212 FISH MANIA— VITELLIUS—APICIUS— COOKS 



a poem on the oyster ! To be more accurate, he wrote two, ^ 

 and lengthy ones to boot ! 



The Emperor Domitian (Juvenal, IV.) ordered a special 

 sitting of the Senate to deliberate and advise on a matter of 

 such grave State importance as the best method of cooking 

 a turbot. 



Greek and Roman writers frequently poke fun at the 

 gourmets who asserted that they could instantly tell from the 

 flavour whence the fish came : from what sea, and what part 

 of that sea, from what river, and even from which side of that 

 river. 2 



Either these ancient connoisseurs were blessed with a more 

 exquisite and developed sense of taste than we moderns, or 

 the whole pose was an intolerable affectation, for " they 

 drenched their subtly-conceived dishes with garum, alec, and 

 other sauces, which were so strong and composite that it 

 would have been hardly possible to distinguish a fresh fish 

 from a putrid cat — except by the bones ! " 3 



This assertion is none too strong, if the receipts for these 

 sauces be duly pondered. Mention of garum, which gets its 

 name from being made originally from the salted blood and 

 entrails of a fish called garon or garos by the Greeks, is in 

 classical writers very general : we find it even in vEschylus 

 and Sophocles. 4 



^ Ausonius, Episf., 5 and 15. But, after all, our own Keats, addressing his 

 favourite Moon, did not hesitate to write : 



" thou art a relief 

 To the poor patient oyster ! " 



{Endymion, III. 66 f.) 



* Pliny, IX. 79: "Is (Sergius Orata) primus . . . adiudicavit quando 

 eadem acjuatilium genera ahubi atque aliubi meliora, siciit lupi pisces in 

 Tiberi amne inter duos pontes . . . et alia genera similiter, ve culivarum 

 censttra peragaiur." See Horace, Sat., II. 2, 31 ii. Also Columella, R.R., Vll 1 . 

 16, 4 : " Fastidire docuit fiuvialem lupum, nisi qiiem Tiberis adverso torrente 

 defatigasset " ; and also Juvenal IV. 139 If. : 



"Nulli maior fuit usus edendi 

 Tempestate mea : Circeis nata forent an 

 Lucrinum ad saxum Rutupinove edita fundo 

 Ostrea, callebat primo deprendere morsu, 

 Et semel aspccti litus dicebat echini." 

 More of the same sort is to be read in Macrob., Sat., III. 16, 16-18. 

 ^ Robinson, op. cit., p. 45. 



* iEsch., Proteus frag., 211; Nauck^, and Soph., Triptolemos, frag. 606 

 Jebb, ap. Poll. 6. 65 and Athen., II. 75. 



