a just and keen appreciation of 
 
430 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 the rights of men, and of the nature of things together 
 with the quick perception and ready assimilation of 
 the salient points of spoken or written language, 
 leading to the terse and lucid conveyance of a given 
 set of conceptions, and to the proper government of 
 actions; whereas mental indigestion is a sorry per- 
 version or the utter absence of these qualities tending 
 to folly or to evil. It has already been said that good 
 physical digestion is essential to sound mental diges- 
 tion, and it may be added, even in those whose 
 minds are of the acutest sort and whose per- 
 ceptions the quickest; convivial and social attrition 
 and intellectual surroundings helping very materially 
 to awaken and develop dormant mental powers and 
 give the right and timely expression to wit, wisdom 
 and hilarity. Bad physical and mental digestion 
 must inevitably prove fatal to conviviality and 
 good-fellowship. 
 
 The mentally well balanced thoughtful scholar and 
 true mental and physical gourmet is so careful in 
 the selection of his aliments and so prudent in their 
 consumption that his physical digestion is seldom 
 disturbed, so that his senses generally retain their 
 acuteness, and thus his mental digestion is facile. 
 Whereas the unlettered or untrained gluttonous 
 man who is ordinarily affected with physical and 
 mental indigestion, habitually ingests food without 
 tasting, inhales odors without smelling, sees the 
 beautiful without observing, hears sweet utterances 
 of the truth without heeding, touches soft things 
 
PHYSICAL AND MENTAL DIGESTION 431 
 
 without feeling, and thinks without reflecting; his 
 inner sensations and outer senses being congenitally 
 obtuse or obtunded from extraneous causes. He is 
 therefore unable to appreciate the right sorts of 
 physical and mental pabula, and devours the worst 
 qualities of each kind. Such men are generally 
 reticent, but those who are persistently loquacious 
 too often emit noisily a profuse flux of inflated prat- 
 tle with numberless gross inaccuracies and a chronic 
 obstipation of sound ideas; their defective physical 
 digestion intensifying what a learned facetious exege- 
 tist so happily styled intracranial tympanitis. 
 
 Mental indigestion is very commonly manifested 
 by anarchists and other misguided persons. A 
 modern writer, in referring to the proposed education 
 of peasants, said: "Fill their stomachs before you 
 feed their brains, or you will give them mental indi- 
 gestion." This very forcible epigram seems to imply 
 that a little knowledge infused into dull heads with 
 empty stomachs or poor digestion is a dangerous 
 experiment, as it proved to be in the case of the 
 plain people during the French revolution of the eigh- 
 teenth century and, in our own country, in the case 
 of the "strikers" who are so sorely afflicted with 
 mental indigestion. 
 
X 
 
 FOOD ALLOWANCE TO WARRIORS* 
 " There never was a good war or a bad peace." 
 
 War began not with man but with the lower crea- 
 tures, one against one or many against one or against 
 many; the contest being for supremacy in love or 
 for the satisfaction of hunger, all being free lances, 
 marauders, and creatures of prey; the strongest 
 surviving. Probably the earliest well organised 
 armies of trained fighters were of those cunning, 
 savage, six-legged pigmies the ants, which, arrayed in 
 orderly bodies, advance upon opposing armies of ants, 
 deliver battle, kill each other and take prisoners those 
 that surrender and enslave and house them in well 
 provisioned garrisons, and compel them to do menial 
 work. 
 
 Before the cultivation of his powers of observation, 
 knowing not yet the wiles of the ants, man, by brutal 
 instinct, was militant almost from the first. Finding 
 that, without artificial weapons, he could obtain only 
 small beasts, and wishing to prey upon the larger, he 
 provided himself with a rude cudgel with which he 
 killed a large, furry animal, in some way contrived 
 to skin it, used the pelt as a protective garment, and 
 
 * Read at a dinner of military men. 
 432 
 
FOOD ALLOWANCE TO WARRIORS 433 
 
 ate up the flesh. It is more than likely that, not long 
 thereafter, in contention with one of his own kind, 
 he used a similar cudgel against this new enemy whom 
 he overcame and devoured. Then probably began the 
 first tribal war or rather something like the Corsican 
 vendetta. Later, organization becoming necessary, 
 voluntary warriors were trained to fight together and 
 to despoil the enemy of his belongings. Very much 
 later the militants became wards of the nation, and, 
 besides a monthly stipend, food and raiment, equip- 
 ment and lodging were allowed, for which they pledged 
 themselves to obey the commands of their superiors 
 in coping in arms with the country's enemies at the 
 risk of disability or death. 
 
 Good or bad, just or unjust, there will be wars, 
 many of the evils of which could not be averted even 
 by the most complete preparations therefor in time of 
 peace; not the least important preparation being a 
 thorough equipment of the army's subsistence de- 
 partment and its administration upon a scientific 
 basis. . . . 
 
 The quaint saying of a sturdy commander of old 
 to his troops — "trust in God but keep your powder 
 dry" — doubtless suggested the admonition of a pru- 
 dent commissary of subsistence to the soldier — " trust 
 in God but keep your rations dry." An illustrious 
 warrior once said that the army with the longer purse- 
 strings is almost sure to be the winner, and all great 
 captains are agreed that a well appointed commis- 
 sariat is as essential to the success of a campaign as 
 
434 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 are the most approved arms, munitions, equipments, 
 numbers, and generalship. Indeed very long purse- 
 strings are needed to procure the quantity and quality 
 of alimentary fuel necessary to keep the human 
 machine in motion and enable the soldier to withstand 
 the hardships of camp life, of long marches, and of 
 feats of arms leading to victory. It is true that 
 battles have been fought and won by poorly fed troops, 
 but those are only rare exceptions where sick, half- 
 starved men, forgetting their ill health and jejune 
 stomachs have fought desperately not for pabulum 
 but for glory; nevertheless, it may be said that, in 
 modern times, no army of courageous men, howsoever 
 well disciplined, has thriven long without a proper 
 supply of the right sort of food and raiment. 
 
 The often iterated statement that, in the time of 
 Mohammed, the Arabians were hardy warriors, 
 inured to great hardships, though they "lived in a 
 most parsimonious manner, seldom eating any flesh, 
 and drinking no wine," only serves to emphasize the 
 well known fact that, in tropical regions very little 
 red meat is required and that alcoholic beverages 
 have been judged unnecessary in the belief that even 
 their moderate use is hurtful in the warm latitudes; 
 hence their proscription by the Prophet. 
 
 Experienced officers have long realised how dis- 
 heartening to the soldier always is a badly adminis- 
 tered commissariat and how gravely responsible it is 
 for the insalubrity of encampments, whilst a richly 
 provided and well conducted department of subsis- 
 
FOOD ALLOWANCE TO WARRIORS 435 
 
 tence not only causes a marked reduction of the sick- 
 list, but is one of the potent factors in the mainte- 
 nance, efficiency, and in the ultimate result of the war 
 undertaken. 
 
 The danger to an army that endeavors to live on the 
 country through which it passes will not be minimised 
 when the disasters of Napoleon's incursion into Russia, 
 during both advance and retreat, are borne in mind. 
 
