FISH FOODS. 283 
a taste of the sea.”” Garum, the fish sauce of the ancient Romans, 
was made of certain fish, to be eaten with other fish. Pliny 
states that garum had the flesh of shrimps originally for its 
basis (“‘ garos”” being the Greek name for shrimp, and “ garus”’ 
the Latin name). Garum was in truth a combination from 
various sea-creatures—the shrimp, scomberfish, anchovy, red 
mullet (with its intestines, and with the roe, soft, and hard). 
Bisque soup, made from the Crawfish (Cancer astacus), is 
credited in Paris with wonderful properties as a sexual restorative. 
The Crayfish, or Crawfish, has been long held in medicinal repute 
also in England, but chiefly as providing what used to be 
employed as ‘‘ Crabs’ eyes,” consisting mainly of lime, as 
phosphate, and carbonate. They were given powdered for acid 
indigestion, and heartburn. The Crawfish is found about banks 
of rivers, in holes, or under stones, feeding on small molluscs, 
and larve. In the French capital “Je Bouillon d’ Ecrevisses”’ 
is esteemed as “ analeptique, anciennement recommendé dans la 
phthisie pulmonaire, dans le lépre, et dans les affections du systeme 
cutané.”” A spirited allusion to this bouillon was made by 
Meslin de Saint Gelais, Chaplain to Francis the First, of France, 
in a poetical letter addressed to a lady :— 
“* Quand on est febricitant 
Madame on se trouve en risque, 
Et pour un assez longtemps. 
De ne jouer a la brisque. 
Et de mal diner, partant 
De ne point manger de bisque 
Si rude, et si facheux risque 
Que je bisque en y songeant.” 
Shrimps, again (or Gravesend sweetmeats), when fried in 
their shelly coverings, are very delicious; the chitin, or horny 
material of the outer coat, is thus cooked to crispness ; though 
for this effect the Shrimps must be fried just as they come from 
the sea, not as they are usually sold by the fishmonger after 
having been boiled in salted water. “Shrimps,” as Robert 
Lovell supposed (1661), “‘ were held to be good for sick people, 
and of few excrements, being of the best juyce.” These “ sea- 
flies’ are caught in great abundance near Margate; the red, 
or beaked, Shrimp is superior to the brown, or flat-nosed species. 
In the South Sea Islands live Shrimps, pure, and transparent, 
are scattered over a salad, have vinegar dashed quickly over 
them, and, being caught up in a leaf, half-a-dozen of them are 
