The Forme of Cury | Page 4

to be rejected, because they may be
displeasing to some. Plutarch testifies, that the ancients disliked pepper
and the sour juice of lemons, insomuch that for a long time they only
used these in their wardrobes for the sake of their agreeable scent, and
yet they are the most wholesome of all fruits. The natives of the West
Indies were no less averse to _salt_; and who would believe that hops
should ever have a place in our common beverage [57], and that we
should ever think of qualifying the sweetness of malt, through good
housewifry, by mixing with it a substance so egregiously bitter? Most
of the American fruits are exceedingly odoriferous, and therefore are
very disgusting at first to us _Europeans_: on the contrary, our fruits
appear insipid to them, for want of odour. There are a thousand
instances of things, would we recollect them all, which though
disagreeable to taste are commonly assumed into our viands; indeed,
custom alone reconciles and adopts sauces which are even nauseous to
the palate. Latinus Latinius therefore very rashly and absurdly blames
_Apicius_, on account of certain preparations which to him, forsooth,
were disrelishing.' [58] In short it is a known maxim, that _de gustibus
non est disputandum_;
And so Horace to the same purpose:
'Tres mihi convivæ prope dissentire videntur, Poscentes vario multum
diversa palato. Quid dem? quid non dem? renuis tu quod jubet alter.
Quod petis, id sane est invisum acidumque duobus.' Hor. II. Epist. ii.
And our Roll sufficiently verifies the old observation of
Martial--ingeniosa gula est.
[Addenda: after _ingeniosa gula est_, add, 'The Italians now eat many
things which we think perfect carrion. _Ray_, Trav. p. 362. 406. The
French eat frogs and snails. The Tartars feast on horse-flesh, the
Chinese on dogs, and meer Savages eat every thing. _Goldsmith_, Hist.
of the Earth, &c. II. p. 347, 348. 395. III. p. 297. IV. p. 112. 121, &c.']
Our Cooks again had great regard to the eye, as well as the taste, in
their compositions; flourishing and strewing are not only common, but
even leaves of trees gilded, or silvered, are used for ornamenting
messes, see No. 175 [59]. As to colours, which perhaps would chiefly
take place in suttleties, blood boiled and fried (which seems to be
something singular) was used for dying black, 13. 141. saffron for

yellow, and sanders for red [60]. Alkenet is also used for colouring [61],
and mulberries [62]; amydon makes white, 68; and turnesole [63]
pownas there, but what this colour is the Editor professes not to know,
unless it be intended for another kind of yellow, and we should read
_jownas_, for _jaulnas_, orange-tawney. It was for the purpose of
gratifying the sight that sotiltees were introduced at the more solemn
feasts. Rabelais has comfits of an hundred colours.
Cury, as was remarked above, was ever reckoned a branch of the Art
Medical; and here I add, that the verb curare signifies equally to dress
victuals [64], as to cure a distemper; that every body has heard of
_Doctor Diet, kitchen physick_, &c. while a numerous band of medical
authors have written _de cibis et alimentis_, and have always classed
diet among the _non-naturals_; so they call them, but with what
propriety they best know. Hence Junius '[Greek: Diaita] Græcis est
victus, ac speciatim certa victus ratio, qualis a Medicis ad tuendam
valetudinem præscribitur [65].' Our Cooks expressly tell us, in their
proem, that their work was compiled 'by assent and avysement of
maisters of phisik and of philosophie that dwelliid in his [the King's]
court' where physik is used in the sense of medecine,
physicus being applied to persons prosessing the Art of Healing long
before the 14th century [66], as implying such knowledge and skill in
all kinds of natural substances, constituting the _materia medica_, as
was necessiary for them in practice. At the end of the Editor's MS. is
written this rhyme,
Explicit coquina que est optima medicina [67].
There is much relative to eatables in the _Schola Salernitana_; and we
find it ordered, that a physcian should over-see the young prince's
wet-nurse at every meal, to inspect her meat and drink [68].
But after all the avysement of physicians and philosophers, our
processes do not appear by any means to be well calculated for the
benefit of recipients, but rather inimical to them. Many of them are so
highly seasoned, are such strange and heterogeneous compositions,
meer olios and gallimawfreys, that they seem removed as far as
possible from the intention of contributing to health; indeed the messes

are so redundant and complex, that in regard to herbs, in No. 6, no less
than ten are used, where we should now be content with two or three:
and so the sallad, No. 76, consists of no less