COOKERY OF THE PIKE AND PERCH 263 



salmon, was in special honour, for with both one 

 could cut and come again. The inland monasteries, 

 with their great establishments and free hospitality, 

 depended on their meres and fishponds as much 

 as on their fields and forests. But a fish diet being 

 somewhat monotonous when prolonged for weeks at 

 a time, skilled cooks, who had to cater for dainty 

 palates, exhausted their ingenuity on sauces and the 

 fashions of dressing and serving. It was in the 

 wealthy convents that the lamps of cookery, like the 

 lamps of letters, were kept alight through the dark 

 ages, and many of the chefs in the castles of the more 

 luxurious nobles were convent-bred or convent-taught. 

 But in semi-barbarous times, and on solemn festal 

 occasions, state was considered rather than ' good- 

 ness,' and size was in itselt a recommendation. In 

 the ' Noble Boke off Cookery/ edited by Mrs. Napier 

 from the Holkham manuscripts, we find the pike the 

 pik, as it was spelt then, with an economy of letters 

 figuring conspicuously at the great coronation 

 banquets, when tough old peacocks were served in 

 their gorgeous plumage. At the grand installation 

 feast, when George Nevil, brother of the Kingmaker, 

 was consecrated to the see of York, no fewer than 

 six hundred ' pik ' were displayed on his tables. 

 Something of a similar principle still prevails. In the 



