Fes. 16. 1850. ] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
243 
with the first mouthful, I beg leave to submit a 
few supplementary words to the copious indications 
of your correspondents “ R. O.” and “ W.” 
Selden says : — 
“Tt was an excellent question of Lady Cotton, when 
Sir Robert Cotton was magnifying of a shoe, which 
was Moses’s or Noah’s, and wondering at the strange 
shape and fashion of it: * But, Mr. Cotton,’ says she, 
‘are you sure it is a shoe?’” 
Now, from the following passage in Manso’s 
Sparta, it would seem that a similar question 
might be put on the present occasion: Are you 
sure that it was broth? Speaking of the pheiditia, 
Manso says : — 
« Each person at table had as much barley-bread as 
he could eat; swine’s-flesh, or some other meat, to eat 
with it, with which the famous black-sauce * (whose 
composition, without any loss to culinary art, is evi- 
dently a mystery for us) was given round, and to close 
the meal, olives, figs, and cheese.” 
In a note he continues : — 
« Some imagined that the receipt for its composition 
was to be found in Plutarch (De Tuenda Sanitate, 
t. vi. p. 487.), but apparently it was only imagination. 
That Cwyds signified not broth, as it has been usually 
translated, but sauce, is apparent from the connection 
in which Athenzus used the word. ‘To judge from 
Hesychius, it appears to have borne the name of Baga 
among the Spartans. How little it pleased the Sicilian 
Dionysius is well known from Plutarch (Inst. Lacon. 
t. vy. 880.) and from others.” 
Sir Walter Trevelyan’s question is soon an- 
swered, for I presume the celebrity of Spartan 
Black Broth is chiefly owing to the anecdote of 
Dionysius related by Plutarch, in his very popular 
and amusing Laconic Apophthegms, which Stobzeus 
and Cicero evidently followed ; this, and what is to 
be gathered from Atheneus and Julius Pollux, 
with a few words in Hesychius and the Etymolo- 
gicon Magnum, is the whole amount of our in- 
formation. Writers since the revival of letters 
have mostly copied each other, from Ceelius Rho- 
diginus down to Gesner, who derives his conjecture 
from Turnebus, whose notion is derived from 
Julius Pollux,—and so we move in a circle. We 
sadly want a Greek Apicius, and then we might 
resolve the knotty question. I fear we must give 
up the notion of cuttle-fish stewed in their own 
ink, though some former travellers have not spoken 
so favourably of this Greek dish. Apicius, De 
Arte Coquinaria, among his fish-sauces has three 
Alexandrian receipts, one of which will give some 
notion of the incongruous materials admissible in 
the Greek kitchen of later times : — 
“JUS ALEXANDRINUM IN PISCE ASSO.” 
« Piper, cepam siccam, ligusticum, cuminum, origa- 
hum, apii semen, pruna damascena enucleata ; passum, 
liquamen, defrutuin, oleum, et coques.” 
* Manso's word is T'unke. 
This questio vexata it seems had not escaped the 
notice of German antiquaries. In Boettiger’s Kleine 
Schriften, vol. iii., Sillig has printed for the first 
time a Dissertation in answer to a question which 
might have graced your pages: “* Wherewith did 
the Ancients spoon” [their food]? which opens 
thus : — 
“ Though about the composition and preparation of 
Spartan Black Sauce we may have only so many 
doubts, yet still it remains certain that it was a jus — 
boiled flesh prepared with pig’s blood, salt, and vinegar, 
a brodo ; and, when it was to a certain degree thickened 
by boiling, though not like a Polenta or other dough- 
like mass (maza off), eaten with the fingers. Here, 
then, arises a gastronomic question, of importance in 
archzology ; what table furniture or implements did 
the Spartans make use of to carry this sauce to’ their 
mouths? A spoon, or some substitute for a spoon, 
must have been at hand in order to be able to enjoy 
this Schwarzsauer.” 
It is certain at least that spoons and forks were 
unknown to the Spartans, and some have conjec- 
tured that a shell, and even an egg-shell, may 
have served the purpose. Those who are desirous 
of knowing more about the Table-Supellectile of 
the ancients, may consult Casaubon’s Notes on 
Atheneus, iv. 13. p. 241.; “ Barufaldo de Armis 
convivialibus,” in Sallengre’s Thesaurus, iil. 741. ; 
or Boettiger’s Dissertation above referred to. How 
little ground the passage in Plutarch, De Sanitate 
Tuenda, afforded for the composition, will appear 
from the passage, which I subjoin, having found 
some difficulty in referring to it : 
Of Adkwves dos kal uAas ddvTes TH mayelpy, TH AoTa 
KeAevovow ev Te iepeipontew. 
This only expresses the simplicity of Spartan cook- 
ery in general. 
To revert to the original question propounded, 
however, I think we must come to the conclusion 
that coffee formed no part of the peras Sa ea a 
A HINT TO INTENDING EDITORS. 
Allow me to suggest, as an addition to the 
sphere of usefulness of the “ Norges anp QuERIzs,” 
that persons preparing new editions of old writers 
should give an early intimation of the work on 
which they are engaged to the public, through 
your paper. Very many miscellaneous readers 
are in the habit of making notes in the margins of 
their books, without any intention of using them 
themselves for publication, and would be glad to 
give the benefit of them to any body to whom 
they would be welcome; but as matters are now 
arranged, one has no opportunity of hearing of an 
intended new edition until it is advertised as being 
in the press, when it is probably too late to send 
notes or suggestions ; and one is also deterred 
from communicating with the editor from doubts 