 A brief digression may not now be entirely out of 
 order since it relates to one of the most indispensable 
 of the food animals in time of war as in time of peace, 
 namely; that so-called unclean beast the hog which 
 has constituted so great a staple among food-stuffs 
 for so many thousand years. No well organized army, 
 in modern times, except the Turkish, has ever been 
 without an adequate supply of pickled pork or of 
 bacon, and few confiding stray pigs have ever been 
 known to enjoy long the blessings of adolescence or 
 even of infantile innocency in the neighborhood of 
 any military camp. Scarcely any of the parts of 
 the slaughtered hog are ever cast away. We are told 
 that, in ancient times, even the teats and uterus of 
 the pregnant sow were eaten as great delicacies, 
 while the "coarser parts" were given to the lesser 
 people of the soldiery; that, among the Persians, hogs, 
 as well as oxen, horses, and camels, were roasted in 
 their entirety; and that the Greeks also were wont to 
 prepare their army feasts in the same style. The 
 Iliad affords notable instances, one of which was 
 when Achilles entertained Hector on his visit to the 
 
436 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Greek warriors in their camp before Troy. Athe- 
 na3us too, in the fourth book of the Deipnosophists, 
 describing the marriage feast of Caranus the Mace- 
 donian, speaks of the service of a huge roasted boar 
 on a large silver platter edged with gold. 
 
 Another illustration of the fashion of cooking entire 
 a large animal is given by Petronius * in his account 
 of Trimalchio's feast where full grown hogs, one of 
 which was stuffed with sausages, were served to the 
 guests on ample dishes. Although the foregoing ex- 
 amples assuredly show our modern barbecue to be a 
 relict of a very ancient and highly respectable in- 
 stitution, there is no knowing how long the North 
 American Indians have been in the habit of roasting 
 bears and other large beasts entire without removing 
 the hide or hair or even the entrails; so this primitive 
 barbecue may have greatly antedated the like Persian, 
 Grecian, and Roman feasts. 
 
 It is said that the Roman army rations consisted 
 of pork, cheese, wheat, vegetables, oil, and salt; that 
 each soldier, on the march, carried a burden of at 
 least sixty pounds including fifteen days' rations; 
 and that the drink provided (posca) was a mixture of 
 vinegar and water. The modern means of transpor- 
 tation are such that the soldier of to-day is seldom 
 required to carry more than three days' rations which, 
 besides, are so prepared as to be less bulky or heavy 
 than a corresponding number of the rations of ancient 
 times. 
 
 * Satyricon, xl-xlix. 
 
FOOD ALLOWANCE TO WARKIORS 437 
 
 Although that comparatively modern institution 
 the army commissariat has increased prodigiously in 
 efficiency during the last half century, there is still 
 much room for improvement, even in the well organ- 
 ized European subsistence departments as well as in 
 ours. The happy designation — mouth munitions — 
 given to the army ration by tile French soldier serves 
 to distinguish this life-sustaining from the death- 
 dealing ammunition, and to emphasize the fact that 
 it is as indispensable in war as powder and shot. 
 
 The Continental, English, and American armies 
 have always been supplied with the flesh of the hog 
 in some form or another to take the place of fresh beef 
 when such is not to be had. The allowance of meat 
 is, however, more bountiful in the American and 
 English than in the Continental armies, and the Amer- 
 ican rations are quite as liberal and varied as those of 
 other nations, except the bread ration which is only 
 eighteen ounces, while that of Austria, Belgium, 
 France, Germany, Holland, Italy, and Switzerland, is 
 a little more than a pound and a half; Germany al- 
 lowing one kilogramme daily to the marching soldier. 
 
 Whenever practicable the American soldier is al- 
 lowed twenty ounces of fresh beef or mutton per day, 
 otherwise sixteen ounces of canned meat or twelve 
 ounces of bacon, and on Fridays fourteen ounces of 
 dried fish or eighteen ounces of pickled fish instead 
 of meat. Of soft bread or flour the ration is eighteen 
 ounces and of hard bread sixteen ounces, or in lieu 
 thereof twenty ounces of corn meal. Of rice or horn- 
 
438 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 iny one ounce and three-fifths. Of beans or peas two 
 ounces and two-fifths. Of potatoes, sixteen ounces, 
 and a fair proportion of fresh vegetables, including 
 onions. Dried fruits, such as prunes, apples, or 
 peaches enter into this dietary. Of roasted and 
 ground coffee the allowance is one ounce and seven- 
 twenty-fifths or tea eight twenty-fifths, and of sugar 
 three ounces and one-fifth. Of condiments the rations 
 consist of salt sixteen twenty-fifths of an ounce, vine- 
 gar four twenty-fifths of a gill, black pepper one twen- 
 ty-fifth of an ounce, and pickles four twenty-fifths 
 of a gill. Canned tomatoes and desiccated vege- 
 tables — often styled desecrated — enter into the rations 
 of the army in the field. There is also a ration of 
 soap and one of candles. 
 
 Reserve or emergency rations consisting of food- 
 stuffs preserved in concentrated form, ordinarily for 
 three days' subsistence, and carried in the soldier's 
 knapsack, have been of the greatest service in the 
 field, as shown particularly during the Franco-Prus- 
 sian war; every German soldier being supplied with 
 enough food to sustain life for two or three days in 
 case of disability or separation from his command. 
 The American emergency rations consist of preserved 
 meat and bread component and of chocolate. The 
 British emergency rations consist of pemmican in 
 tins, and of cacao mixed with honey, and some hard 
 bread. The pea sausage has been largely used in the 
 German army, and probably still enters into its 
 "iron" rations. 
 
FOOD ALLOWANCE TO WARRIORS 439 
 
 Under a liberal allowance of animal and vege- 
 table food with a fair supply of fat and sugar and 
 good drinking water, the American soldier not only 
 thrives in camp, but withstands the fatigue inci- 
 dent to long forced marches, and the arduous labor 
 of trench digging, and, after his invigorating pint 
 of hot sweetened coffee, is in the best moral and 
 physical condition for hard fighting. 
 
 The sugar ration is of very much importance, to 
 the active trooper, as a muscle builder and should be 
 increased even in the American army although the 
 allowance, three and one-fifth ounces, is greater 
 than that made to foreign soldiers; half an ounce 
 being the allotment in some countries. England, 
 however, gives her soldier two ounces daily, but this 
 paucity, is, in a measure, compensated by the use, in 
 barracks, of sweet jams for supper. 
 
 The vinegar ration should be increased or supple- 
 mented by fruit acids, such as the citric or malic. 
 The Roman soldier drank his posca evidently in the 
 belief of its being a pure stimulant, whereas it really 
 acted as a digestive and preventive of gastric fermen- 
 tation. 
 
 Too much cannot be said of the importance of 
 water as a food, in consideration of the fact that the 
 human body consists of about seventy-two per cent, 
 of this H 2 mineral at least four pints of which it 
 gives off each day: so the ration of drinking water 
 should not be less than three pints, the fourth pint 
 being contained in the other foods. It need scarcely 
 
440 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 be said that much of the sickness among troops in the 
 field or in barracks is due to the ingestion of polluted 
 water, and that it is prevented whenever the com- 
 missaries of subsistence provide larger vessels" for 
 boiling water to make tea or coffee infusion, leaving 
 the excess to cool for drinking. It is, as all know, 
 mainly the foulness of the waters of the Orient that 
 induced its people to use tea infusion as their common 
 beverage, and it is probably for the same reason that 
 the Greeks and Romans ordinarily drank hot water, 
 and that the Continental armies are allowed rations of 
 beer, cider, wine, or of brandy to be mixed with 
 water. 
 
XI 
 
 TOBACCO SMOKING 
 
 "Sublime tobacco! which from east to west 
 Cheers the tar's labour or the Turkman's rest." 
 
 Ye lovers of delicate sensations, listen with be- 
 coming gravity to the crackling of scores of tobaccic 
 chestnuts in roasting for your mental delectation 
 while you are physically soothed by the sweet nicotian 
 fumes that now permeate the pores of your fertile 
 minds to excite a profuse effusion of the brightest 
 scintillations of wit; and note the brief exordium that 
 links smoking with clerics, with American Indians, 
 with thirst, with the pleasures of the table, the reveries 
 of idlers, and the deep cogitation of philosophers. 
 
