" This is not merely an omission in archaeology, it is a blank left 

 in the annals of taste." I would say more — the want of a general 

 history of cookery, considered as one of the fine arts, is an omitted 

 chapter in the history of civilization ; for cookery — good cookery 

 — is one of the most important weapons by which civilization 

 defeats the law of Natural Selection— under which, among the 

 brutes, the sickly and the weakly die off, and the strong alone 

 survive. 



Far be it from me to rush into the gap — I do not know enough; 

 long years of study would be necessary, nor am I vain enough to 

 think my own palate sufficiently discriminating. I can only give 

 you to-night what I have culled from others — from Athenteus, 

 from Apicius, from Pegge's Forme of Cury, from Mr. Coote's able 

 article, from Alexander Dumas ( Dictionnaire de Cuisine), from 

 Francatelli, and Soyer, and from accounts of ancient feasts and 

 records of ancient housekeeping buried in the transactions of 

 various archaeological societies. 



I shall endeavour to give some idea of the art of cookery that 

 at present prevails among us. 



To begin with the earliest inhabitants of this country — the 

 palaeolithic man, both river-drift, and cave — we need not linger 

 over him : there can be no historical continuity between the 

 traditions of his kitchen, and those of ours. We do know some- 

 thing of how the cave-man cooked — the Esquimaux remains to 

 tell us : his food, if cooked at all (and by the way, raw meat is in 

 high latitudes conducive to health), is broiled or boiled. His 

 vessels being of stone or wood, cannot be put on the fire ; but 

 heated stones are dropped in, until the water becomes hot enough, 

 and the meat is cooked. The result is a mess of soot, dirt, and 

 ashes, which, according to our notions, is intolerable ; but (as Sir 

 John Lubbock says, and I am quoting him,) if the stench of an 

 Esquimaux house does not take a man's appetite away, nothing 

 else would be likely to do so. 



But with the people the Romans found in this country we have 

 a continuity, and it is worth while to enquire into what they had 

 to cook, and how they cooked it. 



