lOO READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



therefore list some of the favorite foods of the days of Nero, as follows: 



Meats. vSausage, beef, kidney, pork, bacon, lamb, lambstones, sweetbread, 

 liver, chitterlings (present-day chitlings). 



Seafood. Lobster, pilchard (sardine), mullet, sole, lamprey (an eel- 

 like fish), snail. 



Fowl. Wheatear, goose, capon, blackbird, pheasant, guinea, stork, thrush, 

 peacock, gizzard. 



Game. Hare, boar, bear. 



Fruits. Damson, pomegranate, fig, date, apple, peach, grape, raisin, 

 quince, olive. 



Vegetables. Chickpease, pulse (a legume), scallion (shallot or onion), 

 mustard, beet, lupine (a legume), turnip. 



Seasoning. Pepper, vinegar, cumin (a spice of the caraway family). 



Nuts. Almond, chestnut. 



Sweets. Honey. 



Dairy Products. Hen's eggs, goose eggs, cheese. 



Confections. Tarts, custards, marchpane, junket, household-bread. 



This was the day of the vomitoria, when the gluttonous banqueters 

 stepped aside into special rooms provided for the purpose, emptied their 

 stomachs and returned to start again. Perfumes, music, dancing, dice, 

 gambling and votive offerings to the gods provided the divertissement. 



There must have been considerable monotony to the diet. So many of 

 our more delectable fruits and vegetables were lacking. There were no 

 potatoes, tomatoes, chocolate, vanilla, corn, peanuts, pecans, rice or coffee. 

 The list is not complete. They lacked many of the spices which are so 

 popular today. According to story, garum was their favorite sauce. This 

 was made from the entrails of fish allowed to ferment until liquefied, sort 

 of a prehistoric Worcestershire sauce or anchovy paste. This story was 

 told by Horace, who was the cartoonist of the day and incHned to exag- 

 gerate. It may not be quite true. 



The Britons learned cookery from their Roman conquerors and from 

 Germanic immigrants. 



In the Dark Ages, all Europe forgot how to cook. Charlemagne's ban- 

 quets were barbaric affairs, with never more than four dishes, chiefly spit- 

 ted meat. With the Crusades the art was reintroduced again from the East. 

 The Medici of Florence were chiefly responsible for the renaissance of 

 cookinff. Catherine de Medici introduced it into France, where, from the 

 point of view of the epicure, it has remained paramount ever since. 



Such, then, is the story of why we eat what we are eating today. It is the 

 thrilling history of man, responding first to necessity, later urged on by 

 the need for availability and convenience, and subsequently developing the 

 urge for new tastes and for greater palatability of his sustenance. It is the 

 story of patient husbandry through the ages, of disease and death follow- 

 ing trial-and-error, of avarice, thievery and war. It is the story of ex- 