 The post-prandium demie-tasse and petit-verre being 
 generally accompanied by a scroll of ignited tobacco 
 to "flavor both the divil and the dhrink,"* the enco- 
 mium of the cardinal virtue of smoking is always in 
 order at the latter end of all refections, particularly of 
 sumptuous feasts provided by artistic chefs, and, on 
 such grand occasions, might well begin with the quo- 
 tation of the glorious, noble, sublime apothegmatic 
 sentiment of an ancient Algonquin sage to the effect 
 that every righteous man should be a good smoker. 
 
 * Father Tom. 
 441 
 
442 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 In disconnection * from wild Indians, it will surely 
 be remembered that the moment Gargantua, the dis- 
 coverer of aerial inhalation, had drawn his first 
 breath, he proved drink to be an absolute necessity 
 by loudly crying for an abundant supply of fluid, 
 which he consumed in a prodigiously short time and 
 by calling for more and more throughout life. It will 
 also be remembered that his forward son and heir, 
 Pantagruel, gave additional evidence that thirst is 
 the natural state of man, nearly three-fourths of 
 whose body he shrewdly suspected to consist of water 
 for quenching the inward fires. Much of this water 
 he finally discovered to be expired and transpired; 
 the greater part, however, being distilled by means of 
 certain internal retorts and then expelled through 
 special conduits. This wonderfully copious exit of 
 corporeal humidity he unaidedly f found to be the 
 cause of thirst. Certain lovers of the weed have since 
 boldly asserted that thirst is appeased by tobacco 
 smoke and that the effects of excessive smoking are 
 neutralised by drink. 
 
 Had the new world been discovered only a few 
 decades before the end of the fifteenth, and tobacco 
 introduced early in the sixteenth century, the afore- 
 named Pantagruel, this worthy emule of a thirsty sire, 
 this shrewd and close observer of men and things, this 
 philomathic and encyclopedic author would assur- 
 
 * The sound of in disconnection is suggestful of the vicious 
 locution in this connection, so often used even by eminent 
 writers. 
 
 f'Ha trouve" cela tout seul"; an ancient ironical apothegm. 
 
TOBACCO SMOKING 443 
 
 edly, through his scribe Alcofribas, have composed an 
 exhaustive dissertation upon, and offered some ex- 
 planation of, the cause of human craving for the lux- 
 urious inhalation of the products of combustion of 
 odorous herbs, and doubtless would have been a con- 
 stant consumer of the fragrant regal weed on a scale 
 proportionate to his vast pulmonary capacity. 
 Since, however, the desired crop of nicotian lore can- 
 not be gleaned from the immense Gargantuan and 
 Pantagruelian fields of general knowledge, it will be 
 necessary to recur to the inedited work of the indus- 
 trious Capneus Capnophilus for the needed facts 
 respecting tobacco ana and annals. The evolution of 
 tobacco smoking, says, with solemn profundity, this 
 true lover of the weed, like that of many other great 
 and good things, was necessarily slow. Imagine, 
 further says the learned antiquarian, a company of 
 savages, squatted around the fire that had served to 
 cook their quickly devoured meats, piling on savory 
 herbs to smolder and emit a great cloud of smoke 
 which they inhaled with much satisfaction until 
 came slumber and dreams of the happy hunting 
 ground. Again imagine an improved method, still 
 used in savage lands, consisting of making a hole in 
 the ground, filling it with sweet scented burning 
 leaves, and inhaling the smoke through long hollow 
 reeds. Here, then, is the first link in the evolution 
 of the pipe which possibly the next generation brought 
 forth in the form of nutshells, of tiny gourds, or later, 
 of diminutive roughly fashioned cylinders of wood. 
 
444 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 Finally the dried herbs were broken up and packed 
 in tubes made of stone, or the comminuted herbs were 
 wrapped cylindrically in corn husks and smoked in 
 that form. 
 
 The hole in the ground, the primitive pipe, and the 
 corn husk scroll clearly monstrate the transition from 
 collective to individual smoking among aborigines. 
 Squier and Davis,* while exploring certain western 
 Indian mounds, found therein many pipes and pipe- 
 bowls artisticly carved out of stone in the shape of 
 human heads, beasts, birds, f etc., and reached the 
 conclusion that the mound builders were inveterate 
 smokers. It is not likely, however, that in those 
 ancient times the ardent lovers of the pipe pos- 
 sessed what is now known as tobacco. The combus- 
 tible substance with which they filled their pipes was 
 probably similar to that used by existing tribes, i. e. 
 the inner bark of the red willow mixed with red sumac 
 bark and leaves, called in Algonquin dialect, kinni- 
 kinic, which means a mixture, and this kinnikinic is 
 even now added to tobacco with economic intent. 
 
 The use of tobacco must have come much later, 
 though probably long before the advent of Columbus, 
 
 * "Ancient monuments of the Mississippi Valley." Smith- 
 sonian Institution, 1848. 
 
 f In his interesting report on " Pipes and Smoking Customs 
 of the American Aborigines," Smithsonian Institution, 1899, Mr. 
 Joseph D. McGuire suggests that the tubular was the main pre- 
 columbian form, and thinks some markings detectable in the 
 stone pipe bowls found in the mounds, due to the use of metal 
 tools brought in by Europeans and that they are comparatively 
 modern. Other archaists take issue with him concerning the 
 antiquity of mound pipes. 
 
TOBACCO SMOKING 445 
 
 for, the herb as we now know, required skilful cultiva- 
 tion and careful preparation to bring it to a proper 
 state of excellence for smoking; and cultivation and 
 the needed fermentation and final desiccative process 
 imply observation, experience, and increased knowl- 
 edge and, in the case of the pipes, no little mechanical 
 skill and artistic taste. Squier and Davis * believed 
 that, among the North American Indians, the practice 
 of smoking was "more or less interwoven with their 
 civil and religious observances and that the use of 
 tobacco was known to nearly all the American nations. 
 In making war and in concluding peace, it performed 
 an important part. Their domestic and public delib- 
 erations were conducted under its influences; and no 
 treaty was ever made unsignalised by the passage of 
 the calumet. The transfer of the pipe from the lips 
 of one individual to those of another was the token 
 of friendship and a gage of honor with the chivalry 
 of the forest which was seldom violated. . . . 
 Along the Mississippi and among the tribes to the 
 west of that river, the material most highly valued 
 for the fashioning of pipes was, and still is, the red 
 pipe-stone of the cdteau-des-Prairies, a mineral re- 
 sembling steatite, easily worked and susceptible of 
 a high polish. The place whence it is obtained 
 . . . was regarded with superstitious veneration 
 by the Indians, who believed it to be under the special 
 protection of the Great Spirit. . . . Until very 
 recently it was the common resort of the tribes, where 
 * Loc. Cit. 
 
446 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 animosities were forgotten and where the most em- 
 bittered foes met on terms of amity." 
 
 Very soon after discovering the island of Cuba, 
 Columbus, thinking it was the country of Cathay, 
 sent two of his men with an Indian as interpreter,on 
 an embassy to the Great Khan. When they returned* 
 the ambassadors added to their report that they had 
 seen by the way many men and women who carried 
 in their hands burning coals and certain weeds rolled 
 up in leaves, and each, lighting one end of a scroll, 
 sucked the other and inhaled the smoke, whereby 
 they were all put to sleep and made almost drunk. 
 They called these scrolls tabacos. The Spaniards, 
 after a little time, learned from the natives how to 
 prepare and smoke these tabacos, which they soon 
 did to great excess. (Tarducci.) There is no doubt 
 in the minds of observing travellers and accomplished 
 archaists that tobacco smoking, in the form of cigars, 
 cigarettes, and pipes was a distinctive American virtue 
 unknown and unpractised in other countries until 
 some time after the Columbian advent, although many 
 attempts have been made to show that there were 
 smokers of the glorious weed in the old world long 
 before the discovery of America. 
 
