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was like ffisthetically, until we can find out exactly what was the 

 garum with which they seasoned everything. Dumas calls it '*ce^ 

 horrible melange," and certainly a composition of fish offal, salt, 

 wine, and pot herbs, exposed to putrify in the sun, does not sound 

 nice to our ideas ; nor can we understand how garum came to be 

 mingled in all sauces, simple or compound, and to be applied 

 alike to the seasonings of fish, flesh, fowl, and vegetable. 



I have already pointed out that the Roman cookery was destined 

 for stomachs weakened by luxury. It further violated one great 

 gastronomical law. The savours of their rich sauces preponderated 

 over the savour of the viands. The Roman cooks were proud of 

 this. Apicius, after giving a recipe for cooking and saucing a fish, 

 proudly says. Nemo agnoscet quid manducet. As Mr. Coote says : 

 "This is itself a great divergence from the principles of true taste. 

 We know that an object should be relieved by its sauce, not 

 dominated and overpowered. And in the case of the Romans 

 this faulty canon led to a further and greater error. The same 

 sauces were poured over roast, boiled, broiled, and baked, without 

 choice or discrimination." 



I am sorry to say that the Americans are falling into this error; 

 even in the best American hotels, whatever dish you are served 

 with, the sauce is the same. People in Carlisle sometimes fall 

 into the first error, and I have known a fresh run Eden salmon 

 served up with lobster sauce, to its utter overpowering, instead of 

 parsley, or, better still, fennel. 



The Apician cookery sinned further against the canons of good 

 taste, and that was in the excessive pounding and mincing to which 

 it subjected its viands. Seneca in one of his epistles says : 

 '* Expecto jam ut manducata ponantur." 



To sum up the differences between the Roman cookery and that 

 of the present day : they used wine in sauces, where we use meat gravy. 

 This a startling discrepancy, but it was done in English cookery in 

 mediaeval times. They used oil, where we use butter ; they used 

 honey — clarified honey, where we use sugar. We go in for joints 

 — beef and mutton, more than they did ; we use salt almost 

 universally, though not so universally as they used garum ; we use 



