4 ANIMAL FOOD EESOUECES OF DIFFEKENT NATIONS. 



healthy nourishment, and it is these foods the repro- 

 duction of which has to be encouraged, for the supply 

 is at present insufficient, and hence the want is calcu- 

 lated to injure the health of the people, especially the 

 labouring classes, whose daily work demands a nutrition 

 more reparative. 



The diversity of substances which we find in the cata- 

 logue of articles of Food is as great as the variety with 

 which the art or the science of cookery prepares them ;. 

 the notions of the ancients on this most important sub- 

 ject are worthy of remark. Their taste regarding meat 

 was various. But they considered it, as we still do, the 

 most substantial food, hence it constituted the chief 

 nourishment of their athletes. Camels' and dromedaries 

 flesh was much esteemed, their heels more especially. 

 Donkey flesh was in high repute. Maecenas, according 

 to Pliny, delighted in it, and the wild ass brought from 

 Africa was compared to venison. In more modern times 

 we find Chancellor Dupret having asses fattened for his 

 table. 



The Eomans seem to have indulged in as great a 

 variety of Animal food as the epicures of the present 

 day. A passage from Macrobius, quoted in Soyer's " Pan- 

 thropheon " furnishes the following menu of a supper 

 given by the Pontiff Lentulus on the day of his recep- 

 tion*: — " The first course was composed of sea hedgehogs 

 (Echinus), raw oysters in abundance, all sorts of shell- 

 fish and asparagus. The second service comprised a fine 

 fatted pullet, a fresh dish of oysters and other shell-fish, 

 difierent kinds of dates, univalve shell-fish (as whelks, 

 conchs, etc.), more oysters, but of different kinds, sea. 

 nettles, beccaficoes, chines of wild boar, fowls covered 

 with a perfumed paste ; a second dish of shell-fish and 

 purples (? lobsters), a very costly kind of Crustacea. 

 The third and last course presented several hors (foetwre, 

 a wild boar's head, fish, a second set of hors d'oeuvre, 

 ducks, potted river fish, leverets, roast fowls, and capi- 

 tones (a large kind of eel) from the marshes of Ancona." 



An eminent French economist justly observes : — " A 