 "Francisco Lopez de Gomara, who was chaplain 
 to Cortez when he made the conquest of Mexico in 
 1519, speaks of smoking as an established custom 
 among the people; and Bernal Diaz relates that the 
 King Montezuma had his pipe brought with much 
 
 * November 4th, 1492. 
 
TOBACCO SMOKING 447 
 
 ceremony by the chief ladies of his court, after he had 
 dined and washed his mouth with scented water. 
 In the vicinity of the city of Mexico quantities of clay 
 tobacco pipes have been dug up of various fanciful 
 forms, which show that as great an amount of atten- 
 tion was bestowed on their decoration by the old 
 Mexicans as we have devoted to them in Europe." 
 (Fairholt.) 
 
 The following myth of the finding of tobacco was 
 originally related by a Swedish missionary, who hav- 
 ing preached to a Susquehanna tribe a sermon on 
 the Christian religion, heard an old Indian say: 
 "What you have told us is very good; we thank you 
 for coming so far to tell us those things you have 
 heard from your mothers; in return we will tell you 
 what we have heard from ours." 
 
 "In the beginning we had only flesh of animals 
 to eat, and if they failed we starved. Two of our 
 hunters having killed a deer and broiled a part of it, 
 saw a young woman descend from the clouds and seat 
 herself on a hill hard by. Said one to the other : ' It 
 is a spirit, perhaps, that has smelt our venison; let 
 us offer some of it to her.' They accordingly gave 
 her the tongue; she was pleased with its flavor and 
 said: 'Your kindness shall be rewarded; come here 
 thirteen moons hence, and you shall find it!' They 
 did so; and found where her right hand had touched 
 the ground, maize growing; where her left hand had 
 been, kidney beans; and where she had sat, they 
 found tobacco." (Fairholt.) 
 
448 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 The explorers who followed Columbus found tobacco 
 smokers throughout North and South America, and 
 ascertained that tabaco was the name of the utensil 
 in which the weed was placed for smoking, as the 
 scroll called cigar in English, tabaco in Spanish 
 (Cuba), puro, because all tobacco, in Mexico,* as the 
 leaf broken up and wrapped in corn husk (now the 
 cigarro, or when wrapped in paper, cigarro de papel 
 in Cuba, cigarrito in Mexico, cigarette in France and 
 in this country); as the pipe or as the reed through 
 which the fumes were inhaled: whereas the plant 
 was called kohiha in the Caribbee Isles, cohiba and 
 cogidba in Hispaniola, yetl and piecetl in Mexico, pelun 
 in Brazil, yoli in divers places, uppowoc and apooke 
 in Virginia, and tobah (according to Sir Francis Drake) 
 in other parts of North America. . . . 
 
 It is often asked "Whence comes the word cigar?" 
 But the question does not appear to have been an- 
 swered definitely. The following, abstracted from 
 Larousse, is given for the examination of etymonists. 
 The French vocabulist derives cigar from the Spanish 
 cigarro which is said to come from cigarar, to roll in 
 form of a curl paper (papillote, papilloter), to roll in 
 paper, i. e. to roll tobacco in paper. This clearly 
 designates the cigarette. It has also been said that 
 the Spanish word cigarro is from cigarra, cicada 
 (locust) because of a certain analogy of form, but this 
 resemblance is far from being striking. The identity 
 of the two words is, however, evident, and their com- 
 mon origin does not seem contestable. There is no 
 
TOBACCO SMOKING 449 
 
 doubt as to the nativity of the cigar, but the origin 
 of its name is as yet undetermined. Larousse rejects 
 Littre's view; to the effect that the cigar is so named 
 because of a vague resemblance in form to the body 
 of the cicada, and prefers Romey's explanation which 
 he gives in full. In the first years of the XVI century, 
 says Romey, tobacco, which the Spaniards had al- 
 ready cultivated in Cuba and of which they had formed 
 the habit of smoking in imitation of the Cuban abor- 
 igines, was by them introduced into Europe. At 
 Seville and in all Andalusia this plant was soon culti- 
 vated in the gardens and orchards adjoining the houses, 
 and these gardens and orchards were called cigarrales. 
 Each proprietor had his tobacco from his own cigarral 
 and prepared or caused to be prepared scrolls of the 
 leaves for smoking after the Indian fashion. When- 
 ever he offered one of these scrolls to a guest, he said : 
 ' es de mi cigarral' ; it is from my garden. In time 
 came the phrase, este cigarro es de mi cigarral, this 
 cigar is from my garden, hence the name cigarro, 
 cigar. As to the designation cigarral, given to gardens 
 and orchards adjoining town or country houses, it 
 had come from cigarra: the cicada being very com- 
 mon in Spain, and cigarral, meaning a place where 
 the cicada is wont to sing. It is in this indirect sense 
 that cigarro is said to come from cigarra, but not on 
 account of any resemblance of the cigar to the body 
 of the cicada. 
 
 The following statement of the case from Murray's 
 Dictionary is not exactly in accord with what precedes : 
 
450 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 " Cigar, segar. Spanish, cigarro. French, cigare. 
 The Spanish word appears not to be from any lan- 
 guage of the West Indies. Its close formal affinity 
 to the Spanish cigarra, cicada, naturally suggests its 
 formation from that word, especially as derivatives 
 often differ merely in gender. Barcia, Great Ety- 
 mological Spanish Dictionary, says 'el cigarro figura 
 una cigarra de papeV (the cigar has the form of a 
 cicada of paper). Mahn also thinks that the roll of 
 tobacco leaf was compared to the body of the insect, 
 which is cylindrical with a conical apex. The name 
 cigarral applied to a kind of pleasure-garden and sum- 
 mer-house (as the cigarrales of Toledo), which has 
 sometimes been pressed into service in discussing 
 the etymology, is said by Barcia, after P. Caudio, to 
 be related neither to cigarra nor cigarro, but to be of 
 Arabic origin meaning 'little house' (casa pequena). 
 It is said, however, to be applied in Cuba to a tobacco 
 garden or nursery." . . . 
 
 The last edition of the Madrid Academy's diction- 
 ary gives no help toward the solution of the question. 
 
 Tobacco seed was first brought to Spain from 
 Cuba in 1493 by the companions of Columbus* The 
 
 * It is said that there is, in one of the galleries of Spain, a 
 historic picture of Christopher Columbus standing on the deck 
 of his ship in the port of Palos, smoking a cigar, just before put- 
 ting off on his first voyage of discovery. This pictorial anach- 
 ronism is not more remarkable than the American example in 
 which Columbus is represented in the act of making the egg 
 stand on end by main force with the result of marring the table 
 or its cover. Such are among the many ways in which history 
 is often portrayed! ... 
 
TOBACCO SMOKING 451 
 
 plant was then cultivated in a few private gardens and 
 the leaves made into cigars for smoking in imitation 
 of the Cuban aborigines. It is, however, clear that 
 the use of tobacco had not been confined to the in- 
 habitants of Cuba and of Mexico, for as early as 1535 
 Jacques Cartier had found the natives of Canada to 
 be smokers of this herb which they esteemed a great 
 luxury; but it does not appear that he had then sent 
 any of the seed across the Atlantic . Different dates 
 are assigned for the introduction of the "Indian 
 herb" into Great Britain. Some writers assert that 
 Ralph Lane, whom Raleigh had sent as Governor of 
 Virginia, brought the plant on his return in 1586; 
 others say that it reached England in 1577; while 
 Taylor, the water poet, declares that it was Sir John 
 Hawkins who in 1565 made it known to the English 
 people. 
 
