If this was a dainty repast, however, Rome was not always so dainty for the wealthy gour "mands were not satisfied with eating well. They wanted to gluttonize, to eat of everything im moderately until they found it impossible to eat any more, when, by resorting to the ever-con venient feather, they were able to return to the feast and stuff themselves once more to reple tion. On such occasions the more distinguished the company, the earlier began the banquet and the later it lasted.
Nor did the Roman table ever go dry for the want of rare and choice wines. In Greece the juice of the grape wa.s ahnost invariably mixed with water, but Rome wanted no dilu tion of its revelling. Wildly extravagant and prodigal in everything, the Romans made no exception in the case of their drink, The wines that they used were preserved in jars or bot tles of WI- ced clay, and, as they were prized in proportion to their age, each receptacle bore a label on which it was distinctly stated in what consulship the beverage had been made. Many of these wines carne from Italy, the Campania being considered the best, but the wines of Greece were also there, side by side with all the drinks that time or money could gather from every part of the world.
The fact that civilization and cookery go hand in hand was never more strikingly illus trated than in the case of the ancient Britons, for, in the earlier days of their history their cuisine was marked by all the limitations of primitive simplicity. The Roman conquest, however, appears to have applied to the kitchens of the country as thoroughly as to the govern ment, for as the Roman conquerors were un willing to eat the crude culinary preparations of the native Briton they proceeded to teach the conquered how to cook for them. Then, too, at about the same time, the appearance of the German immigrants, with their own more wholesome cookery, was not without its good effect, and the transformation in Mme. Bntan nica's methods of coolcing may be said to have been almost as wise as it was radical.
The centuries which succeeded the fall of the Roman empire, and which comprised the greater part of the Middle Ages, was as dark a period for gastronomy as it was for all other arts. For a thne it seemed as if man had forgotten how to cook; as if he had lost his taste for the well-seasoned dishes which' had once been his chief delight, and that he had no desire to get it back again. Even Charlemagne, who, according to his Capitularies, took a warm personal interest in his table, was a novice both in the art of cooking and in that of service, for his banquets were barbaric affairs composed of huge roasts of meat dripping from the spit, and other crude features that would have put the ancient Roman gourmets to the blush. Per sonally, too, the great Emperor of the West was extremely abstemious and seldom, even at dinner, permitted himself to be served with more than four dishes.
The reading of the description of prince John's banquet in Sir Walter Scott's 'Ivanhoe) certainly gives the impression that the Nor mans, who appeared two or. three centuries later, were justified in priding themselves upon their superior taste and discrimination in mat ters of eating, but even such flashes of light were but faint illuminations for so black a night for art as that of the dark ages.
Highly as the cuisine is esteemed to-day; idolized as it was before the fall of Rome and Greece called a halt upon civilization and placed a check upon progress, it seems somewhat strange that there was no one chronicler of affairs bright enough to detect the fact that the revival in the lost art of cookery had com menced. As the historians of those days dealt in facts, not in manners, however, it is impos sible to state at just what period gastronomy began to be cultivated again, although, of course, it is well Icnown that its revival, like the revival in learning, was brought about in Italy. According to the best authorities, how ever, it was the merchant-princes of Florence who made the first attempt to improve the cui sine of the country and their experiments met with such success that their efforts were greeted with the most heartfelt encouragement by trav elers from foreign countries who were invited to sit at their tables. It was to the Italian cuisine, in fact, that the French owed their in structions in the gastronomic art, for when Catherine de Medicis returned to Paris she carried several professors of the new cookery in her train. The effect of their importation was almost immediately noticeable. They im proved the they expounded a new theory of taste; they expatiated upon the value of sauces, but, and this was more to the pur pose so far as the progress of civilization was concerned, they introduced the art of making ices. Even the 16th century Montaigne, whose life was certainly cast in pleasant places, among the people who composed the best French so ciety, was unable to appreciate the estimate that the Italian cooks of that day had so prop erly put upon their vocation. In one of his contemporaneous, if not somewhat reminiscent studies, he says: I have seen amongst us one of those artists who had been in the service of Cardinal Caraffa. He discoursed to me of this science de gueule with a gravity and a magisterial air, as if he were speaking of some weighty point of theology. He expounded to me a difference of appetites: that which one has fasting; that which one has after the second or third course; the methods now of satisfying and then of exciting and piquing it the police of sauces, first in general, and next in particularising the qualities of the ingredients and their effects; the differences of salads according to their seasons; that which should be warmed, that which should be served cold, with the mode of adorning and embellishing them to make them pleasant to the view. He then entered on the order of the service, full of elevated and important considerations — " Nec minimo sane discrimine refert Quo gestu lepores et quo gallina secetur." And all this expressed in rich and magnificent terms, in those very terms. indeed, which one employs in treating of the government of an empire.— I well remember my man.