 Tobacco became generally known in Europe prin- 
 cipally through the French ambassador to Portugal; 
 Jean Nicot, who in 1560, having purchased seed from 
 a Flemish merchant arrived from Florida, planted it 
 in his garden at Lisbon, and sent some of the seed 
 to the Grand Prior of France, when the plant was 
 called herbe du Grand Prieur, herbe de Vambassadeur, 
 herbe de la reine, herbe Medicee, after Catherine, tabac, 
 petun, buglosse antarctique, jusquiame du Perou, herbe 
 sainte, and finally, by Linnaeus, nicotiana in honor 
 of Nicot. In Russia and Germany it is called tabak, 
 in Sweden tobak, and in Poland tabaka. In Italy it 
 was styled erba Santa Croce after the cardinal of 
 
452 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 that name, and Tornabona from a French envoy. 
 It also received the names of herba panacea, sana 
 sancta Indorum, and other fanciful names in dif- 
 ferent countries, while in England it had the slang 
 name mundungus, signifying black pudding. But the 
 designation tabaco made by Hernandez, the botanist, 
 persisted with slight modifications in the orthography 
 to suit different languages; its present botanical name 
 being Nicotiana Tabacum. Its cultivation and use 
 soon passed from western Europe to Turkey, Syria, 
 Egypt, China, India, Java, Sumatra, and the Philip- 
 pine Islands, and at present there are few regions of 
 this earth where it is not raised and smoked. In 
 England Sir Walter Raleigh rendered tobacco smoking 
 fashionable for a time; * even women luxuriated in 
 
 * Although Ralph Lane is supposed by Harriot and Camden 
 to havebeen the first English smoker, Fairholt quotes Pennant 
 who writes of "Captain Myddleton, who fought at the Azores 
 in 1591 : ' It is sayed that he with Captain Thomas Price of Plas- 
 yollin, and one Captain Kolt, were the first who smoked, or (as 
 they called it) drank tobacco publickly in London, and that the 
 Londoners flocked from all parts to see them. Pipes were not 
 then invented, so they used the twisted leaves or segars.' He 
 gives this on the authority of the Sebright MS., and adds, 'The 
 invention is usually ascribed to Sir Walter Raleigh. It may be 
 so, but he was too good a courtier to smoke in public, especially 
 in the reign of James.'" 
 
 In the Joe Miller of Scott and Webster, the following occurs: 
 "No. 1132. When Sir Walter Raleigh returned from his 
 discovery of Virginia, he brought with him a quantity of tobacco 
 which he used to smoke privately in his study. But the first 
 time of his doing it there, his man-servant bringing his usual 
 tankard of ale and nutmeg, the poor fellow, seeing the smoke 
 pouring forth in clouds from his mouth, threw all the contents 
 of the tankard in his face, and then ran down stairs exclaiming 
 that his master was on fire, and, before they could get to him, 
 would be burnt to ashes." 
 
 Fairholt gives two different versions of the story. 
 
TOBACCO SMOKING 453 
 
 a pipeful and drank the fumes with much pleasure. 
 But early in the seventeenth century persecution of 
 smokers was begun by no less a person than the king, 
 who denounced the habit; and his successor taxed 
 the luxurious weed beyond all measure. He was 
 followed by other potentates who were even more 
 severe in the punishments inflicted upon such of their 
 subjects as were detected in the act of using the sooth- 
 ing herb. Anent these punishments and the ensuing 
 reaction, Fairholt quotes the following from the New 
 York Literary World of February, 1848: 
 "Modern lovers of the oipe * seldom think of the 
 
 "It is curious to note this well-Known anecdote of Raleigh 
 reported by other persons (a fact not hitherto noted by historians 
 of the herb). The famous jester, Dick Tarlton, who died in 
 1588, is one of them, and in his Jests (1611) the tale is thus told: 
 ' How Tarlton took tobacco at the first coming of it : Tarlton as 
 other gentlemen used, at the first coming up of tobacco, did it 
 more for fashion sake than otherwise, and being in a roome, 
 sat betweene two men overcome with wine, and they never 
 seeing the like, wondered at it, and seeing the vapour come out 
 of Tarlton's nose, cryed out, Fire! fire! and threw a cup of wine 
 in Tarlton's face. Make no more stirre, quoth Tarlton, the fire 
 is quenched: if the sheriff's come, it will turne a fine as the cus- 
 tom is! And drinking that again, fie, says the other, what a 
 stink it makes, I am almost poysoned. If it offend, quoth 
 Tarlton, let's every one take a little of the smell, and so the savor 
 will quickly go: but tobacco whiff es made them leave him to pay 
 all." 
 
 "Rich, in his Irish Hubbub (1619) gives another version of 
 the story : ' I remember a pretty jest of tobacco which was this : 
 A certain Welchman coming newly to London, and beholding 
 one to take tobacco, never seeing the like before, and not know- 
 ing the manner of it, but perceiving him vent smoke so fast, and 
 supposing his inward parts to be on fire, cried out: O Jnesu, 
 Jhesu, man, for the passion of God hold, for by God's splud ty 
 snowt's on fire, and having a bowl of beer in his hand, threw it 
 at the other's face to quench his smoking nose." 
 
 * The fashion of cigar smoking did not become general until 
 the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
 
454 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 worthies to whom they are indebted for its free enjoy- 
 ment; and of those who delight in nasal aliment, how 
 few ever call to mind the Diocletian persecutions their 
 predecessors passed through in adhering to their 
 faith in, and transmitting to their descendants the 
 virtues of tobacco. Europe frowned, and Asia threat- 
 ened, Pagan, Mohammedan, and Christian monarchs 
 combined to crush them. The world was roused like 
 a famishing lion from its lair, and gloated on them. 
 James I of England, foaming with rage, sent forth 
 his Counterblast; the half savage ruler of the Musco- 
 vites followed suit; the King of Persia; Amurath IV 
 of Turkey; the Emperor Jehan-Geer; and others, 
 all joined the crusade. Arming themselves with 
 scourges, halters, knives, and bearing gibbets on their 
 banners, they denounced death to all found inhaling 
 fumes of the plant through a tube, or caught with a 
 pellet of it under their tongues. Such as used it as a 
 sternutative were dealt with more gently, they were 
 merely to be deprived of their organs of smelling — of 
 nostrils and nose. To perfect the miseries of the piti- 
 able delinquents, Urban VIII went in awful pomp to 
 the Vatican where, tremulous with holy anger, he 
 shook his garments to intimate that the blood of the 
 offenders would be on their own heads, and then 
 thundered excommunication on every soul who took 
 the accursed thing, in any shape, into a church ! Was 
 ever destruction of body and spirit threatened so 
 unjustly? Mutilation for taking a pinch!* Loss of 
 * It was in Russia that the noses of snuffers were cut off. 
 
TOBACCO SMOKING 455 
 
 life for lighting a pipe! Exclusion from heaven for 
 perhaps harmlessly reviving attention to a wearisome 
 sermon in chapel or church! Merciful heavens! 
 what comminations these to emanate from Christian 
 kings and Christ's successor! Present and eternal 
 death, tortures here, and endless tortures hereafter, 
 for a whiff or quid of tobacco! Our sympathies are 
 naturally excited for the sufferers. One wonders how 
 they managed to preserve their integrity, or pass 
 through the fires unscathed, or even escape annihila- 
 tion. Yet most of them did escape, and they did 
 more — they converted the Nebuchadnezzars who 
 sought to consume them. Conscious of their inno- 
 cence and of their rights, they mildly persisted in 
 maintaining them. Of retiring habits, they avoided 
 agitation and debate, declaring that the properties 
 of the proscribed herb made such efforts uncongenial, 
 while it strengthened them in passive resistance, 
 composed their spirits, and rendered them, in a great 
 measure, indifferent to abuse, and often insensible 
 to pain. Hence they smoked, and chewed, and sneezed 
 at home until their hottest enemies became their 
 warmest friends, and greater sinners than themselves 
 had ever been." 
 
 The blood of these martyrs seems to have served the 
 good purpose of perpetuating the fashion of smoking! 
 
 The general opinion of James, forcibly expressed 
 and powerfully condensed, says Fairholt, is given in 
 A Collection of Witty Apothegms by him, as follows : 
 
 "That tobacco was the lively image and pattern of 
 
456 DIKING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 hell; for that it had, by allusion, in it all the parts 
 and vices of the world whereby hell may be gained; 
 to wit: First, it was a smoke; so are the vanities of 
 this world. Secondly, it delighteth them who take it; 
 so do the pleasures of the world delight the men of the 
 world. Thirdly, it maketh men drunken, and light in 
 the head; so do the vanities of the world, men are 
 drunken therewith. Fourthly, he that taketh tobacco 
 saith he cannot leave it, it doth bewitch him; even so 
 the pleasures of the world make men loath to leave 
 them: and further, besides all this, it is like hell in 
 the very substance of it, for it is a stinking loathsome 
 thing; and so is hell. And further, his majesty pro- 
 fessed that, were he to invite the devil to dinner, he 
 should have three dishes : 1. A pig; 2. A pole of ling 
 and mustard; and 3. A pipe of tobacco for digesture." 
 The modern tobacco decriers reason very much after 
 the manner of the English King. 
 
 Louis XIV was not a lover of tobacco, but smoking 
 • and snuffing were practised in France during his reign. 
 It is related that the daughters of the Grand Monarque 
 were once detected in the act of smoking pipes of 
 tobacco which they had obtained from officers of the 
 Swiss guard. 
 
 When tobacco was first made known in Europe it 
 was employed largely as a medicinal agent supposed 
 to cure all human ails, hence its names herba panacea, 
 panacea of the Indies. It was administered by inhala- 
 tion, and given in pills and potions, or added to un- 
 guents. Spenser in his Faerie Queene lauds its virtues 
 
TOBACCO SMOKING 457 
 
 and speaks of it as " divine tobacco." As sana sancta 
 Indorum it was ordered for asthma and other com- 
 plaints by physicians in the sixteenth century. 
 
 Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, says: "To- 
 bacco, divine rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes 
 far beyond all other panaceas, potable gold, and phil- 
 osophers' stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases. 
 A good vomit, I confess, a virtuous herb; if it be well 
 qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally used, 
 but, as it is commonly abused by most men, which 
 take it as tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a 
 violent purger of goods, lands,* health; hellish, 
 devilish, and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow 
 of body and soul." Burton, though a righteous man, 
 was not a good smoker. 
 
 There is no satisfactory evidence that the Indians 
 used tobacco medicinally. Smoking, with many of 
 the tribes, appears to have begun as a religious rite, 
 but in time it became a luxury. The Cuban Indians, 
 as Columbus reports, smoked their tobacco in the 
 form of scrolls. The pipe does not seem to have been 
 known to them whilst the Mexicans were pipe 
 smokers. In the north the pipe of tobacco served as 
 a timepiece by which the perpetual Indian smoker 
 measured the hours with sufficient accuracy for his 
 purposes. It took him four, six, or ten pipes to do 
 some things, and eight twelve, or sixteen pipes to 
 walk to certain places. The early white settlers in 
 
 * The price of tobacco, in Burton's time, was not less than six 
 shillings per ounce. 
 
458 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 "the Manhattoes" soon learned from those children 
 of the forest this excellent method of time reckoning, 
 which rendered clocks unnecessary. The pipe, in 
 every New Amsterdam household, had then usurped 
 the place of even the sand-glass. An Amsterdamer 
 who did not smoke had no standing in society and 
 was not trusted. The habit of smoking made up for 
 all obliquities. This has often been illustrated by 
 the following ancient chestnut, the patent right for 
 whose relation has been secured by the Castanean 
 Fraternity. 
 
 Among the inhabitants of New Amsterdam, when 
 its northern boundary was at what is now called Wall 
 Street, was one Hans Von Beckman who, though 
 tolerated for his nicotinic virtue, was not dearly 
 beloved by his fellow townsmen. Hans' disposition 
 was not remarkable for suavity, the lack of which 
 was due partly to inheritance, partly to a disappoint- 
 ment in his early amatory relations which led him to 
 adopt single blessedness, and partly to over-indulgence 
 in schnapps. He had become such a sour misogamist 
 that the women avoided him. He hated children and 
 was feared by them. Street boys were in constant 
 dread of his cudgel. The pigs ran from him squealing. 
 The dogs growled and showed their teeth at a safe 
 distance from his stick and scampered away barking. 
 His favorite haunt was the town pot-house, where he 
 was abundantly supplied with "Hollands" and 
 tobacco. Hans, sustained by the beneficent weed, 
 lived to be an old man and went the way of all flesh 
 
TOBACCO SMOKING 459 
 
 with his pipe in his mouth. The pipe, a pound of 
 tobacco, and a bottle of gin being buried with him. 
 The Amsterdamers had always made it a religious 
 duty to see their departed fellow citizens "put away" 
 with due solemnity; the head men at the funerals 
 throwing, each in turn, a handful of earth on the coffin 
 and pronouncing a brief eulogy. On this particular 
 occasion, however, not a word, for some time, was 
 spoken in praise of the deceased. The stolid silent 
 company, almost motionless, incessantly puffed great 
 clouds of smoke. This inaction became tedious; the 
 air was chilled, the sun going down. Each man 
 asked his neighbor to say something, but in vain, 
 until finally the oldest crony of the defunct bachelor 
 was prevailed upon. Taking the pipe out of his 
 mouth, he puffed away the residuary smoke, picked up 
 a fist-full of dust, which he cast upon the bier, and 
 said: "Hans he vas a goot schmoker any how," 
 whereupon the neighbors retired to the tavern. 
 
 This tale is told for the special benefit of our "awful 
 example" whose lack of the good habit of smoking we 
 all deplore. How happy he would be if at one of our 
 gay banquets he were to take a mouthful of sparkling 
 wine and a whiff of the sweet nicotian weed! 
 
 Much has been said by anti-tobacco orators and 
 writers, about the terrible poison contained in the 
 balmy herb, and innumerable tracts and volumes have 
 appeared decrying its use, but the number of smokers 
 is still increasing if we may judge by the many millions 
 of tons of the plant raised in this world. The immense 
 
460 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 consumption of this harmless weed is surely a great 
 blessing to millions of families to which the industry 
 of its cultivation, preparation, and exploitation gives 
 bread, raiment, and shelter. 
 
 But what of the poison of tobacco? This grass is 
 not eaten by man as is the white potato whose active 
 principle, solanin, is a virulent poison, yet whole 
 nations have been nourished by the potato without 
 being solanised. It will be seen by the following 
 facts and figures, obtained from a trustworthy source, 
 that the proportion of the active principle of tobacco 
 known as nicotin is not sufficient to harm even the 
 inveterate smoker, chewer, or snuffer: 
 
 "The nicotin contained in tobacco varies from one 
 and a half to seven per centum. It varies, in the 
 same year, in the same crop. The American contain 
 less nicotin than the foreign tobaccos. Havana to- 
 bacco contains one and a half, rarely two per centum. 
 Kentucky tobacco two per centum, and Virginia 
 tobacco sometimes as much as six per centum. 
 Tobacco smoke contains a trace of nicotin combined 
 with either citric or mafic acid. The oil of tobacco is 
 often confounded with nicotin which is to tobacco 
 what solanin is to the potato." 
 
 The subjoined excerpts may be consolatory to 
 smokers, insomuch as the dreaded nicotin is said to 
 be only one of three active principles of the weed and 
 not the worst. 
 
TOBACCO SMOKING 461 
 
 "the three poisons of tobacco. 
 
 The most dangerous principle of tobacco is not nicotin, as is 
 generally supposed, but pyridin and collidin. Nicotin is the 
 product of the cigar; pyridin which is three or four times more 
 poisonous comes out of the pipe. It would be well, both for the 
 devotees of tobacco and their neighbors, if they took care always 
 to have the smoke filtered through cotton, wool or other absorbent 
 material before it is allowed to pass the "barrier of the teeth." 
 Smokers might also take a lesson from the unspeakable Turk, 
 who never smokes a cigarette to the end, but usually throws it 
 away when a little more than half is finished. If these precau- 
 tions were more generally observed, we should hear much less 
 of the evil effects of smoking on the nerves of the heart, and on 
 the tongue itself. — Charlotte Medical Journal." * 
 
 "comfort for smokers. 
 
 The British Medical Journal, July 12, 1890, says that smokers 
 will be pleased to learn that Dr. Gautrelet, of Vichy, claims to 
 have discovered a method of rendering tobacco harmless to 
 mouth, heart, and nerve without detriment to its aroma. Ac- 
 cording to him, a piece of cotton wool steeped in a solution 
 
 * These statements do not agree with those made by toxi- 
 cologists according to whom nicotin is the most poisonous prin- 
 ciple of tobacco. The larger portion of this nicotin is no doubt 
 burned up during the act of smoking, and the tar-like products 
 containing pyridin and collidin are erroneously called nicotin. 
 
 The following newspaper excerpt has some bearing on the 
 subject : 
 
 " It is popularly supposed that a pipe is stronger than a cigar. 
 Such, however, is by no means always the fact. Most pipe to- 
 baccos are stronger than cigar tobaccos, but sometimes, as in the 
 case of the Maryland leaf grown for export, they are milder. 
 Another notion widely held is that a tobacco is strong in propor- 
 tion to the amount of nicotine it contains. But the truth is 
 that some very strong tobaccos are comparatively poor in nico- 
 tine, their strength consisting in an excessive percentage of 
 certain oils. As for cigarettes, the tobacco used in their manu- 
 facture is usually of a very mild kind, so that they are much less 
 harmful and less irritating to the nerves than cigars so long as 
 they are merely smoked and not inhaled. In five cigarettes 
 there is exactly as much tobacco as in one ordinary cigar. 
 
462 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 (5 to 10 per cent.) of pyrogallic acid inserted in the pipe or 
 cigar holder will neutralize any possible ill effects of the nicotin. 
 In this way not only may the generally admitted evils of smoking 
 be prevented, but cirrhosis of the liver, which in Dr. Gautrelet's 
 experience is sometimes caused by tobacco, and such lighter 
 penalties of over-indulgence as headache and furring of the 
 tongue may be avoided. Citric acid, which was recommended 
 by Vigier for the same puprose, has the serious disadvantage 
 of spoiling the taste of the tobacco." 
 
 Among the many detractors of the delightful habit 
 of smoking was a Mr. Trask, the author of several 
 works against tobacco, who at the close of a public 
 lecture on his favorite subject, asked if any member 
 of the audience wished to propound questions. There 
 was soon a general cry for the Reverend Daniel Waldo, 
 Chaplain of the Senate. Mr, Waldo then rose and 
 said — rolling a quid of tobacco in his mouth — 
 Brother Trask has conclusively shown that tobacco is 
 a poison; now, from the age of eighteen, I can remem- 
 ber no waking hour in which I had not some of this 
 tobacco in my mouth; smoking much of the time, 
 chewing when not smoking. I am now ninety-two 
 years of age, sound in wind and limb, and have never 
 had a day's sickness. I think therefore that while you 
 will agree with Brother Trask that tobacco is a poison, 
 you will agree with me that it is a very slow poison. 
 
 The bibliography of tobacco smoking and of nico- 
 tian poetry is so copious that it has no place here. 
 Of the many poetical effusions quoted by Fairholt. 
 only one, translated from the German of Friedrich 
 Marc, is here reproduced. 
 
TOBACCO SMOKING 463 
 
 "to my cigar. 
 
 The warmth of thy glow, 
 
 Well lighted cigar, 
 Makes happy thoughts flow, 
 
 And drives sorrow afar. 
 
 The stronger the wind blows, 
 
 The brighter thou burnest! 
 The dreariest of life's woes, 
 
 Less gloomy thou turnest. 
 
 As I feel on my lip 
 
 Thy unselfish kiss; 
 Like the flame-colour'd tip, 
 
 All is rosy-hued bliss. 
 
 No longer does sorrow 
 
 Lay weight on my heart; 
 And all fears of the morrow 
 
 In joy dreams depart. 
 
 Sweet cheerer of sadness! 
 
 Life's own happy star! 
 I greet thee with gladness, 
 
 My friendly cigar!" 
 
 Wine, coffee, and tobacco, says Capneus in rhap- 
 sodic mood, are the three most potent intellectual 
 feeders of poets, historians, and philosophers. Their 
 disprizal has generally come from men who have used 
 them to great excess, from the idiosyncratic, and 
 from those who have never tasted the one, sipped 
 the other, or smoked the third! The recognition of 
 the characters and properties of tobacco belongs to 
 botanists and chemists, but its esthetic qualities are 
 fairly judged only by dainty smokers, and its high 
 praise has been sung solely by those modern bards 
 
464 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 who knew how to enjoy its odorous fumes, its sweet 
 savor, and its wondrous action upon the cogitative 
 center! It is pitifully unfortunate that the ancients 
 should not have known of the invaluable plant and 
 that this misfortune was due to their unpardonable 
 neglect to discover the western after conquering the 
 eastern hemisphere — a discovery which in those 
 early times would probably have monstrated the 
 earth's rotundity and many other marvels! The 
 Greek epics though composed under the invigoration 
 of Chian and Pramnian wines to which they owe their 
 splendor, are barely tolerated by certain censorious 
 pseudo-hellenists; but could the genial designers of 
 such artistic works have had a bountiful supply of 
 pure Havanas and smoked them without stint, how 
 immensely grander would be these literary monu- 
 ments, and how they would baffle captious critics! 
 Under the beneficent effects of the mind kindling 
 weed, what an abundance of sublime language Herod- 
 otus would have infused in his prosaic histories! 
 With the help of tobacco Aristotle would undoubtedly 
 have enlightened the heathen world with the theory 
 of evolution, with paleontology, and with a more 
 comprehensive history of the animal kingdom! 
 What solid comfort the forbearing Epictetus would 
 have had with a box of lucifer matches to light his 
 earthen lamp, and to kindle an occasional pipeful of 
 mild lulling Maryland or bland Latakia! The sour- 
 ness of Crates would certainly have been mitigated 
 by inhalation of the fumes, or by frequent mastication 
 
TOBACCO SMOKING 465 
 
 of the enticing "honey-dew-plug!" How greatly the 
 last hours of the virtuous Socrates would have been 
 soothed by a few whiffs from the genial pipe!* What 
 vast anti-microbic clouds t would have risen from 
 the burning of the fragrant leaf to disinfect the foul 
 tub of Diogenes! Under the incitement of nicotian 
 vapor, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, would have so tuned their 
 melodious harps as to render them immeasurably 
 more prolific of those sweet accords which will con- 
 tinue to. charm the senses of the cultured of this and 
 many future generations, and Lucretius would have 
 spared his own life that he might long be regaled with 
 the savory clouds from the ignited nepenthic herb 
 and enjoy the ensuing delightful ebriety! How 
 much more readable Plutarch's biographies would be, 
 could he have written them under the inspiration of 
 the regal weed! The Italian poets of middle ages 
 must have longed for some more powerful brain 
 stimulant than their light wines, but alas did not even 
 suspect that it was to be found in the Santa Croce 
 herb! Chaucer, ever fond of the grape's exhilarating 
 juice, had none of the luscious Virginia leaves with 
 whose honeyed vapor it might be flavored! If 
 Shakspeare had only followed the good example of 
 Raleigh % who tempered his ale with a drink of the 
 
 ♦Aubrey speaking of the last hours of Sir Walter Raleigh, 
 says: " He took a pipe of tobacco a little before he went to the 
 scaffolde, which some female persons were scandalised at; but 
 I think 'twas well and properly donne to settle his spirits." 
 
 f Tobacco smoke is said to retard the proliferation of bacteria. 
 
 J In a fictitious letter of Raleigh to Shakspeare, the following 
 occurs: "I send a package of a new herb from the Chesapeake, 
 
466 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 new world's vaporous nectar,* with what true poetical 
 fervor he would have chaunted the joys of smoking 
 after sack, and what charming sonnets he would have 
 composed in praise of the "panacea of the Indies!" 
 Had Ben Jonson early learned to smoke he would 
 have loved sweet William at first sight! Those 
 drinkers of mild wines, Cervantes, Calderon, Corneille, 
 Moliere,f Boileau, Racine, were great despite the 
 fact that they made no habitual use of the sweet 
 scented fumes of the balmy American grass; but who 
 can tell how much loftier would have been the pro- 
 ductions of such masters had their genius been quick- 
 ened by worship at the shrine of the sacred plant! 
 La Bruyere would undoubtedly have added much to 
 the piquancy of description in his "Caractkres" had 
 he been addicted to the seraphic virtue of tobacco 
 smoking! How exquisite would have been Delille's 
 charming poem in praise of coffee had his demie-tasse 
 always been followed by a fragrant cigar! Think of 
 
 called by the natives tobacco. Make it not into a tea, as did 
 one of my kinsmen, but kindle and smoke it in a little tube the 
 messenger will bestow. Be not deterred if thy gorge at first 
 rises against it, for, when thou art wonted, it is as a balm for all 
 sorrows and griefs, and as a dream of Paradise." F. H. Head, 
 1887. 
 
 * In the seventeenth century tobacco smoking was called 
 tobacco drinking, and smokers tobacco drinkers. 
 
 f The use of snuff had already become fashionable in Moliere's 
 time, but he does not appear to have been a smoker. See Le 
 Festin de Pierre, 1,1. 
 
 Sgadarelle Loquitur: " Quoi que puisse dire Aristote, et toute 
 la philosophic, il n'est rien d'6gal au tabac; c'est la passion des 
 honetes gens, et qui vit sans tabac, n'est pas digne de vivre. 
 Non seulement il r£jouit, et purge les cerveaux humains, mais 
 encore il instruit les ames a la vertu, et Ton apprend avec lui 
 a devenir honnete homme." 
 
TOBACCO SMOKING 467 
 
 what Sir Isaac Newton accomplished under nicotian 
 stimulation! Was not the sweet pipe of the learned 
 Doctor Parr ever and anon filled and refilled with the 
 finest grades of "mundungus" which he perpetually 
 smoked? Byron's occasional well flavored cigar, in 
 some measure, counteracted the ill effects of gin and 
 sometimes made him almost amiable! But the case 
 of that inveterate toper, Charles Lamb, was hopeless 
 the moment he basely and ungratefully bade "Fare- 
 well to Tobacco!" Had this trifler with words con- 
 tinued to smoke, he would probably have abjured 
 gin-and-water (the real cause of his headaches) and 
 ceased making bad puns! Walter Scott was a good 
 and grand old smoker; hence the sublimity of his 
 prose and the majesty of his verse ! " Sartor Resartus" 
 was composed amid dense clouds from the favorite 
 Carlylean pipe, which accounteth for the quaint 
 cleverness of the work! The charming productions 
 of Bulwer, Thackeray, Tennyson, were surely inspired 
 by fumes of the sweet herb ! Longfellow, Holmes, and 
 many other celebrities in American literature owe the 
 superexcellence of their admirable writings principally 
 to tobacco! Were not, and are not still, great num- 
 bers of our distinguished men of science, of our emi- 
 nent members of the clergy, of the medical profession, 
 and of the bar and bench, of our illustrious statesmen, 
 and of opera singers of highest artistic celebrity, true 
 devotees of tabaccic nebulisation? And for the knowl- 
 edge and practice of this cardinal virtue we owe a 
 debt of everlasting gratitude to the American abor- 
 
468 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 igines of whom Catlin says: "There is no custom 
 more uniformly in constant use amongst the poor 
 Indians than that of smoking, nor any more highly 
 valued. His pipe is his constant companion through 
 life — his messenger of peace; he pledges his friends 
 through its stem and its bowl, and when its care 
 drowning fumes cease to flow, it takes a place with 
 him in his solitary grave with his tomahawk and 
 war-club; companions in his long fancied and beauti- 
 ful hunting grounds!" 
 
 Such, and doubtless many more, better expressed, 
 would have been the concluding exclamations of the 
 renowned Doctor Bushwhacker, had he written, as 
 he would have done so admirably, an exhaustive 
 treatise on the history, cultivation, exportation, im- 
 portation, and uses of this holy herb that so potently 
 stimulates thought, so strongly inspires exalted idea- 
 tion, so warmly excites the tender emotions of the 
 lover, so brilliantly illumines the poet's mind, so 
 thoroughly awakens the historian's memory, so viv- 
 idly quickens the novelist's imagination, so greatly 
 strengthens and beautifies the moralist's maxims, so 
 mildly soothes the dejected spirits of the solitary, so 
 sweetly balms the sorrowful, and so constantly fosters 
 dreams of a happy future! 
 
 Fairholt, in his excellent history of tobacco, says: 
 " It has been and is constantly alleged, that smoking 
 leads to drinking. It certainly never induced our 
 Saxon ancestors to drink, and they were notorious 
 drunkards. The English, as a nation, were hard 
 
TOBACCO SMOKING 469 
 
 drinkers before the fumes of tobacco crossed their 
 wine and beer cups. They are probably less given 
 to drink at the present day than at any period of 
 their history; and while tobacco smoking is on the 
 increase. The Turks and the French smoke much, 
 and both are essentially sober nations." 
 
 "But let us come to individuals of our own 
 country, to those whom we have had opportunities 
 of knowing, and give the result of our own practical 
 observation. As a rule, we can pronounce that all 
 great smokers are temperate men, and most of them 
 extremely so, very many being water-drinkers, and 
 particularly when smoking, as the use of wine and 
 liquors destroys the palate for the appreciation of 
 fine tobaccos. On the other hand, very many who do 
 not smoke and who are the most vociferous in con- 
 demning smoking, are habitual and daily drinkers of 
 wine, beer, and spirits. Few drunkards smoke, at 
 least, to any extent. If they smoke at all, it will be 
 found that the love of drinking led to the use of 
 tobacco ; and not, as is often asserted, that they were 
 induced to drink from smoking. Many may think 
 these remarks too bold and trenchant but let our 
 readers look carefully around them, in their respect- 
 ive circles, and they will not fail to find their 
 experience confirm our own. They may find some 
 questionable exceptions to the rule; they may find, 
 here and there, a sot who drinks and smokes but 
 take away from him his tobacco, and he will be 
 a sot still." . . . 
 
470 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 
 
 "Many great smokers we have found to be men of 
 particularly energetic minds, and capable of doing 
 much mental and physical work; and they declare 
 that smoking, with water and coffee, or without 
 either, enables them to sustain an extra exertion of 
 mind and body, when the effect of wine, beer, and 
 spirits would weaken and wholly incapacitate them." 
 
MAR 5 1907 
 
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